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Raw Blame History

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Founding and Leadership

Scott Armstrong, formerly of the Washington Post, served as founding director from 1985 to 1989. The Archive credits him with the vision for what the organization became.⁴ Its list of founders also names Raymond Bonner of the New York Times, Congressman Jim Moody of Wisconsin, Ruth Chojnacki, who worked for Moody and ran the Central America Papers Project he started in 1984, Morton H. Halperin, who provided space for the papers at the American Civil Liberties Union Washington Office in 1984 and sponsored the Archive in 1985 through the Fund for Peace and the Center for National Security Studies, and Stephen R. Paschke, who set up the financial records in 1985 as chief financial officer of the Fund for Peace and is the Archive's vice president for finance.⁴ The list adds Jeffrey T. Richelson, John Prados and Stan Norris, who with Bonner and Armstrong formed an early 1980s discussion group on SI/TK-BYEMAN documents that shared documents and declassification requests.⁴

Board chairs were John Shattuck (1985 to 1989), Walter B. Slocombe (1989 to 1992), Joseph N. Onek (1989 to 1994), Russell Hemenway (1994 to 2014), Sheila S. Coronel (2014 to 2019) and Edgar N. James (2019 to 2025).⁴ Thomas S. Blanton has served as executive director since 1992 and is listed as president on the current governance page.⁴⁵ Malcolm Byrne served as deputy director and is listed as director of research.⁴⁶ Peter Kornbluh is director of the Cuba and Chile Documentation Projects.⁶

Board and Officers

The Archive's Form 990 for 2023 lists as directors Edgar N. James (chair), Nancy E. Soderberg (vice chair), Cliff Sloan (secretary), Nancy Kranich (treasurer), Michael Abramowitz, Sheila S. Coronel, Sajit Gandhi, Danielle R. Holley and Vivian Schiller, with Thomas S. Blanton as director and president, Malcolm M. Byrne as vice president for programs and Stephen R. Paschke as vice president for finance. The returns for 2021, 2022 and 2024 list the same slate. The reportable compensation shown for Blanton was $175,000 in each of those years and for Paschke $140,000.⁷

The governance page gives these biographical lines for the directors. Soderberg is described as a former U.S. Alternate Representative to the United Nations, former Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, former Staff Director of the National Security Council, former vice president of the International Crisis Group and chair of the Public Interest Declassification Board from January 2012. Sloan is described as a retired partner of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, Special Envoy for Guantanamo Closure at the State Department in 2013 and 2014 and general counsel of Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive from 2000 to 2008. Abramowitz is described as director of Voice of America News, former president of Freedom House, former director of the National Institute for Holocaust Education of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and former White House correspondent and national editor of the Washington Post. Gandhi is described as a senior professional staff member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and a former Presidential Management Fellow at the State Department. Schiller is described as executive director of Aspen Digital, former president and chief executive of National Public Radio, former head of news partnerships at Twitter, former chief digital officer of NBC News and former senior vice president of the New York Times Company. James is described as a partner of James & Hoffman and pro bono litigator for the Archive; Kranich as a former president of the American Library Association; Coronel as director of the Toni Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism at Columbia University; and Holley as president of Mount Holyoke College.⁵

The advisory board listed on the same page includes Anne Cahn, described as a former Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and Department of Defense staffer and author of Killing Detente; Thomas Susman, described as director of the American Bar Association Washington Office, former counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee and co-author of the 1974 Freedom of Information Act amendments; Philip Brenner, described as the lead plaintiff in the Archive's lawsuit for Cuban Missile Crisis documents; David Alan Rosenberg, a professor of maritime strategy at the National War College; John Dinges; Tina Rosenberg; Joan Hoff; Akira Iriye; Rosemary Chalk; Herbert N. Foerstel; Susan Brynteson; and Jack Siggins. The page lists in memoriam Russell Hemenway as chair of the Board of Directors from 1999 to 2014, John Steinbruner on the Board of Advisors from 1985 to 2015, Gen. William Y. Smith on the Board of Directors from 1999 to 2016 and Richard Steckel on the Board of Advisors from 1994 to 2015.⁵

Funders and Filings

The funders page lists the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Ford Foundation and its program-related investment division, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the J. Roderick MacArthur Foundation, the Democracy Fund, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and Fundación Ford in Santiago, Chile.⁸ The founding funders named in the Archive's 2025 anniversary booklet are Ruth Adams, the Arca Foundation, Anne Bartley, the Deer Creek Foundation, the Field Foundation, the Ford Foundation, Lance Lindblom, both MacArthur foundations, Stewart Mott, Aryeh Neier, the Norman Foundation, Gary Sick, Philip M. Stern and Margery Tabankin.⁴ The Carnegie Corporation published a collection of the Archive's declassified documents under the title "Carnegie Results: The National Security Archive," covering Area 51 and the Cuban Missile Crisis among other topics.¹

The MacArthur Foundation's grants database lists 20 grants to the Archive totaling $9,968,770. Eleven are made out to the Fund for Peace National Security Archive: $25,000 in 1985 "To provide seed money for planning and development"; $200,000 in 1986 "To establish this organization, a central repository for all documentation released under the Freedom of Information Act and the Mandatory Declassification Review procedures"; $200,000 in 1987; $200,000 in 1988; $500,000 in 1990; $50,000 in 1992 for the Cuba Documentation Project; $300,000 in 1993 for "Recovering the Secret History of Eastern Europe and Russia"; $543,770 in 1995; $330,000 in 1996; $150,000 in 1997; and $600,000 in 1998 for the Project on Openness and Archives in Latin America. Nine are made out to the National Security Archive Fund: $600,000 in 1999 "To establish a reserve fund"; $900,000 in 2000 for "greater transparency in U.S. foreign policy and intelligence operations and for special projects in Mexico and Cuba"; $200,000 in 2001; $1,000,000 in 2003 for general operations; $900,000 in 2010 for the International Human Rights Evidence Program; $1,500,000 in 2013 for international human rights and nuclear security; $620,000 in 2016 and $900,000 in 2018 for the Nuclear Risks Documentation Project; and $250,000 in 2025 for general operations.⁹

The Carnegie Corporation's Form 990-PF reports payments to the National Security Archive Fund of $546,000 in the fiscal year ended September 30, 2020, $404,000 in 2021, $555,000 and $200,000 in 2022, $395,000 in 2023, and $560,000 and $175,000 in 2024. The larger payments are described as for archival programs on U.S.-Russia relations, nuclear security and cooperative threat reduction, and the smaller as for a study on nuclear targeting, civilian casualties and the laws of war. The returns list further approved payments of $404,000 (2020 return), $395,000 (2022 return), and $390,000 and $125,000 (2024 return).¹⁰

The Ford Foundation's Form 990-PF for 2020 lists payments to the Archive of $250,000 to use freedom of information laws to access, analyze and publish evidence of grave human rights violations, $100,000 for the Colombia Truth Commission Documentation Project and $50,000 for a collaborative effort with Cuban historians; the return for 2021 lists $100,000 for the Colombia project and $75,000 for the Cuba effort. The foundation's grants database lists a $100,000 grant approved in May 2021 for the Colombia project, and a $63,000 grant approved in July 2013 for the IFTI Watch and freedominfo.org project on the openness practices of global institutions that make the rules for finance, trade and economic development.¹¹ The Foundation to Promote Open Society reported grants of $185,000 in 2020 and $300,000 in 2021 for general support.¹² The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation reported payments of $250,000 and $50,000 in 2021 and $130,000 in 2022 for the creation of a Cyber Vault and its website.¹³ The Bernard and Anne Spitzer Charitable Trust reported general-purpose payments of $300,000 in 2021, $300,000 in 2022, $650,000 in 2023 and $350,000 in 2024.¹⁴

Form 990 filings for the National Security Archive Fund, Inc. (employer identification number 22-2127884) show total revenue for tax years 2011 through 2023 ranging from $1,483,438 in 2014 to $4,482,160 in 2013, and contributions ranging from $834,300 in 2012 to $3,955,097 in 2013. For 2023 the filing reports total revenue of $2,400,353, functional expenses of $2,638,330 and year-end assets of $2,675,321. For 2024 it reports revenue of $1,807,989, contributions of $1,272,164, expenses of $2,531,878, year-end assets of $2,147,279 and 22 employees.²¹⁵

Fee Status Under the Freedom of Information Act

In 1988 the Archive challenged the Department of Defense over its fee category. The District Court found the dispute ripe but granted the Defense Department summary judgment.¹⁶ On appeal, the D.C. Circuit held that the Archive "is not an educational institution" and that "it is a representative of the news media by reason of its publication activities," so that it could be charged only duplication costs for requests furthering that function.¹⁷

The Central Intelligence Agency reached different conclusions. In September 2004 it placed the National Security Archive Fund in the news media fee category. In October 2004 it withheld the 2004 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq in full under Exemptions 1 and 3, and on September 30, 2005 the District Court granted the CIA summary judgment and dismissed the case.¹⁸ In 2005 the CIA had also placed the Archive itself in its "all other" category, and the Archive sued in 2006. The CIA then acknowledged it had acted in error and granted news media status, which mooted the claims about past requests. The court dismissed the rest for lack of jurisdiction.¹⁹ In November 2008 the court granted the Archive's motion for reconsideration.²⁰

Armstrong v. Executive Office of the President

On January 19, 1989, the final day of the Ronald Reagan presidency, the Archive filed several Freedom of Information Act requests for all material stored on the Executive Office of the President and National Security Council electronic communications systems from their installation in the mid-1980s. The same day the plaintiffs filed suit for a declaration that the electronic documents were federal and presidential records and an injunction against their destruction. The plaintiffs were Scott Armstrong, Gary M. Stern, Eddie Becker, the Archive, the Center for National Security Studies, the American Historical Association and the American Library Association. The defendants included the White House Communications Agency and Acting Archivist of the United States Trudy Peterson.²¹ The Executive Office of the President had used the PROFS electronic mail system, which ceased operations in 1992. The National Security Council kept its own PROFS system and a similar system called All-In-One.²¹

In 1991 the D.C. Circuit found that the plaintiffs had standing, that the President is not an agency under the Administrative Procedure Act, and that the Presidential Records Act impliedly precluded judicial review of the President's record decisions, while the agency guidelines remained reviewable.²² On January 6, 1993, the District Court ruled that the electronic communications on these systems were federal records within the Federal Records Act, found the agencies' practices arbitrary and capricious, and enjoined the Archivist to preserve electronic federal records, including backup tapes. On May 21, 1993, it held the defendants in civil contempt over the preservation orders. The rulings are reported at 810 F. Supp. 335 and 821 F. Supp. 761.²¹ The D.C. Circuit's opinion of August 13, 1993 found that the electronic communications systems contain preservable records.²¹

A February 14, 1995 memorandum opinion by Judge Charles R. Richey recounted the case as filed in 1989 at the close of the Reagan administration.²³ On August 29, 1995, after a July 28, 1995 opinion ordering in camera review of four of seventeen documents, the court granted summary judgment to the government on 88 White House Intelligence Summaries that had been reprocessed.²⁴ On August 2, 1996, the D.C. Circuit reversed the district court on the question of whether the National Security Council is an agency under the FOIA. The panel held that the NSC is not an agency because it operates close to the President, who chairs it, and does not exercise substantial independent authority.²⁵

The Archive states that it has filed more than 75 Freedom of Information lawsuits against the U.S. government, 30 of them successful, and that its White House e-mail lawsuits against the Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations preserved 220 million electronic records, 22 million of them recovered from the George W. Bush White House when the Obama administration settled the case in 2009.²⁶

In 2019 the Archive joined Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington in a suit over White House use of message-deleting applications under the Presidential Records Act. The district court held that nothing in the Act "obligates the President to perform any duty with the requisite level of specificity that mandamus requires," and the D.C. Circuit affirmed the dismissal on May 28, 2019.²⁷

Bay of Pigs and the Official History

The Archive's Cuba project obtained the declassification of the CIA's 1961 inspector general's report on the Bay of Pigs, written by Lyman Kirkpatrick as the "Inspector General's Survey of the Cuban Operation." The Archive's press release of February 22, 1998 announced that the 150-page report had been made public that day after a two-year Freedom of Information Act effort, with Kornbluh as the requester. The release stated that CIA director John McCone had ordered all but one copy destroyed and that the original, with rebuttals by the officials in charge of the invasion, remained in a safe in the director's office. It quoted an attached memorandum by Charles P. Cabell, then deputy director: "In unfriendly hands, it can become a weapon unjustifiably to attack the entire mission, organization, and functioning of the Agency."³ The report was published that year as Bay of Pigs Declassified, edited by Peter Kornbluh.²⁸ On June 4, 1998 the CIA, under Director George Tenet, announced the transfer to the National Archives and Records Administration of about 3,200 pages of Bay of Pigs records, and stated that the Inspector General's assessment and the Directorate of Plans' response had been released in February 1998 to the Archive in response to a FOIA request.²⁹

The CIA released only Volume III of the five-volume official history by its staff historian Jack B. Pfeiffer that year, under the Kennedy Assassination Records Act. The volume was found in the National Archives in 2005 by the Villanova political scientist David Barrett and posted on his university's website. Pfeiffer had himself sued in 1987 for Volume V, and the court accepted the CIA's position that the volume could not be declassified.³⁰

The Archive requested Volumes I, II, IV and V in August 2005. It filed suit on April 14, 2011, and on July 25, 2011, the CIA released Volumes I, II and IV. In May 2012 the District Court granted the CIA summary judgment on Volume V, a draft, under the deliberative process privilege of Exemption 5.³¹ The D.C. Circuit affirmed on May 20, 2014, in an opinion by Judge Kavanaugh. The panel held that a draft of an agency's official history is pre-decisional and deliberative and that the draft of Volume V "is exempt in its entirety under Exemption 5."³²

The Perroots Memorandum

In January 1989, as Leonard Perroots, a lieutenant general of the U.S. Air Force, was retiring, he wrote an "End of Tour Report Addendum." The D.C. Circuit's opinion describes the background in these words: in 1983, "during the Cold War, Leonard H. Perroots, then an Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence in the United States Air Forces in Europe, allegedly recommended a course of action to his Commander in response to an elevated alert status demonstrated by the military forces of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ('Soviet Union'), which helped avert a nuclear crisis." In the addendum he wrote to "detail the 'chain of events' from 1983 to help the U.S. Intelligence Community learn lessons 'as relates to our [Indications and Warning] capability and exercise planning.'"³³

The Archive describes the 1983 events as the Soviet reaction to Able Archer 83, a NATO command post exercise held in November 1983, and states that Perroots served as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency from 1985 to 1989. According to the Archive, the addendum reported that signals intelligence showed the Soviet 4th Air Army issuing an alert that "included preparations for immediate use of nuclear weapons," that it warned of an "ominous picture," and that it warned the exercise could have led to "a potentially disastrous situation." The Archive states that the addendum set off an all-source investigation by the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, whose report was declassified in 2015 after a 12-year appeals effort by the Archive through an interagency panel.³⁴

The State Department published a transcribed version of the memorandum in February 2021 in Foreign Relations of the United States, 1981-1988, Volume IV, Soviet Union, January 1983 to March 1985. The volume thanked CIA staff "for arranging full access to CIA records" and stated that its declassification review "began in 2015 and was completed in 2019." Six months later the Archive filed a FOIA request with the CIA for the memorandum, and in October 2021 it sued. In April 2022 the CIA provided Perroots' cover letter and a completely redacted copy of the memorandum, citing Exemptions 1 and 3. On October 4, 2022 Judge James E. Boasberg granted the CIA summary judgment, finding that the CIA was not properly involved in the disclosure to the Foreign Relations volume and so had not waived the exemptions, and on November 16, 2022 the court denied the Archive's motion to amend the judgment. The Archive was represented pro bono by Beveridge & Diamond.³³³⁴

The D.C. Circuit affirmed on June 7, 2024 in an opinion for the court by Circuit Judge Childs, joined by Circuit Judge Rao and Senior Circuit Judge Ginsburg. The court stated that the Archive had conceded that the response was justified under Exemptions 1 and 3 and held that the CIA had not waived them by the publication in the Foreign Relations volume.³³ According to the Archive's account of November 14, 2025, which cites reporting by the Washington Post, a State Department official confirmed that the Department had republished the volume without a 15-page appendix on Able Archer 83 that contained the memorandum, a CIA response to it and a 1988 memorandum on Oleg Gordievsky's reporting. The official told the Post that the Department removed the documents because the Archive's case "was litigated in District Court and the Court of Appeals and [b]oth courts upheld withholding the information," and that "[t]he Department was not required to provide public notice." The Archive states that the Court of Appeals "said nothing about removing the already published record" from the volume.³⁵

Records Requests Over the Years

Electronic Briefing Book No. 2, "The Contras, Cocaine, and U.S. Covert Operations," prints the handwritten notebooks of Oliver North that the Archive obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed in 1989. It includes North's entry for August 9, 1985, which summarizes a meeting with Robert Owen, his liaison with the contras.³⁶ The notebooks bear on the Iran-Contra Affair.

Electronic Briefing Book No. 123, "The Kissinger Telcons," was posted on May 26, 2004, five years after the Archive initiated legal action to compel the State Department and the National Archives to recover the transcripts of Henry A. Kissinger's telephone calls. On October 29, 1976, while still Secretary of State, Kissinger had arranged to move the telephone notes from the State Department to the New York estate of Nelson Rockefeller, and the Supreme Court held in 1980 that the Freedom of Information Act did not reach the transcripts.³⁷³⁸ The Archive's correspondence with the Archivist of the United States John W. Carlin began in January 1999. A complaint written by pro bono counsel Lee Rubin and Craig Isenberg of Mayer Brown was presented to the Archivist and the Secretary of State on January 25, 2001, and attorneys for the Archive wrote again to the State Department, the National Archives and the Justice Department on April 25, 2001. The State Department announced on August 8, 2001, that Kissinger had provided copies of the transcripts to the department, and a statement by spokesman Richard Boucher credited the Archive with prompting the recovery. The Archive's account states that the transcripts had been held at the Library of Congress under a 1976 deed of gift. On May 26, 2004 the National Archives released about 20,000 pages of the telcons, covering Kissinger's service from 1969 to August 1974.³⁸

On June 21, 2007 the Archive posted the CIA's "CIA Family Jewels," the compilation that Director James Schlesinger had ordered on May 9, 1973 and that William Colby assembled into 693 pages. The posting reports that CIA director Michael Hayden announced that day that the agency was declassifying the full file, which had been the subject of multiple Freedom of Information Act requests over the years and of which only a few dozen heavily censored pages had been declassified. Thomas Blanton was quoted: "This is the first voluntary CIA declassification of controversial material since George Tenet in 1998 reneged on the 1990s promises of greater openness at the Agency." Hayden also announced the declassification of some 11,000 pages of the CAESAR, POLO and ESAU papers and hundreds of pages on the A-12. The Archive separately obtained and posted a six-page summary prepared by Justice Department lawyers after a CIA briefing in December 1974 and the memorandum of conversation of the January 3, 1975 briefing of President Gerald R. Ford. On June 26, 2007 the 702-page collection was delivered to the Archive at about 11:30 a.m., fifteen years after the Archive filed its Freedom of Information Act request for the documents.³⁹

In 2001 the Archive posted a memorandum of March 13, 1962, from the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the Secretary of Defense, signed by Chairman Lyman Lemnitzer, under the subject "Justification for US Military Intervention in Cuba (TS)." It responds to a request from the Chief of Operations, Cuba Project, for "brief but precise description of pretexts which would provide justification for US military intervention in Cuba," and recommends forwarding the enclosed memorandum as a preliminary planning submission. The request for pretexts belongs to the planning record of Operation NORTHWOODS.⁴⁰

Its electronic briefing books have published the planning record of the 1964 coup in Brazil. No. 118, "Brazil Marks 40th Anniversary of Military Coup," was edited by Kornbluh in 2004, and No. 465, "Brazil Marks 50th Anniversary of Military Coup," was edited by James G. Hershberg and Kornbluh and posted on April 2, 2014.⁴¹ No. 118 includes the planning for tankers carrying petroleum and a naval task force to be positioned for intervention in the overthrow of Joao Goulart on April 1, 1964.⁴²

In 1998 the Archive's Electronic Briefing Book No. 8, "Chile and the United States: Declassified Documents Relating to the Military Coup, September 11, 1973," by Peter Kornbluh, appeared on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the coup in Chile.⁴³ Electronic Briefing Book No. 33, "New Information on the Murders of U.S. Citizens Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi by the Chilean Military," was published on June 30, 2000, under Kornbluh as project director.⁴⁴

In November 2023 the Archive posted documents on the confessions of Michael Townley, an agent of DINA, including a letter in which Townley wrote in March 1978: "I accuse the government of Chile of my death." Townley was turned over to the FBI on April 8, 1978.⁴⁵ In October 2024 it published documents on the assassination of General Carlos Prats and Sofía Cuthbert by a car bomb in Buenos Aires.⁴⁶ In 2025 the Archive's posting Chile in Their Hearts challenged the theory that Charles Horman was targeted because he "knew too much."⁴⁷ An editor's note added to the 2000 posting states that "new information has emerged casting doubt on the theory that the U.S. had a role in Charles Horman's death or that he was killed because he had stumbled across evidence of U.S. involvement in the Chilean coup."⁴⁴

In 2016 the Archive published documents on the editing of the Rockefeller Commission 1975 report by the Ford White House, including handwritten edits by Dick Cheney to the commission's draft and the removal, on White House orders, of the report's entire 86-page section on CIA plots to assassinate foreign leaders.⁴⁸ In October 2025 the Archive published the Top Secret transcripts of Sidney Gottlieb's testimony to the Church Committee, given in closed hearings held October 15 to 18, 1975, together with declassified CIA memoranda on Project MKUltra. The transcripts had been classified Top Secret at the time and were released through FOIA.⁴⁹

In 2012 the Archive published its collection on Jonathan Pollard, compiled by Richelson, which includes a 1987 CIA damage assessment. The assessment was initially heavily redacted and was later substantially restored after an Archive appeal to an interagency panel.⁵⁰ Electronic Briefing Book No. 434, "The Secret History of the U-2 and Area 51," edited by Richelson and posted on August 15, 2013, collects the CIA history of the U-2 and OXCART programs by Gregory Pedlow and Donald Welzenbach, with material on Area 51.⁵¹

Footnotes

National Security Archive, "About the National Security Archive." https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/about ↩︎
ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, National Security Archive Fund Inc., EIN 22-2127884, filings for tax years 2011 to 2023 (total revenue, contributions, functional expenses and assets). https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/api/v2/organizations/222127884.json and Form 990 for tax year 2023, https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/download-filing?path=IRS%2F222127884_202312_990_2025030723163126.pdf ↩︎
National Security Archive, press release "Scathing CIA Critique on Bay of Pigs Declassified," February 22, 1998 (contact Peter Kornbluh; the Archive described as "a project of the nonprofit Fund for Peace, Inc."). https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/news/19980222.htm ↩︎
National Security Archive, "The National Security Archive 1985 to 2025," anniversary booklet with founders, founding funders, board chairs and executive directors. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/sites/default/files/2025-12/Celebrating%20%2040%20YEARS%20%288c%29.pdf The governance page (note below) gives 1999 to 2014 for Russell Hemenway's term as chair of the Board of Directors. ↩︎
National Security Archive, "Governance" (Board of Directors, President, In Memoriam and Advisory Board, with the biographical lines quoted). https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/about/governance ↩︎
National Security Archive, "Staff and Fellows." Lists Malcolm Byrne as deputy director and research director, and Peter Kornbluh as director of the Cuba and Chile Documentation Projects. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/about/staff-fellows ↩︎
Internal Revenue Service, Form 990 of the National Security Archive Fund Inc., EIN 22-2127884, Part VII (officers, directors and key employees), tax years 2021 to 2024 (return IDs 202243189349308164, 202323189349304972, 202423209349305017 and 202513189349305171, from the IRS TEOS e-file XML batches 2022_TEOS_XML_02A, 2023_TEOS_XML_11A, 2024_TEOS_XML_11A and 2025_TEOS_XML_11D). https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2024/2024_TEOS_XML_11A.zip ↩︎
National Security Archive, "Funders and Supporters." https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/about/funders-supporters ↩︎
John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, grants database, grantee pages "Fund for Peace National Security Archive" (11 grants, 1985 to 1998) and "National Security Archive Fund" (9 grants, 1999 to 2025), grant amounts, years and purposes as listed. https://www.macfound.org/grantee/fund-for-peace-national-security-archive-683/ and https://www.macfound.org/grantee/national-security-archive-fund-29961/ ↩︎
Internal Revenue Service, Form 990-PF of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, EIN 13-1628151, Part XV (grants and contributions paid during the year and approved for future payment), fiscal years ended September 30, 2020 to 2024 (returns 202131949349100773, 202241899349100304, 202342269349100709, 202442259349101009 and 202531929349101203). https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2025/2025_TEOS_XML_07A.zip ↩︎
Internal Revenue Service, Form 990-PF of the Ford Foundation, EIN 13-1684331, Part XV, calendar years 2020 and 2021 (returns 202123199349107292 and 202203199349101880; https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2021/2021_TEOS_XML_01A.zip and https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2022/2022_TEOS_XML_02A.zip); Ford Foundation, grants database entries 120611 (IFTI Watch/freedominfo.org Project, $63,000, July 2013) and 140176 (Colombia Truth Commission Documentation Project, $100,000, May 2021). https://www.fordfoundation.org/work/our-grants/awarded-grants/grants-database/national-security-archive-fund-120611/ and https://www.fordfoundation.org/work/our-grants/awarded-grants/grants-database/national-security-archive-fund-140176/ ↩︎
Internal Revenue Service, Form 990-PF of the Foundation to Promote Open Society, EIN 26-3753801, Part XV, calendar years 2020 and 2021 (returns 202113519349100511 and 202213209349101601). https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2021/2021_TEOS_XML_01A.zip and https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2022/2022_TEOS_XML_02A.zip ↩︎
Internal Revenue Service, Form 990-PF of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, EIN 94-1655673, Part XV, calendar years 2021 and 2022 (returns 202233189349104163 and 202343179349104459). https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2022/2022_TEOS_XML_02A.zip and https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2023/2023_TEOS_XML_11A.zip ↩︎
Internal Revenue Service, Form 990-PF of the Bernard and Anne Spitzer Charitable Trust, EIN 13-7298842, Part XV, calendar years 2021 to 2024 (returns 202203189349106530, 202303189349102710, 202403189349101555 and 202513119349100441). https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2025/2025_TEOS_XML_11D.zip and the corresponding 2022, 2023 and 2024 batches ↩︎
Internal Revenue Service, Form 990 of the National Security Archive Fund Inc., tax year 2024 (return 202513189349305171): revenue, contributions, expenses, assets and employee count. https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2025/2025_TEOS_XML_11D.zip ↩︎
National Security Archive v. U.S. Department of Defense, 690 F. Supp. 17 (D.D.C. June 16, 1988). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2359370/national-security-archive-v-us-department-of-defense/ ↩︎
National Security Archive v. U.S. Department of Defense, 880 F.2d 1381 (D.C. Cir. 1989) (Ginsburg, J.). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/526958/national-security-archive-v-us-department-of-defense/ ↩︎
National Security Archive Fund, Inc. v. Central Intelligence Agency, 402 F. Supp. 2d 211 (D.D.C. Sept. 30, 2005), Civ. A. 04-1821 (RMC). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2426293/national-security-archive-fund-inc-v-central-intelligence-agency/ ↩︎
National Security Archive v. Central Intelligence Agency, 564 F. Supp. 2d 29 (D.D.C. July 14, 2008), Civil Action No. 06-1080 (GK). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1407597/national-security-archive-v-central-intelligence-agency/ ↩︎
National Security Archive v. Central Intelligence Agency, 584 F. Supp. 2d 144 (D.D.C. Nov. 4, 2008), Civil Action No. 06-1080 (GK), granting reconsideration. https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2356756/national-security-archive-v-central-intelligence-agency/ ↩︎
Armstrong v. Executive Office of the President, 1 F.3d 1274 (D.C. Cir. Aug. 13, 1993), Nos. 93-5002 et al., describing 810 F. Supp. 335 (D.D.C. 1993) and 821 F. Supp. 761 (D.D.C. 1993), and the January 19, 1989 requests and suit. https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/7025904/armstrong-v-executive-office-of-the-president/ ↩︎
Scott Armstrong v. George Bush, 924 F.2d 282 (D.C. Cir. Jan. 25, 1991), No. 90-5173. https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/555040/scott-armstrong-v-george-bush/ ↩︎
Armstrong v. Executive Office of the President, 877 F. Supp. 690 (D.D.C. Feb. 14, 1995), Civ. A. No. 89-142 (CRR). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1396736/armstrong-v-executive-office-of-the-president/ ↩︎
Armstrong v. Executive Office of the President, 897 F. Supp. 10 (D.D.C. Aug. 29, 1995), Civ. A. No. 89-0142 (CRR), on the July 28, 1995 opinion and the reprocessing of 88 White House Intelligence Summaries. https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1470396/armstrong-v-executive-office-of-the-president/ ↩︎
Armstrong v. Executive Office of the President, 90 F.3d 553 (D.C. Cir. Aug. 2, 1996), Nos. 95-5057 and 95-5061, reversed. https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/722513/scott-armstrong-appelleescross-appellants-v-executive-office-of/ ↩︎
National Security Archive, "Accomplishments." https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/about/accomplishments ↩︎
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington v. Trump, 924 F.3d 602 (D.C. Cir. May 28, 2019), No. 18-5150, affirming dismissal of the mandamus petition by CREW and the National Security Archive; district court quoted at 302 F. Supp. 3d 127. https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4623612/citizens-for-responsibility-ethics-in-wash-natl-sec-archive-v-trump/ ↩︎
National Security Archive, "Bay of Pigs: 40 Years After," listing Peter Kornbluh, Bay of Pigs Declassified: The Secret CIA Report on the Invasion of Cuba (New Press, 1998). https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/bayofpigs/ ↩︎
Central Intelligence Agency, press release "CIA Releases Documents Pertaining to Bay of Pigs," June 4, 1998. https://irp.fas.org/cia/news/pr060498.html ↩︎
National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book No. 341, "CIA Sued for 'Holding History Hostage' on Bay of Pigs Invasion." Covers the 1998 declassification of the Inspector General's Survey and of Volume III, the 1987 Pfeiffer suit, the 2005 discovery of Volume III by David Barrett, and the 2011 suit. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB341/index.htm ↩︎
National Security Archive v. Central Intelligence Agency, 859 F. Supp. 2d 65 (D.D.C. May 10, 2012), Civil Action No. 11-724 (GK). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2662444/national-security-archive-v-central-intelligence-agency/ ↩︎
National Security Archive v. Central Intelligence Agency, 752 F.3d 460 (D.C. Cir. May 20, 2014), No. 12-5201 (Kavanaugh, J.). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2675034/national-security-archive-v-central-intelligence-agency/ ↩︎
National Security Archive v. Central Intelligence Agency, No. 23-5017 (D.C. Cir. June 7, 2024) (Childs, J.; Rao, J.; Ginsburg, Sr. J.), affirming No. 1:21-cv-02857 (D.D.C. Oct. 4, 2022, 2022 WL 5062523) and the order of Nov. 16, 2022 (2022 WL 18493099). https://media.cadc.uscourts.gov/opinions/docs/2024/06/23-5017-2058350.pdf ↩︎
National Security Archive, "The Censored History of Able Archer 83," November 14, 2025, with the 2021 posting "Able Archer War Scare 'Potentially Disastrous'," February 17, 2021. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/able-archer-83/2025-11-14/censored-history-able-archer-83 and https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/aa83/2021-02-17/able-archer-war-scare-potentially-disastrous ↩︎
National Security Archive, "The Censored History of Able Archer 83," November 14, 2025, reporting the Washington Post's account and the State Department official's statements. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/able-archer-83/2025-11-14/censored-history-able-archer-83 ↩︎
National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book No. 2, "The Contras, Cocaine, and U.S. Covert Operations." https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB2/index.html ↩︎
Kissinger v. Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, 445 U.S. 136 (1980) (statement of facts on the October 29, 1976 removal of the telephone notes to the Rockefeller estate). https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/445/136 ↩︎
National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book No. 123, "The Kissinger Telcons," posted May 26, 2004. Document list includes the correspondence with Archivist John W. Carlin of January 15 and 21, 1999, the complaint presented January 25, 2001, the attorneys' letter of April 25, 2001, and State Department press release "Former Secretary of State Kissinger Provides Department with Documents," August 8, 2001. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB123/index.htm ↩︎
National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book No. 222, "The CIA's Family Jewels," posted June 21, 2007, updated June 26, 2007. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB222/index.htm ↩︎
Joint Chiefs of Staff, memorandum for the Secretary of Defense, "Justification for US Military Intervention in Cuba (TS)," March 13, 1962, signed by L. L. Lemnitzer, Chairman, with its enclosure, as posted by the National Security Archive in 2001. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/news/20010430/northwoods.pdf ↩︎
National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book No. 118, "Brazil Marks 40th Anniversary of Military Coup," edited by Peter Kornbluh, 2004, and Electronic Briefing Book No. 465, "Brazil Marks 50th Anniversary of Military Coup," edited by James G. Hershberg and Peter Kornbluh, posted April 2, 2014. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB118/ and https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB465/ ↩︎
National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book No. 118, introduction and planning documents on the 1964 coup. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB118/ ↩︎
National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book No. 8, "Chile and the United States: Declassified Documents Relating to the Military Coup, September 11, 1973," by Peter Kornbluh. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB8/nsaebb8.htm ↩︎
National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book No. 33, "New Information on the Murders of U.S. Citizens Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi by the Chilean Military," published June 30, 2000, with the editor's note cross-referencing "CHILE IN THEIR HEARTS, published May 7, 2025." https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB33/index.html ↩︎
National Security Archive, "The Pinochet Dictatorship Declassified: Confessions of a DINA Hit Man," November 22, 2023, Kornbluh, ed. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/chile/2023-11-22/pinochet-dictatorship-declassified-confessions-dina-hit-man ↩︎
National Security Archive, "The Pinochet Regime at 50: The Assassination of General Carlos Prats and Sofía Cuthbert," October 1, 2024. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/chile/2024-10-01/pinochet-regime-50-assassination-general-carlos-prats-and-sofia ↩︎
National Security Archive, "Chile in Their Hearts," May 7, 2025. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/chile/2025-05-07/chile-their-hearts ↩︎
National Security Archive, "Gerald Ford White House Altered Rockefeller Commission Report in 1975," Electronic Briefing Book No. 543, February 29, 2016, edited by John Prados and Arturo Jimenez-Bacardi. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/intelligence/2016-02-29/gerald-ford-white-house-altered-rockefeller-commission-report ↩︎
National Security Archive, "The Top Secret Testimony of CIA's MKULTRA Chief, 50 Years Later," October 30, 2025. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/dnsa-intelligence/2025-10-30/top-secret-testimony-cias-mkultra-chief-50-years-later ↩︎
National Security Archive, "Jonathan Pollard: Revisiting a Still Sensitive Case," Electronic Briefing Book No. 407, edited by Jeffrey T. Richelson, posted December 14, 2012. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/intelligence/2012-12-14/jonathan-pollard-spy-case-cias-1987-damage-assessment-declassified and https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB407/ ↩︎
National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book No. 434, "The Secret History of the U-2 and Area 51," edited by Jeffrey T. Richelson, posted August 15, 2013. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB434/ ↩︎

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