Journalists and research scholars founded the National Security Archive in 1985 to support journalism, international research, and public access as well as to advocate for open government. It serves as an “indexer and publisher of former secrets.” The organization’s work has earned it national recognition, including a George Polk Special Award (1999), an Emmy Award (2005), a George Foster Peabody Award (1998). Given the relationship between US foreign intervention during the global cold war and the emergence of area studies, the Digital National Security Archive is an essential resource for students and scholars working in Asian, Latin America, and Middle Eastern Studies.
The National Security Archive is the largest non-profit solicitor of materials from the federal government via Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. The website also includes instructions on making FOIA requests. FOIA passed in 1966, was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on July 4, and went into effect one year later. It created a process for journalists, academics, and other researchers to request materials from the federal government. The act ensures that all government documents must be made available to the public with only limited exceptions (for example, military secrets and personal information). Initially, the law did not have its intended effect, with notable Supreme Court cases ruling in the government’s favor against release of information. However, reforms passed in 1974 (with the US House of Representatives overruling President Gerald Ford’s veto shortly after the Watergate scandal) strengthened the act.
The Digital National Security Archive is available as a subscription service (via ProQuest) that includes collections of original government documents related to US military, intelligence, and diplomatic affairs as well as human rights issues from 1945 to the present. As of 2022, it includes more than 875,000 pages from 140,000 documents. Subject area experts assemble each collection, which also include chronologies, glossaries, bibliographies, and scholarly context. Collections are arranged geographically (Asia, Latin America, Middle East) as well as topically (Cold War, Human Rights, Intelligence, Presidential Policy, Military, Nuclear).
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/digital-national-security-archive
Contributed by Jennifer Schaefer