How the CIA and MI6 dug 1,476 feet under Berlin to tap Soviet cables, why the tunnel was found in 1956, and what the CIA’s own internal history left out.
Archives
VENONA: Breaking the Soviet Spy Cables, 1943–1980
How Army and NSA codebreakers read Soviet spy cables through duplicated one-time pads, and what VENONA revealed about Fuchs, the Rosenbergs and Maclean.
Archives
CORONA: America’s First Spy Satellite Program, 1960–1972
Reference entry on CORONA, the first U.S. spy satellite program: early failures, the 1960 mid-air film catch, KH cameras, and its 1995 declassification.
Archives
Project AZORIAN: The CIA, the Glomar Explorer and K-129
Project AZORIAN, the CIA’s 1974 effort to raise Soviet submarine K-129 with the Hughes Glomar Explorer, as told in the agency’s own declassified history.
Archives
NSA’s Declassified History of the Gulf of Tonkin Incidents
NSA’s declassified Gulf of Tonkin history found no second attack on Aug. 4, 1964, and that most signals intelligence was left out of official reports.
Archives
Bay of Pigs, 1960–1961: The Declassified CIA Record
A reference guide to the Bay of Pigs through declassified CIA and White House records, from 1960 planning papers to the Inspector General’s 1961 survey.
Archives / Editors Pick
The CIA’s Own 693-Page Account of Its Abuses
The CIA’s 1973 “family jewels” file, declassified in 2007: its own account of spying on journalists, opening mail for two decades, and assassination plots.
Archives / Editors Pick
Sidney Gottlieb’s Own Account of MKULTRA, Declassified
Declassified 1975 Church Committee transcripts hold Sidney Gottlieb’s own account of MKULTRA, the Castro assassination plots, and Frank Olson’s death.
Archives
The Declassified Document That Finally Named Area 51
A 2013 declassification restored the CIA’s own redactions, the first U.S. document to confirm Area 51 by name and detail its U-2 and OXCART history.