National Security Archive

12/13/2022

The Cuban Missile Crisis @ 60 POSTMORTEMS | National Security Archive

The Cuban Missile Crisis @ 60: POSTMORTEMS

- Khrushchev: “We were truly on the verge of war”
- Left in the dark about missile exchange, Pentagon study drew wrong conclusions
- Castro: “A great indignation”

In the immediate aftermath of the resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev met with the Czechoslovakian Communist Party leader, Antonin Novotny, and told him that “this time we really were on the verge of war,” according to minutes of their October 30, 1962, meeting posted today by the National Security Archive. “How should one assess the result of these six days that shook the world?” he pointedly asked, referring to the period between October 22, when President Kennedy announced the discovery of the missiles in Cuba, and October 28, when Khrushchev announced their withdrawal. “Who won?” he wondered.

https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/cuba-cuban-missile-crisis-russia-programs/2022-12-13/cuban-missile-crisis-60

Washington, D.C., December 13, 2022 - In the immediate aftermath of the resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev met with the Czechoslovakian Communist Party leader, Antonín Novotný, and told him that “this time we really were on the verge of war,” according to m...

12/09/2022

The U.S., Canada, and the Indian Nuclear Program, 1968-1974 | National Security Archive

The U.S., Canada, and the Indian Nuclear Program, 1968-1974

- Canada “Unsettled” by 1968 Discovery that India Might be Developing “Nuclear Device”
- India Insisted on Freedom to Use Nuclear Technology “For Any Peaceful Purposes” Including Explosives
- U.S.: India’s Peaceful Nuclear Explosion Plans “Tantamount” to Developing Weapons Capability

https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/nuclear-vault/2022-12-09/us-canada-and-indian-nuclear-program-1968-1974

Washington, D.C., December 9, 2022 – Canadian inspectors visiting the Canada-Indian Reactor (CIR) at Trombay during June 1968 were “unsettled” by data suggesting that India was heading toward the “development of a nuclear device,” according to a recently declassified U.S. State Department ...

12/06/2022

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Then apply by January 7, 2023 to be a Scoville Peace Fellow for the Fall 2023 semester. Scoville Fellows work with one of our participating NGOs in Washington, DC for six to nine months. Benefits include a salary, partial health insurance compensation, mentoring, and travel costs to DC to begin the fellowship. Please share this opportunity with prospective candidates.

11/30/2022

In Memoriam: John Prados, 1951-2022 | National Security Archive

In Memoriam: John Prados, 1951-2022

We are deeply saddened to announce the passing yesterday of National Security Archive senior fellow Dr. John Prados, a celebrated military and intelligence historian who ranks as one of the founders of the Archive.

A prodigious author and researcher, John leaves behind a whole bookshelf of highly informed, well documented volumes covering military and intelligence history from the battle of Leyte Gulf in World War II, through Dien Bien Phu, the entire Vietnam War, the invasion of Iraq, and so much more—including a before-its-time collection (on CDs) of presidential recordings from Roosevelt through Nixon. John also edited a number of well-received, major document compilations in our own Digital National Security Archive series, especially covering Vietnam and the history of the CIA. Among his 27 books, several of them translated into French, a highlight was his biography of William Colby, which argues that the CIA director’s accommodating approach to congressional investigations in the 1970s of Agency wrongdoing actually saved the CIA.

At frequent public events featuring notable former officials from the Vietnam era such as Robert McNamara, John could be counted on to calmly fend off temptations to color the historical record by presenting factual and analytical correctives that were utterly unassailable. Among his uncountable public presentations, he was a key scholar-participant in the historic Brown University-sponsored conference in Hanoi in 1997 where McNamara and a number of other former top U.S. and North Vietnamese decision-makers convened to hash out lessons from the American War.

Fellow historians have already begun registering the loss of one of their most prolific colleagues. James Hershberg, professor at The George Washington University, called him “one-of-a-kind” and an early influence dating back to the 1980s with the appearance of his seminal The Soviet Estimate. Fred Logevall of Harvard remembered him as “a historian’s historian” who “could appear intimidating at the lectern (and from the floor in the Q&A), but underneath was a warm man with a ready smile and a hearty laugh.”

https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/news/intelligence-vietnam/2022-11-30/memoriam-john-prados-1951-2022

Today, we remember John and his many contributions to transparency and national security scholarship in a special web posting to honor his life and work.

Washington, D.C., November 30, 2022 - We are deeply saddened to announce the passing yesterday of National Security Archive senior fellow Dr. John Prados, a celebrated military and intelligence historian who ranks as one of the founders of the Archive.

11/18/2022

New Declassifications on Nuclear Weapons Safety and Security | National Security Archive

New Declassifications on Nuclear Weapons Safety and Security

- Sandia Official: Risk of Nuclear Accident “Cannot be Zero”
- Dept. of Energy Restricted Distribution of Safety History; Reclassified as Secret
- Air Force Resented Implications of “Goofproof” Nukes

A top safety official at a U.S. nuclear weapons lab wrote that “the public must be encouraged to realize that risks [of an unintentional nuclear detonation] cannot be zero and cannot ever be really known,” according to a newly released 2001 history of U.S. efforts to mitigate the dangers of accidental or unsanctioned weapons detonations. Declassified in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by the National Security Archive, the history, written by former Sandia National Laboratories official William L. Stevens, describes years of efforts to remedy problems associated with the “sealed-pit” nuclear devices that were central to the U.S. stockpile and the possibility that “severe environmental insults” to such a weapon could induce a detonation.

Stevens’ report includes a wealth of information on systematic efforts by U.S. safety officials to minimize risks of accidents and mishaps, such as the danger of a “Deliberate Unauthorized Launch” by saboteurs. Over the years, Sandia’s safety experts detected and sought to remedy risks in a variety of weapons systems, from Polaris to Pershing II, but encountered resistance from officials in other agencies who were averse to rocking the boat or resented challenges to their authority.

Today’s posting also includes recently declassified post-mortems prepared by Sandia officials on major nuclear accidents. New FOIA releases by the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration include reports on the notorious January 1961 B-52 accident near Goldsboro, N.C., in which a nuclear bomb became dislodged and was one switch away from detonation, and the investigation of the December 1964 Minuteman incident, in which a nuclear warhead fell 70 feet to the bottom of a missile silo. Sandia’s experts were especially concerned that “improper removal” of the warhead could have “serious consequences,” likely including an accidental detonation.

https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/nuclear-vault/2022-11-18/new-declassifications-nuclear-weapons-safety-and-security

Washington, D.C., November 18, 2022 - A top safety official at a U.S. nuclear weapons lab wrote that “the public must be encouraged to realize that risks [of an unintentional nuclear detonation] cannot be zero and cannot ever be really known,” according to a newly released 2001 history of U.S. e...

11/03/2022

The Cuban Missile Crisis @ 60 Getting to Know the Cubans: Part Two | National Security Archive

The Cuban Missile Crisis @ 60 - Getting to Know the Cubans: Part 2

- Che Guevara asked Soviet bloc to buy 4 million tons of Cuban sugar
- Cubans described exact scenario of future Bay of Pigs invasion; asked for military training; wanted USSR to think of Cuba as its own territory
- Please do not tell Fidel: Raúl Castro and Che Guevara hid communist party affiliations from Cuban leader

As Cuban-Soviet ties grew stronger from late 1960 through early 1961, the Cubans repeatedly asked for military assistance and security guarantees from the Soviets and expressed growing concern about the threat of a U.S. intervention, according to Russian archival documents published today by the National Security Archive. The Cubans described to the Soviet leadership detailed scenarios for a Bay-of-Pigs style invasion only months before the Kennedy administration mounted its failed covert operation in April 1961.

The newly published records of conversations between Cuban communist leaders and Soviet Presidium members during the visits of Cuban trade delegations in October 1960 and March 1961 provide indications that the Cuban revolution was gradually tilting in a more radical Marxist-Leninist direction, with the imposition of press controls and a crackdown on the Catholic church. Communist party leader Aníbal Escalante told the Soviets that both Raúl Castro and Ernesto "Che" Guevara were among the party's leaders—information not shared with Fidel Castro, who was not yet a committed Marxist.

The documents also depict a Soviet leadership caught unawares by the Bay of Pigs invasion, after having advised their Cuban allies to exercise restraint and caution, and shed light on Khrushchev’s motivations, later in 1962, when he decided to deploy nuclear weapons to Cuba, sparking the Cuban Missile Crisis. After the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Soviets felt they had let their allies down, having repeatedly assured the Cubans that the U.S. would not invade, and became increasingly worried about the defense of Cuba.

Visit the National Security Archive website to read the documents featured in today's posting and other publications from our Cuban Missile Crisis @ 60 series.

https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs-cuba-cuban-missile-crisis/2022-11-03/cuban-missile-crisis-60-getting

Washington, D.C., November 3, 2022 – As Cuban-Soviet ties grew stronger from late 1960 through early 1961, the Cubans repeatedly asked for military assistance and security guarantees from the Soviets and expressed growing concern about the threat of a U.S. intervention, according to Russian archiv...

10/27/2022

The Cuban Missile Crisis @ 60 The Most Dangerous Day | National Security Archive

The Cuban Missile Crisis @ 60
The Most Dangerous Day

- Joint Chiefs: “The president has a feeling that time is running out”
- Cascade of human errors, nuclear-armed flashpoints, on October 27 nearly started World War III by accident
- JFK: “always some SOB who doesn’t get the word”

The most dangerous 24 hours of the Cuban Missile Crisis came on Saturday, October 27, 1962, 60 years ago today, as the U.S. moved closer to attacking Cuba and nuclear-armed flashpoints erupted over Siberia, at the quarantine line, and in Cuba itself—a rapid escalation that convinced both John Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev to strike the deal that would stop events from further spiraling out of control.

The surviving notes of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff meeting on that day, October 27, provide a six-and-a-half-hour cascade of crises where human error, miscalculation, reckless deployment of nuclear weapons, and testosterone ruled the day. The JCS notes from October and November 1962, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and published today by the National Security Archive, are all that survive after the Chiefs’ decision, in the 1970s, to destroy the tapes and transcripts from over two decades of JCS meetings.

The notes depict how top U.S. military officials reacted to the unfolding crisis in real time, including the shootdown of a U-2 spy plane over Cuba that afternoon—seen as a major escalation—while at the same time the JCS were unaware that U.S. naval forces were dropping grenades on a Soviet sub armed with a nuclear-tipped torpedo near the quarantine line. As they continued to prepare for a full-scale invasion of Cuba, JCS chairman Maxwell Taylor told the Chiefs that President Kennedy was “seized with the idea of trading Turkish for Cuban missiles” and “has a feeling that time is running out.”

Today’s posting features the JCS notes along with photographs and additional context about the most dangerous day of the missile crisis, and the sequence of events that persuaded both Kennedy and Khrushchev to reach the trade that would ultimately end the superpower confrontation.

https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/cuba-cuban-missile-crisis/2022-10-27/cuban-missile-crisis-60-most-dangerous-day

Washington, D.C., October 27, 2022 - The most dangerous 24 hours of the Cuban Missile Crisis came on Saturday, October 27, 1962, 60 years ago today, as the U.S. moved closer to attacking Cuba and nuclear-armed flashpoints erupted over Siberia, at the quarantine line, and in Cuba itself—a rapid esc...

10/21/2022

The Cuban Missile Crisis @ 60 Briefing NATO Allies | National Security Archive

The Cuban Missile Crisis @ 60: Briefing NATO Allies

President John F. Kennedy made unilateral decisions to impose a naval blockade and approve other military moves, but winning the support of European allies remained central to U.S. policy during the Cuban Missile Crisis, according to declassified records of briefings delivered to NATO leaders shortly before Kennedy announced the discovery of Soviet missiles in Cuba.

While British Ambassador David Ormsby-Gore, an old friend of Kennedy’s, was the first foreign diplomat to receive official word of the crisis, top leaders of other NATO states also received special briefings on the situation from U.S. ambassadors, special emissaries, and CIA officials before President Kennedy appeared on U.S. television to address the nation on October 22, 1962. The previous day, at a private lunch at the White House, Kennedy told Ormsby-Gore about the missile deployments, plans for a blockade, and his overall strategy, saying that he hoped to resolve the crisis through “negotiation and discussion” and that he did not expect or hope for an invasion of Cuba.

Other declassified documents from U.S. and British archives provide detailed accounts of the crisis briefings given to other NATO allies on October 22. Diplomats and heads of state in NATO Europe and Canada supported U.S. actions, although discontent that they had received such short notice lay just beneath the surface. British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was “hurt” that he had not received earlier word, while Belgian Foreign Minister Paul Henri-Spaak believed that NATO should have had “24 hours’ notice.”

Today’s posting also includes the accounts of officials who watched the crisis unfold in Washington. A British intelligence officer reported hearing of U.S. plans for a worst-case scenario under which Khrushchev took West Berlin and the U.S. responded with a preemptive nuclear strike on Soviet ICBMs.

https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/nuclear-vault-cuba-cuban-missile-crisis/2022-10-21/cuban-missile-crisis-60-briefing

Washington, D.C., October 21, 2022 - President John F. Kennedy made unilateral decisions to blockade Cuba and approve other military moves, but winning the support of European allies remained central to U.S. policy during the Cuban Missile Crisis, according to declassified records of briefings prepa...

10/17/2022

The Cuban Missile Crisis @ 60 How John F. Kennedy Sacrificed His Most Consequential Crisis Advisor | National Security Archive

The Cuban Missile Crisis @ 60: How John F. Kennedy Sacrificed His Most Consequential Crisis Advisor

- Documents Chart Critical Contribution of U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson in Missile Crisis Management and Resolution

- Stevenson’s Diplomatic Admonition: “Blackmail and Intimidation Never; Negotiation and Sanity Always”

In a secret “eyes only” memorandum for John F. Kennedy, written 60 years ago today at the outset of the Cuban Missile Crisis, U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson admonished the president to abandon his initial plan to attack Cuba and to consider, instead, the diplomatic option of dismantling U.S. missile bases in Europe in return for the withdrawal of the Soviet missiles in Cuba. Air strikes against Cuba would “have such incalculable consequences,” he argued, “that I feel you should have made it clear [to your advisors] that the existence of nuclear missile bases anywhere is negotiable before we start anything.”

The memorandum, posted today by the National Security Archive, was a follow-up to a private meeting Kennedy and Stevenson had on October 16 about the unfolding missile crisis and concluded with Stevenson’s mantra for U.S. diplomacy in the face of Soviet provocation: “Blackmail and intimidation never; negotiation and sanity always.”

Ambassador Stevenson’s early suggestion of negotiating a missile swap helped set the stage for the ultimate resolution of the dangerous crisis 11 days later, after President Kennedy agreed with Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev to trade U.S. Jupiter missiles based in Turkey for the withdrawal of the newly installed Soviet missiles in Cuba. But that quid pro quo to resolve the crisis was kept TOP SECRET for decades.

“Neither Stevenson nor the Kennedy-led secret diplomacy that resolved the most dangerous conflict in modern history have received full and due historical recognition,” according to Peter Kornbluh, who directs the Archive’s Cuba Documentation Project and authored an article in Foreign Policy magazine this week on Stevenson’s contribution to the missile crisis. “Stevenson’s approach, ‘Blackmail and intimidation never; negotiation and sanity always,’” Kornbluh noted, “is more relevant today than ever.”

https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/cuba-cuban-missile-crisis/2022-10-17/cuban-missile-crisis-60-how-john-f-kennedy

Washington D.C., October 17, 2022 - In a secret “eyes only” memorandum for John F. Kennedy, written 60 years ago today at the outset of the Cuban Missile Crisis, U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson admonished the president to abandon his initial plan to attack Cuba and to consider, instead, the dipl...

10/14/2022

Getting to Know the Cubans: Khrushchev Meets the Castro Brothers | National Security Archive

Getting to Know the Cubans: Khrushchev Meets the Castro Brothers
- Raul Castro wanted detailed Soviet security assurances, expected U.S. intervention
- Khrushchev insisted intervention unlikely, urged flexibility on Cuba’s part
- Soviet leader promised to fully replace U.S. as trade partner

Today the National Security Archive publishes for the first time in any language a translation of the first meeting between Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and Cuban Defense Minister Raul Castro on July 18, 1960. The newly available transcript helps explain Khrushchev’s 1962 determination that defending Cuba from U.S. intervention would require a massive Soviet military base in Cuba, together with the deployment of nuclear weapons. The Cuban leader asks for details of how the USSR could protect Cuba, but Khrushchev insists on restraint and flexibility, saying that he does not want a “big war.”

In their first face-to-face meeting in Moscow, Khrushchev advises the Cuban defense minister against taking radical steps that might invite U.S. meddling, telling him that, after Khrushchev’s strong public statement that summer, the U.S. “most likely, will not launch an intervention against you.”

Today’s posting includes the full, translated transcript of the Moscow meeting with Raul Castro, together with a record of Khrushchev’s meeting with Fidel Castro two months later on the outskirts of the U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York City.

https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs-cuba-cuban-missile-crisis/2022-10-14/getting-know-cubans-khrushchev?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=c2338230-1388-4087-9d96-fb432774ba14

Washington, D.C., October 14, 2022 - Today the National Security Archive publishes for the first time in any language a translation of the first meeting between Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and Cuban Defense Minister Raul Castro on July 18, 1960. The newly available transcript helps explain Khru...

10/04/2022

The Public Document a Federal Judge and the CIA Don’t Want You to See | National Security Archive

The Public Document a Federal Judge and the CIA Don't Want You to See

- Defense Intelligence Agency director’s 1989 memo sparked formal investigation on 1983 Able Archer nuclear war scare
- Memo was published in 2021 State Department history, but CIA claims it’s still secret
- Judge Boasberg’s ruling spotlights disputed text: read it here

Federal judge James Boasberg today supported a CIA claim that a public document about a famous nuclear war scare should be censored “to protect ‘intelligence activities’ or ‘intelligence sources or methods,’” despite the fact that his ruling and the CIA’s argument actually highlight the information and undermine any such protection.

The document in question is the “end of tour” memorandum written by the retiring director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), Lt. Gen. Leonard Perroots, in January 1989. The Perroots memo called into question the U.S. intelligence community’s downplaying of the nuclear danger during the annual “Able Archer” NATO military exercise in November 1983 and sparked a formal investigation by the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board that found Perroots was right. The Board concluded, after an all-source review, that the U.S. “may have inadvertently placed our relations with the Soviet Union on a hair trigger” during Able Archer, and commended Perroots for having avoided any escalation.

The Boasberg ruling today came in a Freedom of Information lawsuit brought by the National Security Archive against the CIA seeking its copy of the Perroots memo, since the DIA has apparently lost its own copy. The law firm Beveridge & Diamond represents the Archive pro bono in both cases, led by John Guttmann and Hilary Jacobs. Remarkably, Judge Boasberg repeatedly apologizes in his text: “Once again, the Court begs Plaintiff’s indulgence, as it must be vague.”

“Kafka would be proud of Judge Boasberg,” remarked Tom Blanton, director of the National Security Archive. “An official publication of the U.S. government released the Perroots memo, but now the CIA attempt to put the toothpaste back in the tube just spreads it all over the sink.”

https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/news/able-archer-83-foia/2022-10-04/public-document-federal-judge-and-cia-dont-want-you-see

Washington D.C., October 4, 2022 – Federal judge James Boasberg today supported a CIA claim that a public document about a famous nuclear war scare should be censored “to protect ‘intelligence activities’ or ‘intelligence sources or methods,’” despite the fact that his ruling and the C...

10/03/2022

The Underwater Cuban Missile Crisis at 60 | National Security Archive

The Underwater Cuban Missile Crisis at 60

Sixty years ago, on October 1, 1962, four Soviet Foxtrot-class diesel submarines, each of which carried one nuclear-armed torpedo, left their base in the Kola Bay, part of the massive Soviet deployment to Cuba that precipitated the Cuban Missile Crisis. An incident occurred on one of the submarines, B-59, when its captain, Valentin Savitsky, came close to using his nuclear torpedo. Although the Americans weren’t even aware of it at the time, it happened on the most dangerous day of the crisis, October 27. The episode has since become a focus of public debate about the dangers of nuclear weapons and has inspired many sensationalist accounts.

Today, the Archive marks the 60th anniversary of the underwater Cuban Missile Crisis by publishing for the first time in English the only public recollection of Vasily Arkhipov, the submarine brigade’s chief of staff, who was on board B-59 at the critical moment and helped Captain Savitsky avoid making the potentially catastrophic decision to launch a nuclear attack. Arkhipov shared his memories of the incident during a presentation at a conference to commemorate the 35th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis held in Moscow on October 14, 1997.

In addition to Savitsky’s recollections, today’s posting also features a core collection of previously published records on the underwater Cuban Missile Crisis based on 20 years of research by the National Security Archive.

https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2022-10-03/underwater-cuban-missile-crisis-60

Washington, D.C., October 3, 2022 - Sixty years ago, on October 1, 1962, four Soviet Foxtrot-class diesel submarines, each of which carried one nuclear-armed torpedo, left their base in the Kola Bay, part of the massive Soviet deployment to Cuba that precipitated the Cuban Missile Crisis. An inciden...

09/30/2022

Echeverría’s Legacy of “Co-opt and Control” | National Security Archive

To mark this year’s anniversary of the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre, the National Security Archive today posted an essential collection of ten key U.S. documents on Luis Echeverría Álvarez (1922-2022), the former Mexican president later charged with genocide for his role in the Tlatelolco and Corpus Christi student massacres.

U.S. documents depict Echeverría—a career politician in the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI)—as a man intent on crushing his enemies through manipulation and, if necessary, the unapologetic use of force. A CIA report from January 1971, published for the first time today, concluded that he “shares heavily in the blame” for the violence at Tlatelolco. An Embassy memo produced days after the 1971 Corpus Christi massacre described the Echeverría government’s “continuing effort to co-opt and control [the] student movement.” Other documents featured in this collection describe an acute “period of tensions” in U.S.-Mexican relations during his administration and the “psychological crisis” that gripped Mexico after his presidency, while records of his meetings with U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and President Richard Nixon illuminate his immense ambitions in global leadership.

The documents published today are the result of years of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and related archival research. Some are drawn from previous National Security Archive postings while several others are published here for the first time.

https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/mexico/2022-09-30/echeverrias-legacy-co-opt-and-control

Washington, D.C., September 30, 2022 - To mark this year’s anniversary of the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre, the National Security Archive today posted an essential collection of ten key U.S. documents on Luis Echeverría Álvarez (1922-2022), the former Mexican president later charged with genocide fo...

09/22/2022

The Moscow Signals Declassified: ​​​​​​​Irradiating Richard Nixon | National Security Archive

The Moscow Signals Declassified: ​​​​​​​Irradiating Richard Nixon

- Soviets Exposed Vice President Nixon to Radiation During Famous 1959 “Kitchen” Debate Trip to Moscow
- Secret Service Detected Radiation at U.S. Ambassador’s Residence Where Nixon Stayed

The Soviets exposed then Vice President Richard Nixon and his wife Pat to ionizing radiation during his famous visit to Moscow in July 1959, according to declassified Secret Service records posted today by the National Security Archive. Using detection devices known as Radiac Dosimeters, Nixon’s Secret Service detail measured significant levels of radiation in and around Nixon’s sleeping quarters at Spaso House, the residence of the U.S. ambassador, during the first days of his trip. A few hours after the agents initiated what one called “a bluff” by loudly and coarsely denouncing the Soviets’ dirty tricks, the radiation levels “settled down.”

According to the key Secret Service report on the incident, the U.S. Ambassador to Moscow, Llewellyn Thompson, and a senior member of Nixon’s entourage, Vice-Admiral Hyman Rickover, decided “not to make this information known to the Vice President.”

The Secret Service records were obtained by Archive Senior Analyst William Burr from a request to the Nixon Presidential Library in California. According to Burr, “this unusual and virtually unknown Cold War episode deserves more attention so the mysteries surrounding it can be resolved.”

The story of the Spaso House radiation incident remained secret for 17 years until the scandal over the Moscow Signal broke in the media in February 1976. A member of Nixon’s Secret Service team, James Golden, believed the 1959 episode was immediately relevant to the State Department’s investigation into the health effects of the microwave beams directed at the Embassy building. On April 28, 1976, he shared the secret history about the discovery of radiation at Spaso House with a State Department Soviet Desk official and medical officers. According to Golden, he was later told that he had been exposed to “massive dosages” of ionizing radiation emanating from an atomic battery that Soviet intelligence “used to power radio transmitters used for bugging purposes.”

Today’s posting is part III of the Archive’s three-part series: “The Moscow Signals Declassified.” Part I, “Microwave Mysteries: Projects PANDORA and BIZARRE,” was posted on September 13; Part II, “Microwave Diplomacy, 1967-1977,” was posted on September 15. The Archive will post a larger special collection of supplementary documentation on the full history of the Moscow Signal in the near future.

https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/intelligence-nuclear-vault-russia-programs/2022-09-22/moscow-signals-declassified

Washington D.C. September 22, 2022 - The Soviets exposed then Vice President Richard Nixon and his wife, Pat, to ionizing radiation during his famous visit to Moscow in July 1959, according to declassified Secret Service records posted today by the National Security Archive. Using detection devices....