National Security Archive - George Washington University

April 6, 2026

History and Founding

The National Security Archive was founded in 1985 by journalists and scholars, led by founder Scott Armstrong, a former Washington Post reporter and staff member on the Senate Watergate Committee, to counteract rising government secrecy. Since its founding, the Archive has spurred the declassification of more than 10 million pages of government documents by filing a total of more than 60,000 FOIA and declassification requests. In 1997 the Archive contributed to a CNN report on the Cold War That report won CNN a George Foster Peabody Award. Long Island University named The National Security Archives the winner of a Special George Polk Award in 2000 for "piercing self-serving veils of government secrecy."

Collections and Holdings

The National Security Archive is an American 501(c)(3) non-governmental, non-profit research and archival institution at George Washington University in Washington DC. It combines an investigative journalism center, a research institute on international affairs, a library and archive of declassified U.S. government documents. It is a leading non-profit user of the U.S. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), a public interest law firm, and a global advocate of open government.

The Archive holds the largest repository of declassified U.S. documents outside the federal government, with more than two million pages of declassified documents in its physical holdings. Its Digital National Security Archive (DNSA), published through ProQuest, contains 64 Topics in collections and more than one million meticulously indexed documents covering U.S. national security and foreign policy from the Truman through Obama administrations. The online Virtual Reading Room provides free public access to a large and continuously growing collection of primary source documents. Notable holdings include the CIA's Family Jewels list, the NSA's domestic surveillance watch list, the first official CIA confirmation of Area 51, FBI transcripts of interviews with Saddam Hussein, the Osama bin Laden File, and comprehensive collections on the Cuban Missile Crisis, the 1983 Able Archer War Scare, and U.S. policy toward dozens of countries. The Archive operates eight thematic program areas covering open government, intelligence, nuclear history, Latin America, the Middle East, and more.

Access and Usage

The Archive's website at nsarchive.gwu.edu provides free access to thousands of Electronic Briefing Books and the Virtual Reading Room's primary source documents. The Digital National Security Archive is available to subscribing institutions through ProQuest. Physical and on-site access is available by appointment at George Washington University’s Gelman Library. The Archive receives no U.S. government funding; its budget of approximately $3 million per year is supported by publication royalties and grants from foundations including the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Ford Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Open Society Fund Foundations.

National Security Archive
Suite 701, Gelman Library
The George Washington University
2130 H Street NW
Washington, D.C. 20037

Phone: (202) 994-7000  |  Fax: (202) 994-7005

Email: Contact Page

Website: nsarchive.gwu.edu

Blog: Unredacted

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