Archiv: National Security Archive


08.06.2019 - 19:35 [ The Intercept ]

A Vast Archive Exposed the Secret History of Kidnapping and Assassination in Guatemala. Now It’s Under Threat.

The archive is a repository for the entire historical record of the National Police of Guatemala, an institution that was founded in the 19th century as the country’s first national security force, and abolished and dismantled in 1997 by order of the peace accords that were signed in 1996 to end Guatemala’s 36-year armed conflict.

This historical archive is not just their origin records from the 1890s. It goes right through those terrible years following the U.S.-funded and supported coup in 1954, which destroyed the democratic government that Guatemala had then, through the military dictatorship in the 1960s, when real anti-communist fervor gripped the country, through the 1970s and ’80s when there were these waves of state violence, including military operations in the countryside but also many clandestine covert operations in Guatemala City and other urban areas.

05.05.2019 - 12:35 [ National Security Archives ]

The Battle of the Letters, 1963: John F. Kennedy, David Ben-Gurion, Levi Eshkol, and the U.S. Inspections of Dimona

Washington D.C., May 2, 2019 – During 1963, President John F. Kennedy was preoccupied with issues such as Vietnam, the nuclear test ban negotiations, civil rights protests, and Cuba. It is less well known, however, that one of his most abiding concerns was whether and how fast Israel was seeking a nuclear weapons capability and what the U.S. should do about it. Beginning in April 1963, Kennedy insisted that the Israeli leadership accept regular bi-annual U.S. inspections, or in diplomatic language, “visits,” of Israel’s nuclear complex at Dimona in the Negev Desert. Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and his successor, Levi Eshkol, tried to evade and avoid inspections, but Kennedy applied unprecedented pressure, informing them bluntly, in a near ultimatum tone, that Washington’s “commitment to and support of Israel “could be “seriously jeopardized” if it was thought that the U.S. government could not obtain “reliable information” on the Dimona reactor and Israel’s nuclear intentions.

05.05.2019 - 12:33 [ Haaretz ]

How a Standoff With the U.S. Almost Blew Up Israel‘s Nuclear Program

Throughout the spring and summer of 1963, the leaders of the United States and Israel – President John F. Kennedy and Prime Ministers David Ben-Gurion and Levi Eshkol – were engaged in a high-stakes battle of wills over Israel’s nuclear program. The tensions were invisible to the publics of both countries, and only a few senior officials, on both sides of the ocean, were aware of the severity of the situation