#  U.S Government Cold War-related Sites 

 



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[**National Archives and Records Administration**](http://www.nara.gov/)  
NARA is an independent federal agency that helps preserve our nation's history by overseeing the management of all federal records. It seeks to ensure ready access to the essential evidence that documents the rights of American citizens, the actions of federal officials, and the national experience. A special NARA page on [Cold War-related records](https://www.archives.gov/research/foreign-policy/cold-war) is also available.  
  
[Presidential Libraries](http://www.archives.gov/presidential-libraries/)  
The Presidential Library system is made up of ten Presidential Libraries and one Presidential Project. These nationwide facilities are overseen by the Office of Presidential Libraries within the National Archives and Records Administration, located in Washington, D.C. These are not traditional libraries, but rather repositories for preserving and making available the papers, records, and other historical materials of Presidents since Herbert Hoover. Each Presidential library contains a museum and provides an active series of public programs.

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[**US State Department's Office of the Historian**](https://history.state.gov/)  
The Office of the Historian is staffed by professional historians who are experts in the history of U.S. foreign policy and the Department of State and possess unparalleled research experience in classified and unclassified government records. The Office’s historians work closely with other federal government history offices, the academic historical community, and specialists across the globe. The Office is directed by [The Historian of the U.S. Department of State](https://history.state.gov/about/the-historian).

  
  
[*Foreign Relations of the United States* ](https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments)  
The *Foreign Relations of the United States* (FRUS) series presents the official documentary historical record of major U.S. foreign policy decisions and significant diplomatic activity.

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[**The United States Intelligence Community**](http://www.intelligence.gov/)  
The Intelligence Community's mission is to collect, analyze, and deliver foreign intelligence and counterintelligence information to America's leaders so they can make sound decisions to protect our country. Our customers include the president, policy-makers, law enforcement, and the military.

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[**Central Intelligence Agency**](https://www.cia.gov/index.html)  
The Central Intelligence Agency's main home page is an effort to provide insight and information to the public about the Agency and its mission.

  
    
[The Family Jewels Documents](https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/collection/family-jewels)  
Widely known as the "Family Jewels," this document consists of almost 700 pages of responses from CIA employees to a 1973 directive from Director of Central Intelligence James Schlesinger asking them to report activities they thought might be inconsistent with the Agency's charter.

  
  
[Caesar-Polo-Esau Documents](https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/collection/caesar-polo-and-esau-papers#:~:text=This%20collection%20of%20declassified%20analytic,research%20on%20Soviet%20and%20Chinese)  
This collection of declassified analytic monographs and reference aids, designated within the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Directorate of Intelligence (DI) as the CAESAR, ESAU, and POLO series, highlights the CIA's efforts from the 1950s through the mid-1970s to pursue in-depth research on Soviet and Chinese internal politics and Sino-Soviet relations.   
  
[Center for the Study of Intelligence](https://www.cia.gov/resources/csi/)  
The Center for the Study of Intelligence (CSI) serves as a producer and repository of unclassified intelligence articles, publications, and scholarship.

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[**Library of Congress European Reading Room**](http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/european/)  
In 1996 the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Library of Congress (LC) inaugurated a program to microfilm military records and inventories in former Soviet-bloc countries primarily from World War II and the early Cold War years. Projects are now underway at three institutions: the Central Military Archive (Centralne Archiwum Wojskowe) outside Warsaw, the National Defense Ministry Archives (Archivele Militarie ale Ministerului Apararii Nationale) in Bucharest, and the War History Archives (Hadtortenelmi Leveltar) in Budapest. Similar projects with the Slovak Military History Institute in Bratislava and the Russian Central Naval Archive at Gatchina near St. Petersburg are being considered.

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[**U.S. Army Center of Military History**](https://history.army.mil/index.html)  
The Center of Military History (CMH) is responsible for the appropriate use of history throughout the U.S. Army. Traditionally, this mission meant that the Center recorded the official history of the Army in both peace and war, while advising the Army Staff on relevant historical matters. In recent times, CMH has produced detailed series on the Army's role in the Korean and Vietnam Wars and is beginning a series on the U.S. Army in the Cold War. These works, supplemented by hundreds of smaller monographs and other volumes on a wide range of military subjects of interest to the Army, have made the Center of Military History one of the major publishers of military history in the world

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[**National Security Agency**](https://www.nsa.gov/)  
The National Security Agency/Central Security Service (NSA/CSS) leads the U.S. Government in cryptology that encompasses both foreign signals intelligence (SIGINT) insights and cybersecurity products and services, and enables computer network operations to gain a decisive advantage for the nation and our allies.  
  
[VENONA](https://www.nsa.gov/Helpful-Links/NSA-FOIA/Declassification-Transparency-Initiatives/Historical-Releases/Venona/)  
The U.S. Army's Signal Intelligence Service, the precursor to the National Security Agency, began a secret program in February 1943 later codenamed VENONA. The mission of this small program was to examine and exploit Soviet diplomatic communications but after the program began, the message traffic included espionage efforts as well. Although it took almost two years before American cryptologists were able to break the KGB encryption, the information gained through these transactions provided U.S. leadership insight into Soviet intentions and treasonous activities of government employees until the program was canceled in 1980.The first of six public releases of translated VENONA messages was made in July 1995 and included 49 messages about the Soviets' efforts to gain information on the U.S. atomic bomb research and the Manhattan Project. Over the course of five more releases, all of the approximately 3,000 VENONA translations were made public.

[Cuban Missile Crisis](https://www.nsa.gov/news-features/declassified-documents/cuban-missile-crisis/1960.shtml)  
The Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 was one of the turning points of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. At that time the two superpowers came close to war, possibly with nuclear weapons; after it, both countries began to seek ways to adjust to each other, in particular, to prevent the use of nuclear weapons. The events of the Cuban Missile Crisis demonstrated the maturity of the U.S. intelligence community, especially in its ability to collect and analyze information. The crucial roles of human intelligence (HUMINT) and photographic intelligence (PHOTINT) in the Cuban Missile Crisis have been known from the beginning. Documents declassified and released in 1998 now reveal that signals intelligence (SIGINT) also played an exceedingly important part in managing the crisis.

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[**The US State Department Electronic Reading Room**](http://foia.state.gov/)  
The State Department's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Electronic Reading Room features frequently-requested declassified documents, points of reference for State Department records and information access, and other helpful links to sites with State Department materials

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[**OSTI OpenNet**](http://www.osti.gov/opennet)  
The Department of Energy is committed to openness. In support of that commitment, we have developed OpenNet to provide easy, timely access to recently declassified information, including information declassified in response to Freedom of Information Act requests. This database will be updated regularly as more information becomes available.

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[**U.S. Department of Justice FOIA Reference Guide**](https://www.justice.gov/oip/department-justice-freedom-information-act-reference-guide)  
*The Department of Justice Freedom of Information Act Reference Guide (Reference Guide)* provides guidance for making Freedom of Information Act requests to the Department of Justice.