Author: John Greenewald

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. The documents reflect the views of seasoned analysts who had followed closely their special areas of research and whose views were shaped in often heated debate. Continuing public interest in the series, as reflected in numerous requests through Freedom of Information and Executive Order channels, led CIA’s Office of Information…

The Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation between the United States, the Soviet Union, and Cuba in the early 1960s during the Cold War. In Russia, it is termed the “Caribbean Crisis”, while in Cuba it is called the “October Crisis”. The crisis ranks with the Berlin Blockade as one of the major confrontations of the Cold War, and is generally regarded as the moment in which the Cold War came closest to a nuclear war. Declassified Documents 1960: Indications of Soviet arms shipments to Cuba, weekly COMINT Economic Briefing [4 Pages] 1961: SIGINT report on Cuban pilot training in…

On the 2nd of September 1958, Soviet MiG-17 pilots shot down a U.S. Air Force reconnaissance-configured C-130 aircraft over Soviet Armenia; 17 crewman were aboard. Below are the transcripts, reports, and audio files concerning the incident. 60528’s Last Flight Cold War Reconnaissance and the Shootdown Of Flight 60528 Cryptologic Quarterly (Summer 1993) – The SIGINT on Thirteen Soviet Shootdowns of US Reconnaissance Aircraft Intercept Crew of AFSS C-130 Aircraft Lost on 2 September 1958 Loss of US Aircraft Shoot Down of 60528 Shoot-Down of a USAF C-130 by Soviet Aircraft on 2 September 1958 Shoot-Down of a USAF C-130 by…

Background The FBI processed for release a 2054 page file dating from the mid-1950s describing how the world nearly ended. However, the below pages are the only releasable copies. The File is entitled JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF, JOINT US-CANADIAN ESTIMATE RE SOVIET CAPABILITIES AND PROBABLE COURSES OF ACTION AGAINST NORTH AMERICA IN A MAJOR WAR. The file number is FBI File No. 62-HQ-101831, and the file was sequestered for decades in the FBI Confidential File Room. One interesting document within the file is a study issued by the United States-Canadian Intelligence Conference, ACAI 44, on September 11, 1957. The study is…

Document excerpt: “In watching the flow of events over the past decade or so, it is hard to avoid the feeling that something very fundamental has happened in world history. The past year has seen a flood of articles commemorating the end of the Cold War, and the fact that ‘peace” seems to be breaking out in many regions of the world. Most of these analyses lack any larger conceptual framework for distinguishing between what is essential and what is contingent or accidental in world history, and are predictably superficial. If Mr. Gorbachev were ousted from the Kremli. or a…