Today's post comes from National Declassification Center Archives Specialist Dr. Amanda Weimer. Jose Pepín Bosch was a man of action. Having married into the Bacardi family in 1922, Bosch led the spirits company now known as Bacardi Limited from November 1944 until 1976. A Cuban patriot, he helped to emphasize the Cuban character integral to … Continue reading Rum and Diplomacy
Today's Blog Post is from Senior NDC Archivist (Special Assistant, NDC Evaluation and Special Projects Division) Patrice Brown. The beginning of the Panama Canal is well known. The routes considered, the French construction efforts, the United States entrance as the canal builder, and the characters involved. However, the transitional period between the Panamanian demands for … Continue reading 100 Years of the Panama Canal: The Age of Transition, 1964-73
Today's post comes from NDC Director Sheryl Shenberger and discusses a new option to help the NDC prioritize final processing of records. In the recently posted NDC Status Report on the NDC Declassification Website I noted that in completing quality assurance for the 352 million pages of backlog records (a good thing), we still faced … Continue reading A New Option for Prioritization
The NDC has released a listing of 286 entries that have completed declassification processing between March 7 and June 2, 2014 and are now available for researcher request. This release consists of records from both military and civilian agencies. Highlights include: Department of State, Records Of Nicholas Katzenbach, Department of State, Bureau Of Refugee Programs Office Of … Continue reading New Releases from The National Declassification Center
Many thanks to all who provided comment on our draft plan. I am happy to report that the plan is now available here: http://www.archives.gov/open/open-government-plan-3.0.pdf or as a Word document http://www.archives.gov/open/open-government-plan-3.0.docx Please continue to provide us with comments as we work to reach the goals set out in the plan.
In Section 5.4 of its 2012 - 2014 Open Government Plan http://www.archives.gov/open/open-government-plan-2.0.pdf, NARA discussed how it would assume a leadership role in the inter-agency process of reviewing historically valuable records for declassification and develop common processes among agencies to ensure a more efficient and effective review. As a result of these efforts, the National Declassification Center … Continue reading The NDC and Open Government
Today's find comes from Dr. Amanda Weimer, an Archives Specialist in the NDC. The National Declassification Center recently responded to a Freedom of Information Act request for documents created and collected by the Department of the Air Force on the topic of “flying discs,” popularly known as “unidentified flying objects” (UFOs). The Air Force studied sightings … Continue reading What on Earth Is It?
This post comes from Dr. Amanda Weimer, an Archives Specialist with the National Declassification Center. Two groups of additional records have been declassified within the past year as part of the ongoing efforts of the National Declassification Center to declassify all information found within the holdings of the National Archives relating to the Katyń Forest Massacre. … Continue reading New Katyń Documents Declassified in 2013 and 2014
The Adrienne C. Thomas Auditorium at the National Archives in College Park was packed on the morning of February 28, 2014 as over two hundred people, representing agencies from throughout the Federal Government, came together to celebrate the completion of quality assurance review of over 351 million pages of historically valuable classified records accessioned by … Continue reading The NDC Celebrates Success
NDC staffer Jamie White provided this post about his latest find: I recently reviewed a Department of Justice project (Class 130/145 Secret Enclosures, NND 66350) which covered a portion of the civil rights movement from 1968 and part of 1969. The collection covers the Poor Peoples campaign containing movements, surveillance, informant statements and bios on … Continue reading James Meredith and his March Against Fear
