National Security Archive

The National Security Archive is a 501(c)(3) non-governmental, non-profit research and archival institution located on the campus of the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1985 to check rising government secrecy. The National Security Archive is an investigative journalism center, open government advocate, international affairs research institute, and the largest repository of declassified U.S. documents outside the federal government. The National Security Archive has spurred the declassification of more than 15 million pages of government documents by being the leading non-profit user of the U.S. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), filing a total of more than 70,000 FOIA and declassification requests in its over 35+ years of history. Led by founder Scott Armstrong, former Washington Post Reporter and staff on the Senate Watergate Committee, journalists and historians came together to create the National Security Archive in 1985 with the idea of enriching research and public debate about national security policy. Directed by Tom Blanton since 1992, the National Security Archive continues to challenge national security secrecy by advocating for open government, utilizing the FOIA to compel the release of previously secret government documents, and analyzing and publishing its collections for the public. As a prolific FOIA requester, the National Security Archive has obtained a host of seminal government documents, including: the documents behind the most requested still image photograph at the U.S. National Archives – a December 21, 1970 picture of President Richard Nixon's meeting with Elvis Presley; the CIA's "Family Jewels" list that documents decades of the agency's illegal activities; the National Security Agency's (NSA) description of its watch list of 1,600 Americans that included notable Americans such as civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., boxer Muhammad Ali, and politicians Frank Church and Howard Baker; the first official CIA confirmation of Area 51; U.S.