Digging into the National Security Archive
Summer Intern Panel | 11/30/17
About the Collaboration:
Swarthmore College & National Security Archive
Summer Interns
2017
- Lewis Fitzgerald-Holland
2016
- Matthew Chaffinch
- Leo Eliot
- Conrad Pastore (Tufts)
2015
- Carlo Bruno
- Brandon Conner
- Michael McVerry
- William Meyer
Diego Armus
Professor of History
Carlos Osorio
National Security Archive
Information Systems Manager, Director of the Southern Cone Documentation Project
Roberto Vargas
Research Librarian for Humanities & Interdisciplinary Studies
Sarah Elichko
Social Sciences Librarian
Since 1985, the Archive has:
• Filed 50,000+ targeted Freedom of Information Act and declassification requests
• Opened 10 million+ pages of previously secret U.S. government documents
• Provided evidence and expert testimony crucial to the conviction of human rights abusers in national and international trials
Research institute on international affairs
+ library and archive of declassified U.S. documents
+ public interest law firm
Scope & scale of the work
8 students • 800 diplomatic cables • 2000-2010 (mostly)
2015
Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Uruguay
Venezuela-United States
2016
Venezuela-Russia
Russia-Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina, Nicaragua
VE-Iran
2017
What are diplomatic cables?
- Communications between the State Department and diplomatic missions abroad
- Sent electronically since the 1970s; previously sent by mail and by telegraph
What are diplomatic cables for?
Embassy officials use cables to describe important meetings, analyze political trends in the countries where they are based, and make policy recommendations.
- Foreign Policy (2010)
US Diplomatic Missions
Process & Output
Output:
- Document Metadata
- Reference materials: chronologies, glossaries
- Identifying research opportunities (e.g. FOIA requests)
- Blog posts (nsarchive.swarthmore.edu)
Weekly phone/video meetings
Google Docs, Alchemy, Zotero
National Security Archive Internship Panel
By Swarthmore Reference
National Security Archive Internship Panel
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