Items20The creator’s order
  1. 1Joseph StalinJoseph StalinThe release of the Katyn decision papers in 1992 put Stalin's approval of the execution of Polish prisoners directly into the documentary record. Soviet authorities had blamed Nazi Germany for decades before acknowledging NKVD responsibility in 1990. The signed leadership documents strengthened the…0i
  2. 2John F. KennedyJohn F. KennedyBorn 29 May 1917U.S. and Soviet records of the Cuban missile crisis complicate the image of Kennedy winning solely by refusing concessions. They document the private commitment to remove American Jupiter missiles from Turkey alongside the public Soviet withdrawal from Cuba. The bargain had been discussed before…0i
  3. 3Richard NixonRichard NixonBorn 9 Jan 1913The LBJ Library's Chennault material and presidential recordings exposed contacts between Nixon's 1968 campaign and South Vietnamese officials as Johnson tried to open peace talks. They challenged accounts that treated Nixon as an uninvolved observer of Saigon's refusal to participate. Nixon denied…0i
  4. 4Lyndon B. JohnsonLyndon B. JohnsonBorn 27 Aug 1908The National Security Agency's 2005–06 Gulf of Tonkin releases made internal intelligence assessments available for scrutiny. Research in that record concluded that the reported second attack on 4 August 1964 had not occurred, weakening the factual basis of the case Johnson presented for…0i
  5. 5Kim Il SungKim Il SungBorn 15 Apr 1912Soviet records released after 1991 showed Kim pressing Stalin for approval to attack South Korea, with Chinese approval also required. That evidence undermined North Korea's defensive account of the war and complicated the opposite picture of Kim as merely executing a plan devised in Moscow. He…0i
  6. 6Nikita KhrushchevNikita KhrushchevDocuments from the Mikoyan archive, published in English in 2012, showed that resolving the Cuban missile crisis continued after Khrushchev's public October agreement. Tactical nuclear weapons remained on the island, and Soviet leaders initially intended to leave them there before Anastas Mikoyan…0i
  7. 7Augusto PinochetAugusto PinochetBorn 25 Nov 1915Declassified intelligence and diplomatic files added detail to Pinochet's relationship with DINA, the security organisation responsible for torture, disappearance and international assassination. The records strengthened scrutiny of command responsibility and of what foreign governments knew,…0i
  8. 8SuhartoSuhartoBorn 8 Jun 1921U.S. embassy files released in 2017 documented American officials' knowledge of the army-led mass killings of 1965–66 as Suharto rose to power. They reinforced accounts of organised repression against alleged communists, challenging the presentation of his ascent simply as the restoration of order…0i
  9. 9François MitterrandFrançois MitterrandBorn 26 Oct 1916The Duclert commission's 2021 research in French state archives placed Mitterrand's Rwanda policy under renewed scrutiny. It described grave political responsibilities arising from France's alignment with the Habyarimana regime and failures to recognise the genocidal process. The commission did not…0i
  10. 10Pope Pius XIIPope Pius XIIBorn 2 Mar 1876The opening of Pius XII's Vatican archives in 2020 gave historians new evidence about the information reaching the pope during the Holocaust. A letter publicised in 2023 showed detailed reports of Nazi killing reaching him through a trusted German Jesuit, challenging explanations based on an…0i