Russia - Soviet Union, 1918 to 2022, Documents Archive USB Drive

Russia - Soviet Union, 1918 to 2022, Documents Archive USB Drive 

1,371,002 pages in 44 collections containing primary and secondary documents about and related to Russia and the Soviet Union dating from 1918 to 2022. 

The USB Pen card works with any device with a USB 2.0, 3.0 or 3.1 interface.  

The Pen card chip is housed in a metal body that is waterproof, shock-proof, temperature-proof, magnet-proof, and X-ray-proof. 

This collection includes as a finding aid, a unified full-text index of all computer recognizable text in all documents in this collection, making it possible to quickly search all computer recognizable text across all pages of all collections in one search.

 
The collections include:

Adolf Hitler: Hitler Headquarters War Diaries Diarists’ Observations - 662 pages of reconstructed Hitler Headquarters War Diary and diarist's writings by Helmuth Greiner, Percy Ernst Schramm, and the Headquarters, United States Army Europe Foreign Military Studies Branch.

Berlin - East Germany CIA and OSS Files - 552 pages of selected OSS and CIA files covering Berlin and East Germany from 1943 to 1962. Documents cover the destruction of Berlin during World War II, Soviet military actions and plans, intelligence operations, the 1948 March Crisis, the Berlin Airlift, suppression of revolt in East Germany, the Berlin Tunnel, and the Berlin Wall.

Berlin Crisis (1958-1963) U.S. State Dept Secret History & Documents Transcripts - 5,219 pages of the State Department's formerly secret history of the Berlin Crisis and Department of State transcripts of documents related to the Berlin Crisis.

Cambridge Five Spy Ring - Kim Philby Spy Case FBI, MI5, and British Foreign & Prime Minister Office - 8,236 pages of Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and British MI5, Security Service, Foreign Office, Prime Minister's Office & Cabinet Office files covering The Cambridge Five Spy Ring. Some of the MI5 files were not available to the public until September 2019.

Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Accident CIA, KGB, Soviet, Ukraine, DoD, Energy Dept, Congress Files - 4,620 pages of CIA, Department of Defense, Department of Energy, Congressional, GAO, and foreign press monitoring files related to the Chernobyl Nuclear Accident.

CIA Manual of the Soviet Army (1953) - A 177-page, 1953 manual covering the Soviet Army produced by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The purpose of this manual was to give a survey of the leadership, organization, and combat strength of the Soviet Army.

Cold War Beginnings CIA Files - 416 pages of selected CIA files covering the beginning of the Cold War from 1946 to 1950. Files comprised from pages of daily and weekly summaries and interpretations provided to President Truman.

Cold War End CIA Files - Bush Administration CIA 1989-1991 - 378 pages of selected CIA reports covering the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war between 1989 and 1991. Files contain selected pages from National and Special National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs and SNIEs). NIEs and SNIEs are prepared for the President, the Cabinet, the National Security Council, and senior policymakers and officials. NIEs focus on strategic issues of mid or long-term importance to US policy and national security, and SNIEs address near-term issues of more urgent concern.

Cuban Missile Crisis Presidential - CIA - NSA - NSC - State Dept Files - Audio Recordings - 3,884 pages of files and 1 hour and 27 minutes of audio recordings covering the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Cuban Missile Crisis: Robert F. Kennedy Papers - 3,584 pages of documents produced or accumulated by United States Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, while acting in his role as an advisor to President John F. Kennedy concerning the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Department of State Telegrams 1973-1975 - 991,600 pages of State Department telegrams, with 568,400 pages of description/attribution sheets. State Department Cables from the Department of State Central Foreign Policy File, dating from April 1973 to December 31, 1975, totaling 1,560,000 pages of electronic telegram information. Covering subjects world-wide.

These records are popularly known as the "State Department Cables" or the "State Department Telegrams." This collection contains fully releasable telegrams determined to have permanent historical value that could be exported from the contemporary Department of State Archiving System [SAS].

Henry Kissinger Telephone Conversation Transcriptions 1969-1976 - Henry Kissinger Telephone Conversation Transcriptions 1969-1976 - 27,013 pages of Henry Kissinger telephone conversation transcriptions (telcons). Telcons of telephone conversations taking place from January 1969 through December 1976. These telcons include conversations with President Nixon before Nixon began his recordings in February 1971 and after Nixon stopped his recordings on July 12, 1973.

Henry Kissinger USSR, China & Middle East Relations, Ford Administration Papers 1974-1976 - This collection contains 3,599 pages of material. Most material covers Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s interactions with the leaders of the Soviet Union, China, and Middle Eastern countries during the President Gerald R. Ford Administration.

JFK Assassination: CIA Surveillance of Soviet & Cuban Embassies in Mexico U.S. Government Files - 3,027 pages of files related to the CIA's surveillance of the Cuban and Soviet Embassies in Mexico during the early 1960's.

John F. Kennedy Assassination: Lee Harvey Oswald Warren Commission Vertical File - 3,027 pages of files related to the CIA's surveillance of the Cuban and Soviet Embassies in Mexico during the early 1960's.

John Walker - Walker/Whitworth Spy Ring CIA FBI NSA DOD FILES & Navy Film - 2,822 pages of material related to John Walker and the Walker Family Spy case, also known as the Walker-Whitworth Spy Ring. Navy Chief Warrant Officer John Anthony Walker (1937-2014) was working for the US Navy as a communications specialist when he started spying for the Soviet Union.

Judith Coplon - VENONA Soviet Spy Case FBI, CIA & State Dept Files, Newspaper Articles - This collection contains 7,529 pages. Judith Coplon was the first person to face trial due to evidence obtained from the American intelligence operation known as VENONA, which was able to intercept and decode   Soviet diplomatic and intelligence messages. Convictions from her two trials were overturned due to FBI agents lying at trial about the source of information against Coplon. This collection is made up of FBI files, Coplon espionage trial transcripts, CIA files, VENONA intercepts related to Soviet intelligence asset SIMA (Judith Coplon) and newspaper articles related to the Judith Coplon-Gubitchev espionage case.

Leon Trotsky FBI, MI5, State Department Files and Newspaper Coverage - 9,692 pages of FBI, British Intelligence MI5, State Department files, and newspapers covering Leon Trotsky. Files date from 1917 to 1975. Leon Trotsky (1879-1940), born Lev Davidovich Bronstein, was a leading Bolshevik politician and a leader of the 1917 Russian revolution. Trotsky led the Soviet negotiations for a separate peace with Germany that were concluded at Brest-Litovsk in March 1918. In 1919, he successfully organized the Red Army in its struggle against the counter-revolutionary 'Whites'.

Manhattan Project Spy for the Soviet Union George Koval FBI Files - 1,892 pages of FBI files covering George Koval, the American born Soviet Spy code named "DELMAR," who infiltrated the Manhattan Project. John Earl Haynes, a historian at the Library of Congress and an authority on the cold war, says of Koval, "Koval was a trained agent, not an American civilian. He was that rarity, which you see a lot in fiction but rarely in real life—a sleeper agent. A penetration agent. A professional officer."

Operation STAGE & Washtub Plans for a Russian Invasion of Alaska FBI & Air Force Files - 3,271 pages, 2,126 FBI and 1,145 Air Force pages of documents dating from 1950 to 1959, covering proposed plans for intelligence coverage and stay behind agents in Alaska in the event of an invasion by the Soviet Union.

Paranormal Phenomenon FBI - Defense Intelligence Files - 1,426 pages of FBI and Defense Intelligence Agency files covering paranormal phenomenon. Subjects include: Soviet Union Controlled Offensive Behavior ("Mind Control"), Warsaw Pact - Soviet Union Paraphysics Research & Development, Czechoslovakian Parapsychology Research, Nikola Tesla, Animal Mutilation Project, Majestic 12, and Dr. Wilhelm Reich.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt Administration Foreign Relations and Diplomatic Papers (1931-1945) - 147,876 pages of transcription of documentary records of President Franklin D. Roosevelt Administration's foreign policy decisions and diplomatic activity. Documents included date from 1931 to 1945, from before FDR took office until the time of his death in April 1945. Composed of material collected analyzed, annotated, footnoted, cross-referenced, and published by States Department historians over 87 years in the Departments' Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series.

President John F. Kennedy CIA Daily Briefings - 5,550 pages of President’s Intelligence Checklists (PICLs) prepared by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for President Kennedy. These documents were written specifically for the president; they summarize the day-to-day intelligence and analysis on current and future national security issues.

President John F. Kennedy Secret White House Recordings - One-hundred and two hours of President Kennedy White House recordings. These recordings date from July 30, 1962, to November 7, 1963.

Ronald Reagan Cold War Ending CIA Files - 2,890 pages of CIA files covering CIA information provided to Ronald Reagan between 1980 and 1989, related to the Soviet Union and the Cold War. The document collection featured in this collection includes intelligence assessments, National Intelligence Estimates, high-level memos, DCI talking points, CIA finished intelligence reports and other reporting. Also included are non-CIA documents from the archives of the Reagan Library, including minutes from relevant National Security Council and National Security Planning Group meetings on key US-Soviet issues, as well as copies of key National Security Decision Directives (NSDDs).

The document coverage includes high-level arms control summits between former US President Reagan and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, Soviet attempts to revamp an increasingly inefficient and failing economic system, and evidence of widening fissures in a Soviet society which was becoming increasingly difficult for Communist Party leaders to control.

Russian Interference with the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election FBI Files - 2,212 pages of FBI and Department of Justice files, and material collected by the Bureau and the Department, related to the investigation of the interference.

The FBI began investigating the Russian government's attempt to influence the 2016 presidential election since July 31, 2016.

On July 13, 2018, a federal grand jury sitting in the District of Columbia returned an indictment against 12 Russian military intelligence officers for their alleged roles in interfering with the 2016 United States (U.S.) elections. 

The indictment charges 11 defendants, Boris Alekseyevich Antonov, Dmitriy Sergeyevich Badin, Nikolay Yuryevich Kozachek, Aleksey Viktorovich Lukashev, Artem Andreyevich Malyshev, Sergey Aleksandrovich Morgachev, Aleksandr Vladimirovich Osadchuk, Aleksey Aleksandrovich Potemkin, Ivan Sergeyevich Yermakov, Pavel Vyacheslavovich Yershov, and Viktor Borisovich Netyksho, with a computer hacking conspiracy involving gaining unauthorized access into the computers of U.S. persons and entities involved in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, stealing documents from those computers, and staging releases of the stolen documents to interfere with the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Sidney George Reilly - "Reilly Ace of Spies" MI5 British Intelligence & Royal Air Force Files - The MI5 files contain 171 pages of documents dating from 1916 to 1944. The British, so-called 'Ace of Spies', worked for British Intelligence in the Soviet Union after the Bolshevik Revolution. Reilly was lured back into the USSR in 1925, arrested and executed. The file reveals that Reilly was a Russian-born Jew who was engaged in business activity in New York in 1915, when he came under suspicion from the Russians as being a German spy.

Soviet Biological Weapons Sverdlovsk 1979 Accident CIA, DIA, Dept of State, Navy & Army Files - 1,447 pages of CIA Defense Intelligence Agency, Department of State, Navy, and Army files related to the Sverdlovsk anthrax incident.

 The Institute of Microbiology and Virology in the Russian city of Sverdlovsk, 850 miles east of Moscow, reportedly aroused the suspicions of U.S. intelligence analysts in the 1970s because of certain characteristics observed by satellite. Photo interpreters identified tall incinerator stacks, large cold storage facilities, animal pens, sentries, and double barbed-wire fences. These features, were not unlike those at the former U.S. offensive biological and toxin warfare facility at Fort Detrick, suggested that the Sverdlovsk facility might serve military purposes.

In April of 1979, an outbreak of anthrax occurred in the city of Sverdlovsk. On 2 April 1979, between the hours of 1330 and 1600, an accidental release of anthrax spores occurred at the military compound known as Compound 19 in Sverdlovsk. Reports of this outbreak did not begin to surface in Western news until early 1980. Later that year, articles in Soviet medical, veterinary, and legal journals described the outbreak as naturally occurring in livestock, causing 96 cases of anthrax in humans.

Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia CIA Situation Reports - 1,447 pages of CIA daily situation reports covering the events of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. Reports cover May 9-10, July 1, July 19-August 2 and August 21-September 4, 1968. On August 20, 1968, the Soviet Union led Warsaw Pact troops in an invasion of Czechoslovakia to crack down on reformist trends in Prague.

Soviet Red Army Infantry Tactical Manual of the Red Army (1942) (Translation) - 256-page Soviet Red Army Infantry Tactical Manual of the Red Army (1942) (Translation)

Soviet Union - Luna Programme/Lunik First Lunar Spacecraft First to the Moon CIA Files - 1,441 pages of documents dealing with the Soviet Luna Programme, which sent the first manmade object, Lunik 1, to the moon. 861 pages of CIA Files dating from 1959 to 1971 and 579 pages of government reports on Luna and the early Soviet space program, dating from 1958 to 1967.

A highlight in this collection is the CIA account of the "kidnapping" by the CIA of one of the Soviet program's lunar space craft. Some CIA material in this collection was not declassified until November 2019.

Soviet Union Top Secret Military Journal Voyennaya Mysl "Military Thought" CIA Files - 15,451 pages of CIA files related to intercepted articles published in the Soviet Union's top secret military journal Voyennaya Mysl. Voyennaya Mysl is translated from Russian to English as "Military Thought." 

The files date from 1961 to1982. Some material in this collection was not released by the CIA until October 2012. Much of the Soviet material from the early 1960’s was provided by Oleg Penkovsky. 

Oleg Vladimirovich Penkovsky, given the codenamed HERO by the CIA, was a colonel with Soviet military intelligence during the late 1950s and early 1960s who spied for the benefit of the United States. He was the highest-level Soviet officer to spy for the United States up to that time.


Soviet-Afghani-War (1979-1989) U.S. Backed Afghan-Mujahideen CIA, DOD, FBI, and State Dept Files - 14,361 pages of CIA files, Department of Defense studies, Department of State documentary history and Reagan Administration files. 

A unique aspect of this collection is that it has recounting of Soviet Afghan War battles from both Soviet officers and Mujahideen resistance fighters.

In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan to protect its puppet government. By the end of December 1979, the Soviet Union sent thousands of troops into Afghanistan and immediately assumed complete military and political control of Kabul and large portions of the country. The Afghan-Mujahedeen, Afghan rebels fighting Soviet occupation, were ill-equipped to defeat the far superior Soviet forces. Initially hoping to tie Moscow down in a prolonged war of attrition, the US provided the Mujahideen with only limited support.

Muslims from many countries, including Saudi Arabia, joined groups to support the Afghan mujahideen as an expression of their religious solidarity as well as to fight communism. President Reagan championed the idea that if the Afghan Mujahideen forces actually defeated the Soviets in Afghanistan, the broader impact would be to stem future global communist aggression. 

By 1985, America’s attrition strategy gave way to a more aggressive approach, intended to inflict a humiliating defeat on the Soviet Union.  The most audacious move was the 1986 decision to supply the Mujahideen with heat-seeking, shoulder launched Stinger antiaircraft missiles. These missiles turned the tide of the war by giving Afghan guerrillas the capability to destroy their most dreaded enemy weapon in the rugged Afghan battlefield, the Soviet Mi-24D helicopter gunship. The first three Stingers fired took down three gunships. Rebel morale soared overnight. Devastating Soviet losses mounted. A Soviet retreat was within sight.

In 1988, President Gorbachev announced his intention to withdraw Soviet forces from Afghanistan. The last Soviet soldier left in February 1989. Soviet Foreign Minister Shevardnadze later lamented, “The decision to leave Afghanistan was the first and most difficult step. Everything else flowed from that.”

This view implied that the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan led to the eventual fall of influence over the Soviet Bloc and collapse of the Soviet Union.

Ukraine - United States & Russian Relations CRS Briefing Book & Archive 2004-2022 - 1,065 pages of reports from the Congressional Research Service (CRS) related to Ukraine dating from September 21, 1994, to May 6, 2022.

USCIA Soviet Propaganda Alerts & Project Truth Documents CIA Files - 880 pages of material related to USCIA's Soviet Propaganda Alerts & Project Truth. 

The United States International Communication Agency in response to a Reagan Administration desire to counter Soviet propaganda, in 1981 began a new effort of its own called ''Project Truth." Charles Z. Wick, the USCIA's director, was tasked with overseeing his agency working with the Central Intelligence Agency and the State and Defense Departments to gather ''evidence'' for the project. Press guidance at the time said that ''Project Truth'' was designed to provide a fast-reply service to posts abroad when rumors or news reports about American activity thought to be untrue begin to circulate.

Vladimir Lenin MI5 British Intelligence Files - 457 pages of British intelligence files on Marxist theoretician Vladimir Lenin, leader of the 1917 Russian Revolution, and first premier of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).

The Bolsheviks (Bolshevists, Bolsheviki) were a segment of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party founded by Vladimir Lenin and Alexander Bogdanov. Their beliefs and practices were often referred to as Bolshevism. They ultimately became the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

These files date from 1915 to 1921. The material contains reports and memos, newspaper extracts, photos, reports on the movements and activities of Lenin and his associates, and Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) documents. The files include a hand-written annotation by one young MI5 desk officer in 1920 who wrote in the margins of a report "LENIN has no actual powers but serves as some kind of ‘figurehead.’” Elsewhere in the file, he is also described by a Home Office official as a "well known Russian social democratic pacifist".

World War II: Adolf Hitler Military Directives and Naval Conferences - 1,541 pages of U.S. Army Intelligence translations of top-level directives issued by Adolf Hitler and by the German Armed Forces High Command (0KW) from 1939 through 1945, conferences between Hitler and the Commander in Chief of the German Navy, and Battle Instructions for the German Navy.

World War II: British Foreign Office and Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) Files - 21,210 pages of British Foreign Office files related to World War II and administration of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) and the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS).

Highlights involving the Soviet Union includes:

An account of a drunken wartime meeting between Stalin and Churchill in Moscow.

Baron Inverchapel Papers - 1,950 pages of Baron Inverchapel papers dating from January 1935 to February 1946, excluding 1941. Archibald Clark Kerr, 1st Baron Inverchapel (1882-1951), known as Sir Archibald Clark Kerr between

1935 and 1946, was a British diplomat. He served as Ambassador to the Soviet Union between 1942 and 1946. He was moved to Moscow in February 1942 where he forged a relationship with Stalin and facilitated a number of Anglo-Soviet diplomatic conferences. His work there and at the Big Three Conferences (such as Yalta and Potsdam) put him at the center of international politics during the final, pivotal years of the Second World War. Throughout his posting in Moscow, he sought direction from the Foreign Office in London.

Telegram noting Churchill's concern about letting Russia overrun Berlin.

World War II: British War Cabinet War Notebooks and Transcripts - 2,320 pages of notes and translations from British cabinet meetings, dating from April 13, 1942, to December 31, 1946, copied from material maintained at the British National Archives. The collection contains 912 pages of images of notes and 1,408 pages of text transcriptions of the notes. The file contains a glossary of the individuals mentioned and the meaning of abbreviations commonly used in the notebooks.

Material includes Soviet influence in Europe. Sir Norman recorded on June 11, 1945, that Winston Churchill described Russia's advance into Central Europe as "one of the most terrible events in history".

World War II: Clifford Berryman Political Cartoons - 390 original pen-and-ink illustrations and 410 pages of descriptions dealing with World War II drawn by Pulitzer Prize winning political cartoonist Clifford K. Berryman. One of our best sets of material for following international and domestic events during the rise of fascism in Europe in 1930's, America's reaction to the prelude of war in the later 1930's, and America's entry into World War II, though its conclusion can be viewed in the Clifford Berryman Political Cartoons collection.

World War II: FDR, Truman, Churchill, Stalin Conferences Documents - 3,550 pages of minutes of the World War II inter-Allied conferences and supporting documents, reports, and directives. Conferences involving, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, President Harry S. Truman, Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, French leader Charles de Gaulle, French leader Henri Giraud, and Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek.

World War II: Katyn Massacre U.S. Military Intelligence Reports - 1,817 pages of U.S. military reports and related material covering the Katyn Massacre. The Katyn Massacre was a series of mass executions of about twenty-two thousand Polish military officers and intelligentsia carried out by the Soviet Union, specifically the NKVD in April and May 1940.

According to Nataliya Lebedeva's article, "The Tragedy of Katyn" (June 1990), from the Russian journal International Affairs, those killed at Katyn included an admiral, two generals, 24 colonels, 79 lieutenant colonels, 258 majors, 654 captains, 17 naval captains and 3,420 NCOs. Because of their social status also killed were seven chaplains, three landowners, a prince, 43 officials, 85 privates, 131 refugees, university professors, 300 physicians: several hundred lawyers, engineers, and teachers, more than 100 writers and journalists as well as about 200 non-military pilots.
 
World War II: Official Army Histories 177 Volumes - 61,596 pages, in 177 volumes of official histories of World War II created by the Historical Division of the United States Army. Within the tens of thousands of pages of written history are thousands of photographs, maps, tables, charts, illustrations, glossaries, bibliographical notes, and indexes.

World War II: US Military Summary of Heinrich Himmler's Files - A 38-page November 8, 1945, report on Heinrich Himmler including Nazi's plan for the future of Russia.