US Foreign Policy Records Deletion Controversy

According to the newspaper, the ministry has been legally obliged since 1991 to publish a “complete, accurate, and reliable” history of American foreign policy over the past thirty years, which is published in the series “Foreign Relations of the United States.” The newspaper added that “the State Department deleted historical records without any explanation… Deleting digital records is easier than destroying books. In January of this year, the State Department did just that when it republished a volume about the Reagan administration on its website, with 15 pages removed regarding the risk of an accidental nuclear war caused by NATO maneuvers in 1983.” According to the publication, “Information about the 1983 incident was originally included in a volume covering the Reagan administration’s policy towards the Soviet Union from 1983 to 1985.” These pages, published in February 2021, included documents such as a warning from the Director of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency that the “Able Archer 83” maneuvers brought the United States closer to nuclear war than many believed. The newspaper points out that in 2022, the entire volume mysteriously disappeared from the State Department’s website without explanation, and when it reappeared in January 2025, key pages related to the maneuvers were missing, replaced by a brief notice stating the removal of 15 pages. Using electronic archives, the newspaper’s journalists found no similar deletion in other volumes of the series. According to the documents, the 16th Soviet Air Force, stationed in Germany, declared its forces (including warplanes equipped with nuclear bombs) on high alert on November 2, 1983, in response to NATO’s launch of large-scale “Able Archer” maneuvers in Europe.