DALE VAN ATTA PAPERS, 1968-78

Dale Van Atta is a Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist whose work has appeared in newspapers and magazines nationwide, including Reader’s Digest where he was a contributing editor, as well as The New York Times, Washington Post, Newsweek, Time, Harper’s, the Washingtonian, and many others. He is co-author, with Jack Anderson, of The New York Times best-selling biography Stormin’ Norman: An American Hero (1991), and the author of two other books, Trust Betrayed: Inside the AARP (1998) and With Honor – Melvin Laird in War, Peace, and Politics (2008). Van Atta has also appeared as a guest on several radio and television talk shows and is an accomplished national and international lecturer.

Scope and Content
This collection contains documents acquired by journalists Jack Anderson and Dale Van Atta during their tenure as columnists for the Washington Post. It is comprised of various documents from intelligence agencies within the Federal government and represented one of the largest leaks of classified material at that time. In October 2000, as Van Atta was working on his biography of former Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird, he decided to donate the materials to the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he had conducted research for his book.

The photocopied documents are arranged chronologically with an almost complete set of National Security Decision Memoranda (NSDMs), 1969-1975, in the first three boxes, the majority of them from the Nixon Administration. They include topics such as Vietnam and Southeast Asia policy, SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks), Panama Canal Treaty negotiations, and various dealings with the People’s Republic of China. NSDMs from the Ford Administration include topics such as military assistance for Israel, Peaceful Nuclear Explosion negotiations in Moscow, and SALT and MBFR (Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions) talks with the Soviet Union. NSDMs declassified in full or in part for both the Nixon and Ford Administrations are posted on their respective websites (www.nixonlibrary.gov and www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov).

The remaining fourteen boxes contain a chronological series of intelligence documents mostly from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and Department of State (DOS). CIA documents include the National Intelligence Daily, the United States Intelligence Board – National Intelligence Bulletin, Staff Notes, the Weekly Review, the Weekly Surveyor, and the Morning Summary. DIA documents include several Intelligence Appraisals. DOS documents include Current Foreign Relations, various telegrams, and documents issued by the Bureau of Intelligence and Research.

The subject content of these documents is quite diverse. The more prominent topics include unrest in the Middle East involving Egypt and Israel, but also Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. There are several documents that deal with civil unrest in southern Africa, particularly in Angola, which was under Portuguese colonial rule until late 1975. This includes material that pertains to warring factions such as the communist-backed (including Cuban troops) Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA), and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), led by Jonas Savimbi. There is also considerable material on unrest between Morocco, Mauritania, and Spain over the Spanish Sahara during the November 1975 Green March. In addition, several of the CIA Staff Notes exclusively deal with Chinese Affairs and the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Many of the various documents also involve political unrest in Portugal and the rise of the Portuguese Communist Party, Indonesia’s invasion of Portuguese Timor, and civil unrest between Greece and Turkey over the Cyprus issue and U.S. troops stationed on bases in Turkey.

Related Materials(June 2012)
Due to the volume and wide-ranging nature of the foreign affairs documents from the various intelligence agencies that comprise the Dale Van Atta Papers, there are several subcollections within the National Security Adviser’s Files that are compatible to the Van Atta collection. They include:

• Kissinger Reports on USSR, China, and Middle East Discussions
• Memoranda of Conversations
• NSC East Asia and Pacific Affairs Staff: Files
• NSC Latin American Affairs Staff: Files
• NSC Meeting Minutes
• National Security Study Memoranda and Decision Memoranda
• "Outside the System" Chronological Files
• Presidential Correspondence with Foreign Leaders
• Presidential Country Files for Africa
• Presidential Country Files for East Asia and the Pacific
• Presidential Country Files for Europe and Canada
• Presidential Country Files for Latin America
• Presidential Country Files for Middle East and South Asia
• Trip Briefing Books and Cables of Henry Kissinger
• Trip Briefing Books and Cables of President Ford
• Trip Cables of Brent Scowcroft