[Milsurplus] Listing of Classified/Restricted Documents at AFHRA

[Jim Klotz]

Hey Folks!  If you haven't heard about this, then you need to know of it.

I'm certain that students of military history will find a goldmine of 
information
among this material.  Also available on the web site are tips on how to file
Mandatory Declassification Requests to obtain material.

Mike Ravnitzky has helped me personally several times in the past, and all 
of us
directly or indirectly.  He is a tireless and effective advocate for 
openness in
government.  He's gotten more stuff on more topics released than anyone
else I know of.

Mike has asked mw to pass this information along, and I'm asking that you 
all
forward this to anyone who may be interested.

- Jim Klotz

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Listing of Classified and Restricted Documents at the Air Force
Historical Research Agency

by Michael Ravnitzky , mikerav at mindspring.com

http://www.thememoryhole.org/mil/afhra/

Over 500,000 documents cover almost every aspect of US military history
from the 1920s to the early 1980s

Very few of these documents have been released to the public

In response to a Freedom of Information Act request by researcher
Michael Ravnitzky, the Air Force Historical Research Agency - which
maintains one of the largest repositories of US military historical
documents - released in early 2001 a list of its still-classified and
still-restricted documents. This unprecedented database contains
information on well over *half a million* documents held by the agency.

The list was released on a cumbersome data cartridge and stored in an
awkward data format. The Memory Hole's tech guru Brett Milner has
laboriously extracted and converted this massive file into a series of
more manageable Excel spreadsheets.

The 550,000+ documents are identified by call numbers, title, date,
author, etc.; they include reports, memos, directives, histories, daily
operations reports, oral histories, interviews, situation reports,
intelligence summaries, speeches, chronologies, logs, minutes,
briefings, correspondence, press clippings, newsletters, photos, slides,
audiotapes, and more. We have spotted documents that date back to the
1920s and some as recent as the early 1980s. (The FOIA request asked the
agency to limit the list to documents more than 20 years old.)

Among the many, many areas covered are World War II, the Vietnam War
(including Laos and Cambodia), the Korean War, the Cold War, the
Balkans, specific aircraft and weapons systems, histories of bases and
squadrons, accidents, nuclear weapons, chemical and biological warfare,
space exploration, satellites, UFOs, NATO, and NORAD.

There appear to be a large number of documents that are not designated
as classified but are apparently limited or restricted for other
reasons. While documents may be identified as classified or restricted,
the passage of time as well as the presidential rules on protecting
classified information make it somewhat likely that any particular
document would now be declassified and/or released upon request.

http://www.thememoryhole.org/mil/afhra/

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