Formerly classified United States government documents provide a valuable insight into the discussion, motivation and formation of American domestic and international relations policies. The American University Library owns two main databases devoted to declassified U.S. government documents and multiple subject-specific databases of declassified FBI & Department of State files.
Declassified documents central to US foreign and military policy since 1945. Documents include presidential directives, memos, diplomatic dispatches, meeting notes, independent reports, briefing papers, White House communications, emails, confidential letters, and other secret materials.
The DDRS contains about 700,000 declassified documents from 1900 to 2008. These documents are from the U.S. presidential libraries and the National Archives, and deal with nearly every major foreign and domestic event.
This resource was purchased in part through the generous support of Ronald Hamowy and Clement Ho.
They include documents from U.S. government offices and agencies, including:
Materials available for review include:
The Digitial National Security Archive is produced by the National Security Archive which is based at George Washington University. This database is composed of over 103,000 declassified documents that were obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). These documents are grouped into a growing number of collections based on particular themes. Each document is a scanned image of the original. Unlike the Declassified Documents Reference System, the Digital National Security Archive deals almost exclusively with international events.
Please note that the Digital National Security Archive is not the same as the National Security Archive website. Their website only has a small number of documents available.
Let's search for documents pertaining to Al Qaeda.
Searching Digital National Security Archive is similar to searching a journal database. One can use the basic search on the database homepage, or click on 'Advanced Search' for more options.
One can search the whole database or individual collections of documents.
This search retrieved 1184 documents
Because I do not know what type of documents I am looking for, just any documents pertaining to Al Qaeda, I would keep my search very simple and not use other limits, such as level of classification, type of documents, date, or add extra search words using the Boolean operator AND.
Each result provides descriptive information and a PDF of the scanned image of the original document.
Please note that a document may be lightly or heavily redacted, that is, portions of the document may be removed or obscured.
One very nice feature of the Digital National Security Archive is that there is detailed information about the collections so that researchers know what they are searching. Just click on the hamburger menu and return to the Basic Search page:
Once on the database homepage, scroll down to the list of 'Included databases'. Click 'Show all' to view the complete list of 60+ databases.
Click on the database title and you will land on that database's main page. Click on 'More information' to view a detailed description of the collection:
U.S. Declassified Documents Online (USDDO), successor to the Declassified Documents Reference System (DDRS), has more than 700,000 declassified U.S. government documents dating from the twentieth to twenty-first centuries as they are released from United States government agencies, the National Archives and Presidential Libraries. Each document is a scanned image of the orginal. These documents cover both international and U.S. domestic events.
Searching USDDO is similar to searching a journal database. The Advanced Search feature allows for more precise searching of the documents.
Let's search for documents regarding the Suez Crisis in 1956 and 1957.
A search with just the word "suez" retrieved 3,243 documents. To limit to more relevant documents, I would limit my search to the documents from 1956 to 1957.
Search tip: Because I do not know what type of documents I am looking for, just any documents pertaining to the Suez Crisis, I would keep my search very simple and not use other limits, such as type of documents, source institions or classification level.
This more limited search retrieved 749 documents. Each document displays the scanned image of the actual document. You can sort the results by relevance, date, title, and author. You can filter the results using the buttons in the right sidebar.
Please note that a document may be lightly or heavily redacted, that is, portions of the document may be removed or obscured.
This collection of U.S. State Department Central Classified Files relating to internal and foreign affairs contain a wide range of materials from U.S. diplomats.
This resource was made possible through the Class of '32 Library Fund. 
Declassified FBI reports dealing with every aspect of antiwar work carried out by the organization Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW). The collection also includes surveillance on a variety of other antiwar groups and individuals, with an emphasis on student groups and communist organizations. Covers the period 1967 to 1975.
Formed in 1968, the American Indian Movement (AIM) expanded from its roots in Minnesota and broadened its political agenda to include a searching analysis of the nature of social injustice in America. These FBI files provide detailed information on the evolution of AIM as an organization of social protest and the development of Native American radicalism.
Declassified by the State Department, the Records of the Office of Chinese Affairs, 1945-1955, provide valuable insight into numerous domestic issues in Communist and Nationalist China, U.S. containment policy as it was extended to Asia, and Sino-American relations during the post-war period.
This resource was made possible through the Class of '32 Library Fund.
FBI files on radical U.S. figures and organizations. Documents cover 1956 to 1971.
Contains files of the FBI Counterintelligence Program (CONTELPRO) from 1956 to 1971 on prominent black Americans and their organizations.
This collection highlights the FBI's efforts to disrupt the activities of the largest of the Puerto Rican independence parties, Partido Independentista Puertorriqueño, and compromise their effectiveness. In addition, these documents provide documentary history and analysis of why independence was the second-largest political movement in the island, (after support for commonwealth status), and a real alternative.
Composed of FBI surveillance files on the activities of the African Liberation Support Committee and All African People's Revolutionary Party; this collection provides two unique views on African American support for liberation struggles in Africa, the issue of Pan-Africanism, and the role of African independence movements as political leverage for domestic Black struggles.
Declassified FBI files on the group of civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated South in 1961 to test the United States Supreme Court decision in Boynton v. Virginia.