Declassification & release

CIA Declassifies Trove of Cold War-Era Intelligence Memos

As the U.S. and Russia reached the brink of nuclear war in 1962, President John F. Kennedy received top-secret intelligence from the CIA that a new warhead launcher was spotted in Cuba.

Amid those grave concerns, the memo ends on a different note. A U.S. agent in Moscow describes "packed houses and enthusiastic applause" during a run of Russian performances by the New York City Ballet.

That report, given to Kennedy a day before the end of the Cuban Missile Crisis, is among roughly 19,000 pages of newly declassified CIA documents from the Cold War released Wednesday.