The collection presents an integrated record of US decision making during the 1958-1962 confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States over the situation of Berlin specifically, and Germany generally. The collection includes primarily records of Eisenhower's telephone conversations with Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and Under Secretary of State Christian Archibald Herter and minutes of Eisenhower's discussions with Gen Andrew Jackson Goodpaster, Defense Liaison Officer and Staff Secretary to the President and, for the Kennedy administration, records mainly prepared by McGeorge Bundy, Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, and Laurence J Legere, Assistant to the Military Representative of the President, 1961-1962 and Senior National Security Council Staff Member, 1962-1963. The collection also includes records of East-West negotiations over Berlin and Germany, including US-Soviet 'exploratory discussions', 1958-1962; material relating to Allied efforts to develop a co-ordinated negotiating position during the first months of 1959 and the subsequent protracted talks in Geneva, Switzerland, May-Aug 1959; material relating to LIVE OAK, the tripartite American-British-French Berlin military contingency planning group under the direction of Gen Lauris Norstad, Commander- in-Chief US European Command and Supreme Allied Commander Europe, Apr 1959; papers relating to US and Soviet nuclear capabilities, 1959-1962; Berlin checkpoint crises, 1959-1961; a complete record of the summit meeting in Sep 1959 between Eisenhower and Soviet Prime Minister Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev at Camp David, Maryland, USA; papers relating to Western preparations for discussions on Berlin at the aborted summit of May 1960; papers relating to the 'Wall Crisis', including material relating to the refugee problem in the German Democratic Republic and US and Allied reactions to the construction of the Berlin Wall, Aug 1961; US and Soviet confrontations at US zone checkpoint, 'Checkpoint Charlie', Oct 1961; minutes of conversations between Soviet and US policy makers during the Kennedy administration, including a compete record of the talks between (David) Dean Rusk, US Secretary of State, and Andrei Andreevich Gromyko, Soviet Foreign Minister, Gromyko and Llewellyn E Thompson, US Ambassador to the Soviet Union, and Rusk and Anatoly Federovich Dobrynin, Soviet Ambassador to the US, 1962. It should be noted that papers of major Kennedy administration officials remain closed due to security processing delays at the John F Kennedy Library. Thus, files after Sep 1961 in the National Security Files remain largely sealed. Moreover, documents from files that have been reviewed continue to be withheld or heavily excised. Also, many of the Central Intelligence Agency and US Department of Defense files from 1961-1962 continue to be withheld or heavily excised.

The Soviet Estimate: US Analysis of the Soviet Union, 1947-1991 is a themed microfilm collection which presents an integrated record of US intelligence estimates and studies relating to Soviet strategic projections, military capabilities, science and technology, economics and internal politics, 1946-1991. The estimates and studies were produced either collectively as national intelligence products or by individual agencies, and include contributions from the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA); the Director of Central Intelligence; the US Defense Intelligence Agency; and, the US State Department. The collection includes CIA and British Secret Intelligence Service debriefing transcripts of former Soviet Gavnoye Razvedyvatelnoye Upravleniye (GRU), Chief Intelligence Directorate, Soviet General Staff, operative Oleg V Penkovskii, relating to Soviet military organisation and plans for nuclear war, Soviet nuclear targets and deployments in Europe, missile technology and launch sites, Soviet military personnel, the capture of Capt Francis Gary Powers, US Air Force U-2 High Altitude Reconnaissance Aircraft pilot, 1 May 1960, profiles of Soviet military officers, locations of Soviet nuclear weapons tests, Soviet intelligence organisations and Soviet chemical and biological weapons programs, Soviet development and deployment of Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs), positions of Soviet divisions in East Germany, and the Berlin Crisis (1958- 1962), 20 Apr-14 Oct 1961; yearly US estimates of Soviet strategic capabilities, 1947- 1983, including the 'missile gap' National Intelligence Estimates, 1957-1961; detailed estimates of the Soviet space program, including National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs) relating to lunar exploration, manned space flight, reconnaissance satellites, space exploration, space weapons and weapons development, 1962-1967; US Air Force report entitled 'A History of Strategic Arms Competition: Volume 3, A Handbook of Selected Soviet Weapons and Space Systems', including data relating to Soviet air to surface missiles (AS), Tupolev bomber aircraft, M-4 / Mya-4 / 2M Myasishchev ('Bison') aircraft, space weapons, communication satellites, electronic intelligence capabilities, surface to surface (SS) theatre missiles and ICBMs, Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles (IRBMs), Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missiles (SLBMs), Jun 1976; US intelligence community experiment in competitive analysis conducted by the CIA 'B Team' relating to US misperceptions of Soviet strategic objectives and offensive and defensive forces, Dec 1976; report from the US Department of State entitled 'History of the Strategic Arms Competition 1945-1972, parts 1 and 2', including detailed surveys and analyses of Soviet and US decision making on nuclear forces, force deployments, and nuclear strategies, Mar 1981; Special National Intelligence Estimate relating to Soviet support for international terrorism and revolutionary activities, including mention of arms transfers, military training, political violence, and terrorist activities in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East, May 1981; reports from the CIA concerning Soviet perspectives on research and development in energy-directed weapons and involvement in space weapons and Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) research, 1985; National Intelligence Estimates relating to General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev's prospects for reforming the Soviet economic and political system, including mention of his economic agenda and its implications for the Soviet military program, the dynamics of Soviet civil-military relations, the impact of reforms on labour production, health, standards of living and technological development, and the rise of civil unrest and nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1985- 1989; CIA report concerning the probabilities of a coup d'etat in the Soviet Union and the growing influence of Chairman of the Russian Republic Supreme Soviet, Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin, May 1991.