It’s one of the most secret and restricted areas at NATO Headquarters in Brussels.
But with more than seven km of shelving and more than 320,000 restricted documents made
public, NATO’s archives aren’t just an incredible supply of historical information
but a great source to understand the present and even the future of the Alliance.
More than 30 years of history, minutely recorded in political and military documents, can strike
a different chord on today’s most cutting issues.
“For example, here is a document of 1957 where the Council asked for a political and
economic assessment of Syria and, particularly, they looked at the infiltration by the Soviet
Union, or the penetration by the Soviet Union, in Syria, and how this influenced also the
relationship with Syria and the neighbouring countries and what an impact Syria had on
the neighbouring countries such as Iraq.
Another example is a request for membership in 1954, which was a letter addressed to three
Allies - to the UK, the USA and France - by the Soviet Union asking for membership to
NATO.”
The NATO Archives are the official home to some of the most important historical documents,
videos and photos of the 20th and 21st centuries dating back before the Suez Crisis in 1956
and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 that led to radical changes throughout Europe.
Reading through the hundreds of NATO declassified documents, it becomes clear that the formative
years of the Alliance not only tackled immediate issues but also dealt with debates that are
still relevant in political forums today.
To keep the memory alive NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg paid a visit to the NATO
archive… with a special guest.
“For me it’s great to have Thorvald my father here and to feel the history because
he attended his first NATO meeting back in the 1950s and then he has attended many many
different kinds of NATO meeting through the 60s, 70s and 80s and up to the beginning of
the 1990s and I feel some kind of history.
And I feel that even though he says that he don’t want to give me advice, I listen to
him because he has a lot of advice to give, but he does it in a very polite way and a
very discrete way and just to listen to the experiences and the knowledge that Thorvald
has is of great importance for me.”
Thorvald Stoltenberg is not just the father of the NATO Secretary General.
In his long career he served as Norwegian Minister of Defence, Minister of Foreign Affairs,
and was appointed Président d’Honneur of the North Atlantic Council, having acquired
significant experience on security issues.
In the archive there are many documents bearing his name, but despite his knowledge and his
experience, he is not keen to proffer advice to his son.
“When Jens first became Prime Minister, I decided that the advices I could give him
I must already have given him before he became Prime Minister.
The same is now that he is Secretary General at NATO.
So I don’t give him any advice.
I tell you why, because when I was Foreign Minister of Norway, Defence Minister, there
were a lot of nice, elderly people giving me advice, and the more I liked them, the
more difficult it was to ignore their advice.”
But beyond the advice these documents can provide, for the Secretary General, the future
for NATO’s archives is clear.
“Transparency is important because transparency increases trust.
That’s the reason why NATO is doing more to be more transparent, both when it comes
to historical documents but also when it comes to everything related to how we spend our
money.
That’s one of the issues I’m going to discuss with my staff, on how we can become
even more transparent.”