>>> “Documents From the US Espionage Den” is a legendary series of Iranian books containing classified US documents that were found in the American Embassy in Tehran when it was taken over by revolutionaries. These books are very hard to come by in the US, and until now there has been no concerted effort to post them. The National Security Archive is integrating individual documents into their electronic reading books on various topics, but we’re interested in posting the whole set, volume by volume. As a first step, we’re offering a smattering of the documents via the files above. We beseech anyone with access to the books – either the bound volumes or scanned versions of the English-language portions – to please get in touch.
Steven Aftergood of the Project on Government Secrecy (part of the Federation of American Scientists) gave an excellent introduction to these publications in 1997:
Many people will recall that when Iranian revolutionaries seized the U.S. embassy in Teheran in 1979, they acquired a large cache of classified U.S. government documents, some of which had been shredded and painstakingly reassembled, which they proceeded to publish. What no one seems to have noticed, however, is that they never stopped publishing!
By 1995, an amazing 77 volumes of “Documents from the U.S. Espionage Den” (Asnad-i lanih-‘i Jasusi) had been collected and published by the “Muslim Students Following the Line of the Imam” (Center for the Publication of the U.S. Espionage Den’s Documents, P.O. Box 15815-3489, Teheran, Islamic Republic of Iran, tel. 824005). Each volume contains original documents along with Farsi translations and, for no extra charge, an inflammatory introductory essay. [Read the full article here]
In a frequently referenced 1987 article on the subject, Edward Jay Epstein wrote:
…Iranian students seized an entire archive of CIA and State Department documents, which represented one of the most extensive losses of secret data in the history of any modern intelligence service. Even though many of these documents were shredded into thin strips before the Embassy, and CIA base, was surrendered, the Iranians managed to piece them back together. They were then published in 1982 in 54 volumes under the title “Documents From the U.S. Espionage Den”, and are sold in the United States for $246.50. As the Teheran Embassy evidently served as a regional base for the CIA, The scope of this captures intelligence goes well beyond intelligence reports on Iran alone. They cover the Soviet Union, Turkey, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq. There are also secret analysis of arcane subjects ranging from the effectiveness of Israeli intelligence to Soviet oil production. [Read the full article here]
It turns out that in keeping with the times, the majority of the “Espionage Den” volumes have been scanned and are available on CDs sold in Iran. A Memory Hole reader had an Iranian friend buy the two-volume set, which he kindly gave to us. The major down side is that while the CDs contain 68 volumes of “Espionage Den” in Farsi (totalling over 10,000 pages), they contain only two PDF files of the original English-language documents (totalling a meager 400 pages). Adding to the frustration, the English material is presented in completely random order. Each page is usually from a completely different document than the page before and after it. We’re posting them as they appear on the CD (although broken down into five files instead of two, since the original files were so huge). If some enterprising reader wants to create an index, we’ll happily post it here.
Most of these documents are labeled “Confidential” or “Secret” and remain classified to this day.
Acrobat/PDF files
Part One (88 pages | 7.7 meg)
Part Two (88 pages | 7.8 meg)
Part Three (84 pages | 8.6 meg)
Part Four (70 pages | 7 meg)
Part Five (70 pages | 6 meg)
[…]
http://www.thememoryhole.org/espionage_den/
I remember watching a documentary about the amazing students who put together the millions of shredds of documents left behind when the ameicans were routed. They sat on the floor, carefully sifting through the strips of paper. As it says above, the completed reconstructions were published in books. Now you can understand a little bit more why Iranians call america The Great Satan. If you had read of the dastardly deeds done to them and their country, you would be as full of disdain as they are.
I have always wanted a copy of the documents they managed to reconstruct; its a pity that todays rock lusting ‘give us hamburgers’ Iranian students don’t have the zeal and common sense that their predecessors did – can you imagine the job they could be doing with the internet to show the world just what the hell is being done to them yet again?
Check it out:
http://www.thememoryhole.org/espionage_den/photos.htm
Golf ball dishes, Radios (and presumably crypto tools), Teletypes, periodic antennae – they really hit the motherlode!
UPDATE 2013
The venerable Memory Hole has been offline for years. Luckily, we made a copy of these fascinating documents, assembled them into a single 400 page PDF and stored them on Scribd where you can download them into your e-reader for perusal at your leisure. At the time of this update, they have been downloaded or read over eleven and a half thousand times.
