The National Security Archive, from sources at US national security agencies, principal of which were the National Security Council, the State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Defense, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff

The documents included in the collection were generated by a broad range of agencies within the US national security bureaucracy. Particularly significant are those materials that chronicle the actions of the primary decision making body in the US government during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Executive Committee of the National Security Council (NSC). Reports describing world-wide military and political developments originating from the US State Department, US embassies abroad, the Central Intelligence Agency, the armed forces intelligence organisation, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the US State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research are also prominent in the collection. In addition, US Defense Department, US Joint Chiefs of Staff, and US armed forces internal military reports are included. Finally, records from independent organisations involved in the events of 1962 form a part of the collection, and include papers from the UN and the Organisation of American States (OAS).