The Foundation
Founded in 1983 by William Geimer, The Jamestown Foundation made a direct contribution to the downfall of Communism through its dissemination of information about closed totalitarian societies in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Geimer and a small staff worked with Warsaw Pact defectors to tell their stories in articles, books, speeches, and briefings.
Among the most notable of these defectors were Romania’s acting intelligence chief Ion Pacepa and UN Undersecretary General for Political Affairs Arkady Shevchenko. Paceba worked closely with Jamestown to produce his memoir, Red Horizons: Chronicles of a Communist Spy Chief, which was broadcast and smuggled into Romania. The book stirred popular anger against the country’s brutal regime, with many of the key accusations at President Nicolae Ceaușescu’s trial coming word-for-word out of Red Horizons. Around the same time, Shevchenko’s Breaking With Moscow revealed the details of Soviet superpower diplomacy at the height of the Cold War. Through its work with Shevchenko and others, Jamestown became the leading source of information about the inner workings of the captive nations of the former Communist Bloc.
Our Work Today
Today, Jamestown has evolved into a leading, nonpartisan purveyor of open-source analysis on Russia, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Central Asia, China, and Taiwan, as well as global terrorism. Our global network draws upon indigenous and primary sources, as well as their own firsthand experience, to provide objective insight into these target countries and regions. Jamestown staff and our broader network are regularly cited in U.S. and international media, and routinely brief government officials from around the world.
Jamestown’s analysts have repeatedly called the most important developments correctly—from Russia’s coercive energy diplomacy and designs on Ukraine, to the importance of the People’s Republic of China’s military-civil fusion development strategy. We do this by continuously monitoring U.S. rivals and strategic issues—avoiding the more common piecemeal, project-by-project approach. Our core of intellectual talent includes former government officials and military officers, journalists, and scholars, as well as rising talents across our areas of coverage.
“The value of Jamestown lies in its ability to tell complex stories through detailed research and analysis to the widest audience possible in a way that is digestible and actionable."
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