On the morning of August 15, 2025, just two hours before U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin were set to meet in Anchorage, Alaska, a startling discovery was made at the Hotel Captain Cook. Eight pages of U.S. State Department documents, containing non-public and sensitive information about the high-stakes summit, were found sitting in a public printer at the hotel’s business center. The find, first reported by NPR, quickly ignited controversy and debate over the Trump administration’s handling of government information.
According to NPR, three hotel guests stumbled across the documents around 9 a.m., mere hours before the two world leaders were scheduled to sit down at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson to discuss the ongoing war in Ukraine. The Hotel Captain Cook, a four-star establishment with 550 rooms, is just a 20-minute drive from the military base. The hotel declined to comment on the precise location of the printers or how the documents were left unsecured.
The leaked papers, seven of which were produced by the State Department’s Office of the Chief of Protocol, included a detailed schedule of the day’s events, names and phone numbers of government employees, and even the lunch menu that had been planned for the summit. The first five pages outlined the event’s sequence, listing participants, locations, and times. Notably, the documents provided phonetic pronunciations for Russian officials’ names, including a line under President Putin’s name reading “POO-tihn.”
One page revealed President Trump’s intended gift for his Russian counterpart: an American Bald Eagle Desk Statue. Another page detailed the seating arrangement for the planned luncheon, showing Trump and Putin at the center of the table, flanked by their respective delegations. On the U.S. side, the chart included Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, and Special Envoy for Peace Missions Steve Witkoff. The Russian delegation featured Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov, Minister of Finance Anton Siluanov, and Minister of Defense Andrey Belousov, among others.
The seventh page described a lunch menu that, in the end, was never served. Had it gone ahead, attendees would have been treated to a green salad with champagne vinaigrette, sourdough bread with rosemary lemon butter, and a choice between filet mignon with brandy peppercorn sauce or halibut Olympia. Sides included buttery whipped potatoes and roasted asparagus, with crème brûlée and ice cream planned for dessert. The final page was a stylized version of the menu, adorned with the heading: “Luncheon in honor of his excellency Vladimir Putin.”
While the documents revealed some previously undisclosed details—such as the exact meeting times, locations, and contact numbers of staff—most of the summit’s main agenda had already been made public by the White House. Still, the incident raised eyebrows, especially given the context of past security lapses within the Trump administration. In March of the same year, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had sent sensitive information about a planned U.S. military strike in Yemen to both senior officials and a journalist via the Signal messaging app, a misstep that led to the dismissal of national security adviser Mike Waltz.
The White House, however, was quick to downplay the Alaska incident. Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly brushed off the concerns, telling NPR the discovery amounted to nothing more than a “multi-page lunch menu.” Similarly, a White House spokesperson stated that leaving the documents in a public printer did not constitute a security breach. Tommy Pigott, the State Department Principal Deputy Spokesperson, echoed this sentiment in a statement to The Independent, saying, “Instead of covering the historic steps towards peace achieved at Friday’s summit, NPR is trying to make a story out of a lunch menu. Ridiculous.”
Not everyone was convinced by the administration’s reassurances. Florida Democratic Congressman Darren Soto voiced his frustration on X (formerly Twitter), posting, “How many more headlines are we going to read about INCOMPETENT security breaches by the Trump Admin???” Security experts also weighed in. Jon Michaels, a UCLA law professor specializing in national security law, told NPR, “It strikes me as further evidence of the sloppiness and the incompetence of the administration. You just don’t leave things in printers. It’s that simple.”
The summit itself, held at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, was marked by a cordial atmosphere and high expectations for progress on the war in Ukraine. Trump and Putin met behind closed doors for nearly three hours. Afterward, Trump described the meeting as “a 10,” praising his “great relationship” with Putin. According to NPR and The Kyiv Independent, the leaders announced at a joint press conference that, while “great progress” had been made, no peace agreement was reached. Trump notably abandoned his previous demand for a ceasefire—a precondition supported by Ukraine and European allies—and instead voiced support for a rapid peace deal with Moscow.
Putin, in a briefing with top Kremlin officials the following day, characterized the summit as “very frank and substantive.” The documents left behind in the Alaska hotel, though not containing classified military secrets, nonetheless offered a glimpse into the meticulous planning and ceremonial aspects of the summit, as well as the informal tone between the two leaders. The inclusion of pronunciation guides and the emphasis on hospitality reflected the White House’s desire to present a warm welcome to the Russian delegation.
In the days following the summit, attention shifted to the broader implications of the information leak. While the White House insisted that no actual security breach had occurred, critics argued that the incident was symptomatic of a larger pattern of carelessness. The viral spread of the story—propelled by NPR’s reporting and subsequent coverage by outlets like The Independent and Reuters—sparked renewed debate over the Trump administration’s approach to protocol and information security.
Meanwhile, diplomatic efforts continued. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was scheduled to visit the White House on August 18 to discuss Putin’s request for Ukraine to relinquish the remaining territory of Donetsk province in exchange for an international peacekeeping force, including British and French troops. The outcome of those talks, and the ongoing search for a resolution to the war in Ukraine, remained uncertain.
For many observers, the episode at the Hotel Captain Cook served as both a cautionary tale and a reminder of the human element behind even the most carefully orchestrated diplomatic events. Whether a “multi-page lunch menu” or a window into the inner workings of international summits, the forgotten documents in Anchorage became a symbol of the challenges—and the unpredictability—of global diplomacy in 2025.
