The Venona Papers and anti-communism

This article contains content from Wikipedia. Current versions of the GNU FDL article Venona project on WP may contain information useful to the improvement of this article

WP

The Venona project was a long-running secret collaboration of the United States (WP) and United Kingdom (WP) intelligence agencies involving Wikipedia:cryptanalysis of messages sent by intelligence agencies of the Soviet Union (WP), the majority during World War II (WP). It was not until 1995 that project materials were released by the US government. The evidence was roundly criticized by analysts as . After the fact, and despite , the evidence gathered supporters, including people with enough letters after their name to supposedly know better, whose conclusions run the gamut from asserting that the evidence supported the results of spy cases, such as that against Julius Rosenberg (WP), all the way to concocting a nationwide conspiracy to support the USSR.

""It would be a fine thing if the "new openness" were actually to happen (e.g., can we expect the C.I.A. to release the names of the thousand books whose publication it covertly sponsored, according to the Church Committee?), but if so, the Venona Conference constituted at best a token beginning. Instead, one was left with the impression that the neoconservative spinmeisters who dominated the proceedings are trying to exploit the detritus of Venona to confirm the demonizing myths of the cold war. Their project: to enlarge post­cold war intelligence gathering capability at the expense of civil liberty. The Venona Conference tells us that those who care about democratic freedoms should resist and expose this false interpretation of history." - Tales From Decrypts, Navasky, the Nation

The strictest secrecy was applied; unlike the slapdash nature of most codewords, there were at least 13 codewords for this project that were used by the US and British intelligence agencies (including the National Security Agency (WP)); Venona was the last that was used.

It is rational to expect that Soviet leaders might have been talking as much about their enemies as their potential allies, to say nothing of occasionally making smalltalk about something other than politics and therefore mentioning names of no great significance. But because the reading public is not always rational, the center and near-right tend to find the list nearly as disturbing as the left does, because there are many right-wingers on the list. Those with anti-communism running unadulterated through their veins are unable to comprehend either potential, or are happy to let the mainstream right linger under suspicion, and find the whole thing a happy playground for paranoid fantasy.

Most decipherable messages were transmitted and intercepted between 1942 and 1945. Sometime in 1945, the existence of the Venona program was revealed to the Soviet Union by the NKVD (WP) agent and Wikipedia:United States Army Wikipedia:SIGINT analyst and Wikipedia:cryptologist Wikipedia:Bill Weisband.

Background

During the initial years of the Cold War (WP), the Venona project was a source of information on Soviet intelligence-gathering activity that was directed at the Western military powers. After the fact it is easy to imply that Presidents Wikipedia:Franklin D. Roosevelt and Wikipedia:Harry S. Truman were left out of the loop, but the fact is that the information gathered by the Venona programs were of no importance to the events of the early Cold War, due to their unreliable verifiability. In some cases, however, such as the Wikipedia:Julius and Ethel Rosenberg spying case and the defections of Donald Maclean and Wikipedia:Guy Burgess to the Wikipedia:Soviet Union, the government was desperate enough for any incriminating information that it would overlook these weaknesses.

To what extent the various individuals were involved with Soviet intelligence is a topic of dispute. While a number of academic people and historians assert that most of the individuals mentioned in the Venona decrypts were most likely either clandestine assets and/or contacts of Soviet intelligence agents, others argue that many of those people probably had no malicious intentions and committed no crimes.

Decryption

Many means are said to have been employed to crack the codes, including the sale by Finnish radio intelligence of much of its material concerning Soviet codes to the OSS in 1944 during Wikipedia:Operation Stella Polaris, including a partially burned code book.

Inherent problems

On 1 February 1956, the FBI's number-three man, Alan Belmont, Assistant to the Director, distributed to top Bureau officials the only known government analysis ever prepared on the reliability of the Venona decrypts with an eye to the possibility of using the decoded Venona material as prosecutorial evidence in court.

Belmont compared the Venona messages to Wikipedia:teleprinters sent from FBI field offices to headquarters. The first messages to be partially decoded were full of gaps and were unintelligible. The Army then turned to the FBI, believing "the Bureau by studying the messages and conducting investigations would be able to develop information which would assist the Army cryptographers in reading additional unrecovered portions of the messages." Belmont concluded the decrypted material might not meet standards for evidence set by US law, and, even if it did, it suffered from deficiencies that could limit its usefulness as proof.

In the first place, we do not know if the deciphered messages would be admitted into evidence.... The defense attorney would immediately move that the messages be excluded, based on the hearsay evidence rule. He would probably claim that...the contents of the messages were purely hearsay as it related to the defendants.

Belmont made it clear the successful use of the messages in a court of law to prove guilt would be difficult as well as violating hearsay evidence rules of evidence and the right of a defendant to face his accuser. The evidence had inherent weaknesses:

The messages … are, for the most part, very fragmentary and full of gaps. Some parts of the messages can never be recovered again because during the actual intercept the complete message was not obtained. Other portions can be recovered only through the skill of the cryptographers and with the Bureau's assistance.

Belmont discussed the risks of making assumptions:

It must be realized that the [deleted] cryptographers make certain assumptions as to meanings when deciphering these messages and thereafter the proper translations of Russian idioms can become a problem. It is for such reasons that [deleted] has indicated that almost anything included in a translation of one of these deciphered messages may in the future be radically revised.

Belmont discussed the problem of linking a code name with an actual name:

Another very important factor to be considered when discussing the accuracy of these deciphered messages is the extensive use of cover names noted in this traffic. Once an individual was considered for recruitment as an agent by the Soviets, sufficient background data on him was sent to headquarters in Moscow. Thereafter, he was given a cover name and his true name was not mentioned again. This makes positive identifications most difficult since we seldom receive the initial message which states that agent "so and so" (true name) will henceforth be known as "____" (cover name). Also, cover names were changed rather frequently and the cover name "Henry" might apply to two different individuals, depending upon the date it was used…

Belmont dourly concluded:

All of the above factors make difficult a correct reading of the messages and point up the tentative nature of many identifications.

The Antenna example

FBI Assistant Director Alan H. Belmont offered a example of "the tentative nature of many identifications" "concerning an individual with the cover name 'Antenna.'

A message dated 5 May 1944 carried information indicating an individual code-named 'Antenna' was 25 years of age, a member of CP USA, lived in New York, matriculated at Cooper Union about 1940, worked in the U.S. Army Signal Corps at Ft. Monmouth, NJ, and his wife's name was Ethel.

We made a tentative identification of 'Antenna' as Joseph Weichbrod since the background of Weichbrod corresponded with the information known about 'Antenna.' Weichbrod was about the right age, had a Communist background, lived in NYC, attended Cooper Union in 1939, worked at the Signal Corps, Ft. Monmouth, and his wife's name was Ethel. He was a good suspect for 'Antenna' until sometime later when we definitely established through investigation that 'Antenna' was Wikipedia:Julius Rosenberg."

Usability in prosecutions

FBI's Alan Belmont considered that, although decryption might corroborate the testimony of Wikipedia:Elizabeth Bentley and enable successful prosecution of such suspects as Wikipedia:Judith Coplon and the Perlo and Silvermaster groups, a careful study of all factors compelled the conclusion it would not be in the best interests of prosecutors, defendants, and the United States to use Venona project information for prosecution.

As stated earlier, the Belmont's memo offered a number of reasons why it was uncertain whether or not the Venona project information should be revealed and admitted into evidence.

A major hurdle was a question of law. A defense attorney might immediately move to dismiss the evidence as hearsay, since neither the Soviet official who sent the message, nor the one who received it was available to testify. The FBI reasoned that decrypts probably could have been introduced, on an exception to the hearsay rule, based on the expert testimony of cryptographers.

In addition, according to Belmont, "the fragmentary nature of the messages and the extensive use of cover names therein make positive identification of the subjects difficult." Cover names were used not only for Soviet agents but other people as well. President Roosevelt, for example, was called "Kapitan" (Captain), and Los Alamos the "Reservation". Cover names also were frequently changed, and a cover name might actually apply to two different people, depending on the date it was used. Several subjects, notably Alger Hiss, Harry Dexter White, Maurice Halperin, and Lauchlin Currie, denied the accusations in open Congressional Hearings based on information from sources other than Venona. Assumptions made by cryptographers, questionable interpretations and translations placed reliance upon the expert testimony of cryptographers, and the entire case would be circumstantial.

Defense attorneys also would probably request to examine messages that cryptographers were unsuccessful in breaking and not in evidence, on the belief that such messages, if decoded, could exonerate their clients. Before any messages could be used in court they would have to be declassified. Approval would have to come from several layers of bureaucracy as well as notification to British counterparts working on the same problem. The FBI determined this would lead to the exposure of government techniques and practices in the cryptography field to unauthorized persons, compromise the government's efforts in communications intelligence, and hinder other pending investigations.

Results

The NSA reported that, according to the serial numbers of the Venona cables, thousands were sent, but only a fraction were available to the cryptanalysts. Approximately 2,200 of the messages were decrypted and translated; some 50 percent of the 1943 GRU-Naval Washington to Moscow messages were broken, but none for any other year, although several thousand were sent between 1941 and 1945. The decryption rate of the NKVD cables was:

• 1942 1.8%
• 1943 15.0%
• 1944 49.0%
• 1945 1.5%

Out of some hundreds of thousands of intercepted encrypted texts, it is claimed that under 3,000 have been partially or wholly decrypted. All of the duplicate one-time pad pages were produced in 1942, and almost all of them had been used by the end of 1945, with a few being used as late as 1948. After this, Soviet message traffic reverted to completely unreadable.

The existence of Venona decryption became known to the Soviets within a few years of the first breaks. It is not clear whether the Soviets knew how much of the message traffic, or which messages, had been successfully decrypted. At least one Soviet penetration agent, British Wikipedia:Secret Intelligence Service representative to the US, Wikipedia:Kim Philby, was told about the project in 1949, as part of his job as liaison between British and US intelligence. Since all of the duplicate one-time pad pages had been used by this time, the Soviets apparently did not make any changes to their cryptographic procedures after they learned of Venona. However, this information did allow them to alert those of their agents who might be at risk of exposure due to the decryption.

Significance

The identification of individuals mentioned in Venona transcripts is sometimes problematic, since people with a "covert relationship" with Soviet intelligence are referenced by code names. Further complicating matters is the fact that the same person sometimes had different code names at different times, and the same code name was sometimes reused for different individuals. In some cases, notably that of Alger Hiss, the matching of a Venona code name to an individual is disputed. In many other cases, a Venona code name has not yet been linked to any person. According to authors Wikipedia:John Earl Haynes and Wikipedia:Harvey Klehr, the Venona transcripts identify approximately 349 Americans whom they claim had a covert relationship with Soviet intelligence, though fewer than half of these have been matched to real-name identities.

The decrypted messages gave a lot of data in the period during which Soviet communications were compromised. With the first break into the code, Venona revealed data that analysts believed proved the existence of Soviet espionage at Los Alamos National Laboratories.

Wikipedia here provides a fallacy of causation in linking the start of the program with other successful espionage: "Identities soon emerged of American, Canadian, Australian, and British spies in service to the Soviet government, including Wikipedia:Klaus Fuchs, Wikipedia:Alan Nunn May, and Donald Maclean, a member of the Wikipedia:Cambridge Five spy ring. Others worked in Washington in the State Department, the Treasury, Office of Strategic Services, and even the White House." (the last phrase is unverified)

A few writers believe that the decrypts show that the US and other nations were targeted in major espionage campaigns by the Soviet Union as early as 1942. Among those identified are Wikipedia:Julius and Ethel Rosenberg; Wikipedia:Alger Hiss; Wikipedia:Harry Dexter White, the second-highest official in the Treasury Department; Wikipedia:Lauchlin Currie, a personal aide to Franklin Roosevelt; and Wikipedia:Maurice Halperin, a section head in the Office of Strategic Services.

Scholar Hayden B. Peake says that the Wikipedia:Office of Strategic Services, the predecessor to the Central Intelligence Agency (WP), housed at one time or another between fifteen and twenty Soviet spies. Wikipedia:Duncan Lee, Wikipedia:Donald Wheeler, Wikipedia:Jane Foster Zlatowski, and Wikipedia:Maurice Halperin passed information to Moscow. The Wikipedia:War Production Board, the Wikipedia:Board of Economic Warfare, the Office of the Wikipedia:Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs and the Wikipedia:Office of War Information, included at least half a dozen Soviet sources each among their employees. In the opinion of some, almost every American military and diplomatic agency of any importance was compromised to some extent by Soviet espionage.

Some scholars and journalists dispute the claims by Haynes, Klehr, and others concerning the precision of the matching of code names to actual persons. Also contested is the implication that all 349 persons identified had an intentional "covert relationship" with Soviet intelligence; it is argued that in some cases the individual may have been an unwitting information source or a prospect for future recruitment by Soviet intelligence.

Bearing of Venona on particular cases

Venona has added information—some of it unequivocal, some of it ambiguous—to several espionage cases. Some known spies, including Wikipedia:Theodore Hall, were neither prosecuted nor publicly implicated, because the Venona evidence against them was not made public.

Identity of Soviet source codename "19" is unclear. According to British writer Nigel West it was president of Wikipedia:Czechoslovak government-in-exile Wikipedia:Edvard Beneš. Military historian Eduard Mark and American authors Herbert Romerstein and Eric Breindel concluded that it was Roosevelt's aide Wikipedia:Harry Hopkins. According to American authors Wikipedia:John Earl Haynes and Wikipedia:Harvey Klehr, source codename "19" could be someone from the British delegation to the Washington Conference in May 1943. Moreover, they argue that no evidence of Hopkins as an agent has been found in other archives, and that the partial message relating to codename "19" does not indicate if this source was a spy.

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg

Venona has added information to the case of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, which does not support the full allegations made against Julius Rosenberg, but also showing that Ethel was probably no more than an accomplice, if that. Venona and other recent information has shown that while the content of Julius' atomic espionage was not as vital as was alleged at the time of his espionage activities, in other fields it was extensive. The information Rosenberg passed to the Soviets concerned the Wikipedia:proximity fuze, design and production information on the Lockheed P-80 jet fighter, and thousands of classified reports from Wikipedia:Emerson Radio. The Venona evidence indicates that it was unidentified sources codenamed "Quantum" and "Pers" who facilitated transfer of nuclear weapons technology to the Soviet Union from positions within the Manhattan Project.

Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter White

See: Wikipedia:Alger Hiss, Wikipedia:Harry Dexter White

According to the Moynihan Wikipedia:Commission on Government Secrecy, the complicity of both Wikipedia:Alger Hiss and Wikipedia:Harry Dexter White is conclusively proven by Venona, stating "The complicity of Alger Hiss of the State Department seems settled. As does that of Harry Dexter White of the Treasury Department." In his 1998 book, Senator Moynihan expresses certainty about Hiss's identification by Venona as a Soviet spy, writing "Hiss was indeed a Soviet agent and appears to have been regarded by Moscow as its most important." However, several current authors, researchers, and archivists consider the Venona evidence on Hiss to be inconclusive or incorrect.

Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess

When Wikipedia:Kim Philby learned of Venona in 1949, he obtained advance warning that his fellow Soviet spies Donald Maclean and Wikipedia:Guy Burgess were in danger of being exposed. The FBI told Philby about an agent code-named Homer, whose 1945 message to Moscow had been decoded. As it had been sent from New York and had its origins in the British Embassy in Washington, Philby deduced that the sender was Donald Maclean, now resident in London (Philby had not known Maclean's code name). By early 1951, Philby knew that US intelligence would soon also conclude that Maclean was the sender, and he advised that Maclean be recalled. This led to Maclean and Guy Burgess' flight to Russia in May 1951.

Soviet espionage in Australia

In addition to the British and Americans, Venona intercepts were collected by the Australians at a remote base in the Australian Wikipedia:Outback. However, the Russians were not aware of this base even as late as 1950. The founding of the Wikipedia:Australian Security Intelligence Organisation by Labor Wikipedia:Prime Minister Wikipedia:Ben Chifley was considered highly controversial within Chifley's own party. Until then, the left-leaning Australian Labor Party had been hostile to domestic intelligence agencies on Wikipedia:civil liberties grounds, and a Labor government actually founding one was a surprising about face. It was the revelation of Venona material to Chifley revealing evidence of Soviet agents operating in Australia that brought this about. As well as Australian diplomat suspects abroad, Venona had revealed that Wally Clayton (Wikipedia:codenamed KLOD), a leading official within the Wikipedia:Communist Party of Australia, was the chief organiser of Soviet intelligence gathering in Australia. Investigation revealed he was forming an underground network within the CPA so that the party could continue to operate if it was banned.

Public disclosure

For much of its history, knowledge of Venona was restricted even from the highest levels of government. Senior army officers, in consultation with the FBI and CIA, made the decision to restrict knowledge of Venona within the government (even the CIA was not made an active partner until 1952). Army Chief of Staff Wikipedia:Omar Bradley, concerned about the White House's history of leaking sensitive information, decided to deny President Truman direct knowledge of the project. The president received the substance of the material only through FBI, Justice Department and CIA reports on counterintelligence and intelligence matters. He was not told the material came from decoded Soviet ciphers. To some degree this secrecy was counter-productive; Truman was distrustful of FBI head Wikipedia:J. Edgar Hoover, and suspected the reports were exaggerated for political purposes.

Some of the earliest detailed public knowledge that Soviet code messages from World War II had been broken came with the release of Robert Lamphere's book, The FBI-KGB War, in 1986. Lamphere had been the FBI liaison to the code-breaking activity, had considerable knowledge of Venona and the Wikipedia:counter-intelligence work that resulted from it. Wikipedia:MI5 assistant director Wikipedia:Peter Wright's 1987 memoir, Wikipedia:Spycatcher, however, was the first detailed account of the Venona project, identifying it by name and making clear its long-term implications in post-war espionage.

Many inside the NSA had argued internally that the time had come to publicly release the details of the Venona project, but it was not until 1995 that the Wikipedia:bipartisan Wikipedia:Commission on Government Secrecy, with Senator Moynihan as chairman, released the Venona project materials. Moynihan wrote:

"[The] secrecy system has systematically denied American historians access to the records of American history. Of late we find ourselves relying on archives of the former Soviet Union in Wikipedia:Moscow to resolve questions of what was going on in Washington at mid-century. [...] the Venona intercepts contained overwhelming proof of the activities of Soviet spy networks in America, complete with names, dates, places, and deeds."

One of the considerations in releasing Venona translations was the privacy interests of the individuals mentioned, referenced, or identified in the translations. Some names were not released because to do so would constitute an invasion of privacy. However, in at least one case, independent researchers identified one of the subjects whose name had been obscured by the NSA.

The dearth of reliable information available to the public—or even to the President and Congress—may have helped to polarize debates of the 1950s over the extent and danger of Soviet espionage in the United States. Anti-Communists suspected that many spies remained at large, perhaps including some that were known to the government. Those who criticized the governmental and non-governmental efforts to root out and expose communists felt that these efforts were an overreaction (in addition to other reservations about Wikipedia:McCarthyism). Public access—or broader governmental access—to the Venona evidence would certainly have affected this debate, as it is affecting the retrospective debate among historians and others now. As the Moynihan Commission wrote in its final report:

"A balanced history of this period is now beginning to appear; the Venona messages will surely supply a great cache of facts to bring the matter to some closure. But at the time, the American Government, much less the American public, was confronted with possibilities and charges, at once baffling and terrifying."

The Wikipedia:National Cryptologic Museum features an exhibit on the Venona project in its "Cold War/Information Age" gallery.

Critical views

The relevance, accuracy, and even the authenticity of Venona decrypts have been questioned. Critics claim the material is unverifiable, with some, such as Wikipedia:William Kunstler, going so far as to claim NSA had forged Venona material in its entirety in order to discredit the Communist Party of the United States of America and its members. Research in Soviet Archives has added to the corroboration of some Venona material, including the identities of many codenamed individuals.

Some remain skeptical of both the substance and the prevailing interpretations made since the release of the Venona material. Wikipedia:Victor Navasky, editor and publisher of Wikipedia:The Nation, has written several editorials highly critical of Wikipedia:John Earl Haynes' and Wikipedia:Harvey Klehr's interpretation of recent work on the subject of Soviet espionage. Navasky claims the Venona material is being used to “distort … our understanding of the cold war” and that the files are potential “time bombs of misinformation”. Commenting on the list of 349 Americans identified by Venona, published in an appendix to Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America, Navasky wrote, "The reader is left with the implication â€” unfair and unproven â€” that every name on the list was involved in espionage, and as a result, otherwise careful historians and mainstream journalists now routinely refer to Venona as proof that many hundreds of Americans were part of the red spy network." Navasky goes further in his defense of the listed people and has claimed that a great deal of the so-called espionage that went on was nothing more than “exchanges of information among people of good will” and that “most of these exchanges were innocent and were within the law”.

According to Wikipedia:Ellen Schrecker, "Because they offer insights into the world of the secret police on both sides of the Wikipedia:Iron Curtain, it is tempting to treat the FBI and Venona materials less critically than documents from more accessible sources. But there are too many gaps in the record to use these materials with complete confidence."

Schrecker agrees the documents have genuinely established the guilt of many prominent figures, but is still critical of the hardline interpretation by scholars such as Murno Gladst, arguing, "...complexity, nuance, and a willingness to see the world in other than black and white seem alien to Haynes' view of history."

Writing about Alger Hiss, Hiss's lawyer John Lowenthal criticized the accuracy and methodology of the Venona analysts, charging they employed false premises and flawed comparative logic to reach the desired conclusion Alger Hiss was the spy "Ales". Lowenthal states this conclusion was psychologically and politically motivated but factually wrong.

Nigel West, on the other hand, expressed confidence in the decrypts: "Venona remain[s] an irrefutable resource, far more reliable than the mercurial recollections of KGB defectors and the dubious conclusions drawn by paranoid analysts mesmerized by Machiavellian plots."

List of Americans in the Venona Papers

This article contains content from Wikipedia An article on this subject has been nominated for deletion on Wikipedia: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/ List of Americans in the Venona papers (2nd nomination) Current versions of the GNU FDL article on WP may contain information useful to the improvement of this article

WP+ NO DEL

This list has been nominated because it is a Wikipedia:WP:COATRACK without a rack; a coat of propaganda may still be seen resting upon it in the minds of those who wish it there, or fear that it can be seen there, but it is mostly harmless to those with no agenda. To many of the crazies who most fervently struggle to keep it on Wikipedia (similar if not the same as those who got the Mass killings under capitalist regimes article deleted when it was presented as an answer to the AfD Keeping of the anti-communist Wikipedia:Communist genocide article, and those who got the inane article Kept at Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Soviet-run peace movements in Western Europe and the United States) the list proves that there has been or even is now a vast Communist conspiracy.

The following are a list of names ostensibly deciphered from codenames contained in the Wikipedia:Venona project. To what extent any given individual named in the Venona papers was actually involved with Soviet intelligence is a topic of dispute. The following list of individuals is extracted in large part from the work of Wikipedia:John Earl Haynes and Wikipedia:Harvey Klehr and reflects their previous points of view. However, Haynes' positions on the meaning and correct identification of names on the list continues to evolve.

Notes and disclaimers on the list

Names marked with a double asterisk (**) do not appear in the Venona documents. Inclusion has been inferred to correlate with codenames or similarly spelled names found in the documents.

Similarly, identities that have been inferred by researchers (i.e., the name appears in the Venona documents, but positive identification of the individual bearing that name does not), are also marked with a double asterisk (**).

List

Wikipedia:John Abt** Wikipedia:Solomon Adler** Wikipedia:Rudy Baker** Wikipedia:Joel Barr Wikipedia:Alice Barrows Wikipedia:Theodore Bayer, President, Russky Golos Publishing Wikipedia:Cedric Belfrage Wikipedia:Elizabeth Bentley Wikipedia:Joseph Milton Bernstein Wikipedia:Earl Browder, American communist and General Secretary of the Wikipedia:Communist Party USA from 1934 to 1945. Paul Burns** Wikipedia:Sylvia Callen** Virginius Wikipedia:Frank Coe Wikipedia:Lona Cohen** Morris Cohen**, Communist Party USA & Wikipedia:Portland Spy Ring member who was courier for Wikipedia:Manhattan Project physicist Wikipedia:Theodore Hall. Wikipedia:Judith Coplon Wikipedia:Lauchlin Currie, White House economic adviser to President Franklin Roosevelt and director of World Bank mission to Colombia. Byron T. Darling** Wikipedia:Eugene Dennis Samuel Dickstein** Wikipedia:Martha Dodd**, daughter of William Dodd, who served as the United States ambassador to Germany between 1933 and 1937. William E. Dodd Jr. Wikipedia:Laurence Duggan, Head of the South American desk at the Wikipedia:United States Department of State during World War II. Wikipedia:Eufrosina Dvoichenko-Markov Wikipedia:Nathan Einhorn Jack Bradley Fahy Wikipedia:Linn Markley Farish, senior liaison officer with Wikipedia:Josip Broz Tito's Yugoslav Partisan forces Edward J. Fitzgerald Wikipedia:Charles Flato Wikipedia:Isaac Folkoff Wikipedia:Jane Foster Zalmond David Franklin Wikipedia:Isabel Gallardo Boleslaw K. Gerbert Wikipedia:Rebecca Getzoff Wikipedia:Harold Glasser, U.S. Treasury Dept. economist, Wikipedia:United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) spokesman. Wikipedia:Bela Gold Wikipedia:Harry Gold, sentenced to 30 years for his role in the Rosenbergs' ring Wikipedia:Sonia Steinman Gold Wikipedia:Jacob Golos, "main pillar" of Wikipedia:NKVD spy network, particularly the Sound/Myrna group, he died in the arms of Wikipedia:Elizabeth Bentley Wikipedia:George Gorchoff Wikipedia:Gerald Graze**, Wikipedia:David Greenglass, machinist at Los Alamos sentenced to 15 years for his role in Rosenberg ring; he was the brother of executed Wikipedia:Ethel Rosenberg Wikipedia:Ruth Greenglass Theodore Alvin Hall, Manhattan Project physicist who gave Wikipedia:plutonium purification secrets to Soviet intelligence. Wikipedia:Maurice Halperin, American writer, professor, diplomat, and Soviet spy (NKVD code name "Hare"). Wikipedia:Kitty Harris, Wikipedia:Clarence Hiskey**, Wikipedia:Alger Hiss, Lawyer involved in the establishment of the United Nations, both as a U.S. State Department and UN official. Wikipedia:Donald Hiss** Wikipedia:Harry Hopkins, One of FDR's closest advisers & New Deal architect, esp. Wikipedia:Works Progress Administration (WPA); as a diplomat in charge of relations between FDR and Stalin his name naturally appears on the list. Wikipedia:Louis Horwitz Wikipedia:Bella Joseph** Wikipedia:Emma Harriet Joseph Wikipedia:Gertrude Kahn Wikipedia:Joseph Katz Wikipedia:Helen Grace Scott Keenan Wikipedia:Mary Jane Keeney Wikipedia:Philip Keeney Wikipedia:Alexander Koral** Wikipedia:Helen Koral Wikipedia:Samuel Krafsur Wikipedia:Charles Kramer Wikipedia:Christina Krotkova, Sergej Nikolaevich Kurnakov Wikipedia:Stephen Laird Oscar Lange Wikipedia:Richard Lauterbach, employee at Time magazine

Duncan C. Lee Michael S. Leshing Wikipedia:Helen Lowry William Mackey Harry Samuel Magdoff Wikipedia:William Malisoff, owner and manager of United Laboratories Wikipedia:Hede Massing** Robert Owen Menaker Floyd Cleveland Miller Wikipedia:James Walter Miller Robert Miller** Robert G. Minor, Wikipedia:Office of Strategic Services, Wikipedia:Belgrade Leonard Emil Mins Nichola Napoli Franz Neumann** Wikipedia:David K. Niles Wikipedia:Eugénie Olkhine Wikipedia:Frank Oppenheimer** Julius Robert Oppenheimer, Scientific director of the Manhattan Project and chief advisor to the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. Nicholas V. Orloff Edna Margaret Patterson Wikipedia:William Perl Victor Perlo Wikipedia:Aleksandr N. Petroff, Wikipedia:Curtiss-Wright Aircraft Vladimir Aleksandrovich Posner, Wikipedia:United States War Department Wikipedia:Lee Pressman Mary Wolfe Price Wikipedia:Bernard Redmont** Wikipedia:Peter Rhodes Stephan Sandi Rich Wikipedia:Kenneth Richardson, World Wide Electronics Samuel Jacob Rodman, United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration Wikipedia:Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Preseident of the United States, his name appears on the list under the code name "capitan" (Wikipedia:Winston Churchill's codename was "boar." Allen Rosenberg Wikipedia:Julius Rosenberg, United States Army Signal Corps Laboratories, executed for role in the Rosenberg ring Wikipedia:Ethel Rosenberg, executed for role in Rosenberg ring based on testimony of her brother, Wikipedia:David Greenglass Wikipedia:Amadeo Sabatini Alfred Epaminodas Sarant Marian Miloslavovich Schultz Milton Schwartz John Scott Wikipedia:Ricardo Setaro Wikipedia:Charles Bradford Sheppard, Hazeltine Electronics Abraham George Silverman Wikipedia:Nathan Gregory Silvermaster, U.S. War Production Board (WPB) economist and head of a major ring of spies in the U.S. government. Wikipedia:Cary Hiles Wikipedia:Helen Silvermaster, Leader of the American League for Peace & Democracy and the National Federation for Constitutional Liberties. Wikipedia:Morton Sobell Wikipedia:Jack Soble Robert Soble Wikipedia:Johannes Steele I. F. Stone, Investigative journalist whose newsletter, I. F. Stone's Weekly, was ranked 16th out of 100 by his fellow journalists. Wikipedia:Augustina Stridsberg Wikipedia:Anna Louise Strong Wikipedia:Helen Tenney** Wikipedia:Mikhail Tkach, editor of the Ukrainian Daily News William Ludwig Ullmann Wikipedia:Irving Charles Velson Wikipedia:Margietta Voge Wikipedia:Henry A. Wallace. William Weisband** Wikipedia:Donald Wheeler Wikipedia:Maria Wicher Wikipedia:Harry Dexter White, Senior U.S. Treasury department official, primary designer of the Wikipedia:International Monetary Fund and the Wikipedia:World Bank. Wikipedia:Ruth Beverly Wilson Wikipedia:Ignacy Witczak** Ilya Elliott Wolston Wikipedia:Flora Don Wovschin Wikipedia:Jones Orin York Daniel Abraham Zaret, Spanish War veteran Mark Zborovski

References

• National Security Agency, Venona Archives, Introductory History of VENONA and Guide to the Translations by Robert L. Benson, 1995.

See also

• Wikipedia:Active measures
• Wikipedia:Espionage Act of 1917
• Wikipedia:History of Soviet and Russian espionage in the United States
• Wikipedia:List of Americans in the Venona papers
• Wikipedia:List of Soviet agents in the United States
• Wikipedia:McCarthyism
• Wikipedia:Taman Shud Case

References and further reading

Books

• Aldrich, Richard J. (2001). The Hidden Hand: Britain, America and Cold War Secret Intelligence, John Murray Pubs Ltd.
• Bamford, James (2002). Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency, Anchor Books.
• Benson, Robert Louis (1996). Venona: Soviet Espionage and the American Response 1939–1957, Aegean Park Press.
• Budiansky, Stephen (2002). Battle of Wits: The Complete Story of Codebreaking in World War II, Free Press.
• Haynes, John Earl and Klehr, Harvey (2000). Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America, Yale University Press.
• Lamphere, Robert J.; Shachtman, Tom (1995). The FBI-KGB War: A Special Agent's Story, Mercer University Press.
• Schrecker, Ellen (1998). Many Are the Crimes : McCarthyism in America, Little, Brown.
• Schrecker, Ellen (2006). Cold War Triumphalism: The Misuse of History After the Fall of Communism, New Press.
• Romerstein, Herbert and Breindel, Eric (2000). The Venona Secrets: Exposing Soviet Espionage and America's Traitors, Regnery Publishing.
• Trahair, Richard C.S and Miller, Robert (2009). Encyclopedia of Cold War Espionage, Spies, and Secret Operations, Enigma Books.
• Warner, Michael (1996). Venona - Soviet Espionage & American Response, Aegean Park Press.
• West, Nigel (1999). Venona--The Greatest Secret of the Cold War, Harper Collins.
• Wright, Peter; Paul Greengrass (1987). Spycatcher: The Candid Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer, Viking.

Online sources

• NSA official Venona site. National Security Agency. URL accessed on 2006-07-09.
  • Venona PDFs, arranged by date (NSA)
• Selected Venona Messages. Central Intelligence Agency. URL accessed on 2007-11-08.
• (1996). The American Response to Soviet Espionage. CIA. URL accessed on 2007-11-08.
• Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Chairman (1997). Report of the Commission On Protecting And Reducing Government Secrecy. United States Government Printing Office. URL accessed on 2006-06-18.
• MI5 Releases to the National Archives. MI5. URL accessed on 2006-07-09.
• Naranjo, Denis. Venona Chronology 1939–1996. URL accessed on 2006-07-09.
• Red Files: Interview with Cecil Philips, US Signal Intelligence Service. PBS. URL accessed on 2006-07-09.
• Benson, Robert L. The Venona Story. National Security Agency. Archived from source 2006-06-14. URL accessed on 2006-06-18.
• Fox, John F., Jr. (2005). In the Enemy’s House: Venona and the Maturation of American Counterintelligence. FBI. Archived from source 2006-11-15. URL accessed on 2006-11-17.
• Romerstein , Herbert and Breindel, Eric (2000). Preface to The Venona Secrets. Regnery Publishing. URL accessed on 2006-11-17.

External links

• National Security Agency ArchivesTemplate:dead link Cryptographic Museum, Custodian of Documents for the Army Signals Intelligence Agency
• Selected Venona MessagesTemplate:dead link
• Venona FBI FOIA Files
• FBI Memo "Explanation and History of Venona Project Informantion" (1 February 1956)
• MI5 Releases to the National Archives
• Stalin-Era Research and Archives Project
• Russian State ArchiveTemplate:dead link (Wikipedia:RGASPI)
• John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr, Venona; Decoding Soviet Espionage in America, Wikipedia:Yale University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-300-08462-5. Despite the title, this is less about Venona itself than about Wikipedia:Communist Party USA espionage and support of espionage. It is based on research in the CPUSA archives made available to the authors in Wikipedia:Moscow. See Yale University Press Web site information on the book.
• John Earl Haynes, "Cover Name, Cryptonym, CPUSA Party Name, Pseudonym, and Real Name Index. A Research Historian's Working Reference" (revised February 2007), on the author's web site.