Venona


The U.S. Army's Signal Intelligence Service, the precursor to the National Security Agency, began a secret program in February 1943 later codenamed VENONA

The mission of this small program was to examine and exploit Soviet diplomatic communications but after the program began, the message traffic included espionage efforts as well.

Although it took almost two years before American cryptologists were able to break the KGB encryption, the information gained through these transactions provided U.S. leadership insight into Soviet intentions and treasonous activities of government employees until the program was canceled in 1980.

The VENONA files are most famous for exposing Julius (code named LIBERAL) and Ethel Rosenberg and help give indisputable evidence of their involvement with the Soviet spy ring.

The first of six public releases of translated VENONA messages was made in July 1995 and included 49 messages about the Soviets' efforts to gain information on the U.S. atomic bomb research and the Manhattan Project. Over the course of five more releases, all of the approximately 3,000 VENONA translations were made public.

ImageTitle
 16JUL_LETS.PDFA ban on communications with covername LETS 16 July 1943 (Release 4)
 29MAY_COURIER.PDFA book to be sent by courier 29 May 1943 (Release 4)
 18MAR_CAUTIONARY_REPORT.PDFA cautionary report regarding contact with ALEKSANDROV 18 March (Release 3)
 30JUN_GREN.PDFA Certain GREN as a Source of Information 30 June 1942 (Release 5)
 24FEB_CIPHER_MATTER.PDFA cipher matter
 6MAR_CIPHER_PROBLEM.PDFA cipher problem 6 March 1943 (Release 4)
 11JUN_VICTORY_PARADE_MOSCOW.PDFA circular message to all KGB stations re: the security of the victory parade in Moscow 11 June (Release 4)
 17MAY_COMINTERN.PDFA COMINTERN directive. Kitty Harris is forbidden to do something.
 22SEP_CONVOY.PDFA convoy 22 September 1943 (Release 4)
 9NOV_CONVOY.PDFA convoy arrives in Iceland 9 November 1943 (Release 4)
 8MAR_COURIER.PDFA courier 8 March (Release 4)
 7APR_COURIER.PDFA courier pass 7 April 1943 (Release 4)
 4MAY_KATZ.PDFA cover business for Senior KGB agent Joseph "Jack" Katz
 28MAR_LEGENDA.PDFA cover story (LEGENDA) for a KGB agent
 5MAR_SALLY.PDFA cover story for the illegal SALLY (covername AUSTRALIAN woman in this message) 5 March 1943 (Release 4)
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