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
 29SEP_ADMIN.PDFAdministrative matters 29 September 1943 (Release 4)
 3MAR_ADMIN_MATTERS.PDFAdministrative matters 3 March (Release 3)
 7OCT_ADMIN.PDFAdministrative matters 7 October 1943 (Release 4)
 12FEB_ADMIN_MESSAGE.PDFAdministrative message 12 February 1943 (Release 4)
 2FEB_ADMIN_MESSAGE.PDFAdministrative message 2 February 1943 (Release 4)
 24SEP_ADMIN_MSG.PDFAdministrative message 24 September 1943 (Release 4)
 17JUL_AKULIN.PDFAdmiral Akulin complains about a recent GRU Naval message 17 July 1943 (Release 4)
 18OCT_ADMIRAL_BRYKIN.PDFAdmiral Brykin's Flight from Stockholm to London 18 October (Release 5)
 1JAN_KING.PDFAdmiral King's interest in trawlers 1 January 1943 (Release 4)
 20FEB_CIPHER_ROOMS.PDFAdmit AMIRKYEVIEH and SERGEYEVICK to cipher rooms
 17JAN_NEAR_NEIGHBORS.PDFAdmit to the OSShO, FEDOR NIKOLAUVICh ERMOLAEV, for work with the line of the NEAR NEIGHBORS
 2MAR_ADRIAN2.PDFADRIAN 2 March 1943 (Release 5)
 2MAR_ADRIAN1.PDFADRIAN 2 March 1943 (Release 5)
 17JUL_CANDIDATE_TUZOV.PDFAgent candidate TUZOV not to be recruited says Moscow 17 July (Release 3)
 13OCT_AGENT_CIPHER.PDFAgent cipher, apparently for "BERNS" and reference to "ADMIRAL'S" cipher
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