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
 DOC-31.PDFAnalytical Notes for Fourth VENONA Release
 DOC-15.PDFAnalytical Notes for Second VENONA Release
 DOC-23.PDFAnalytical Notes for Third VENONA Release
 11MAY_ANDERSON_FELIKS.PDFANDERSON and FELIKS: TALMUDS and key books 11 May 1942 (Release 5)
 8MAY_ANDERSON_TALMUD_BOOK_COMPLETE.PDFAnderson's Talmud and book handed over to Svante and Fred (1942) (A more complete version of British Government-excised messages previously released in fifth venona release on 1 Oct 1996) 8 May 1942 (Release 6)
 25FEB_RABIN.PDFAndre Simon, Covername RABIN
 11MAR_SIMONE.PDFAndre Simone is not to be recruited by Mexico City KGB
 8JAN_ANDREEVS_CLASH_POLICE.PDFANDREEV's clash with the police
 22JUN_COMPETITORS.PDFAnglo-American competitors 22 June 1943 (Release 2)
 16SEP_ANGLO-AMERICAN_OIL_TALKS.PDFAnglo-American oil talks in London 16 September (Release 5)
 7NOV_ANNIVERSARY_GREETINGS.PDFAnniversary Greetings 7 November (Release 4)
 20APR_NESTOR_CORRECTION2.PDFAnother correction to Mention of covername "NESTOR" 20 April (Release 5)
 18APR_GRU_MESSAGE.PDFAnother early GRU message - NY to Moscow 1941, essentially unreadable.
 26NOV_MENTION_R.PDFAnother mention of "R" 26 November (Release 4)
 30JUN_BABIN2.PDFAnother reference to GRU agent Thomas Babin 30 June 1943 (Release 4)
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