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
 23MAR_WALTER_SCOTT_AFFAIR.PDFAnother reference to the Walter Scott affair 23 March (Release 3)
 30MAR_MACLEAN_MESSAGE.PDFAnother translation of a Maclean message 30 March (Release 3)
 31MAR_ANOTHER_VERSION_TRANSLATION.PDFAnother version of foregoing translation 31 March (Release 3)
 19MAY_ANTI_SOVIET.PDFAnti-Soviet Letters
 21SEP_PV_FEDOTOW.PDFAppointment of P.V. Fedotow 21 September (Release 5)
 15SEP_COUNTER-INTELLIGENCE_ORGANS.PDFAppreciation of report on counter-intelligence organs and "BEN", "KLOD" and "TEKhNIK" 15 September (Release 5)
 23JUN_ARENA.PDFARENA meeting with OPA foreign division 23 June 1943 (Release 2)
 26MAY_ARMAMENT_OUTPUT.PDFArmament output for the U.S. War Dept. for the first quarter 26 May 1943 (Release 2)
 10JAN_SOVIET_SHIPS.PDFArmaments for Soviet merchant ships 10 January 1943 (Release 4)
 19JAN_SOVIET_SHIPS.PDFArmaments for Soviet ships 19 January 1943 (Release 4)
 15MAY_BOB_PASSWORDS.PDFArrangement of passwords to be used when meeting BOB 15 May 1943 (Release 2)
 15SEP_CONTACT_WITH_DAN.PDFArrangements for contact with "DAN" in Great Britain 15 September (Release 5)
 22MAY_DEPARTURE_KARPUNIN.PDFArrangements for departures of KARPUNIN, ALEKSEEV and MININ 22 May (Release 5)
 1DEC_GONIONSKIJS_DEPARTURE.PDFArrangements for GONIONSKIJ's departure for Moscow 1 December (Release 5)
 3JUL_PHOTOGRAPHING_DOCUMENTS.PDFArrangements for photographing documents available to BEN: KLOD, TEKHNIK 3 July (Release 5)
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