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
 1AUG_SENDING_MONEY.PDFArrangements for sending money; Arrangements for radio communications; and Contact with various people 1 August 1942 (Release 5)
 14JAN_SMIRNOVA.PDFArrangements for the return home of SMIRNOVA
 23JUN_ZVENO.PDFArrangements for ZVENO's trip to London 23 June 1943 (Release 2)
 26JUN_TRANSFER_DOCUMENTS.PDFArranging transfer of documents 26 June 1943 (Release 2
 12FEB_PAVLOV_KOPTELOV_JOURNEY.PDFArrangments for PAVLOV'S and KOPTELOV'S journey to Moscow; and SPRING informed of No. 1's promotion to "Engineer Major" 12 February (Release 5)
 20OCT_DESERTER.PDFArrest of a Soviet deserter 20 October 1943 (Release 4)
 29NOV_ARREST.PDFArrest of Soviet citizens and emigres; and recommendation for withdrawal of some NEAR NEIGHBOURS along with STETSYUK and ChE…KOV 29 November 1943 (Release 5)
 2JUL_PANOV.PDFArrival from France of Socialist leaader Panov 2 July 1942 (Release 2)
 2FEB_SHIP_ARRIVAL.PDFArrival of a ship 2 February 1943 (Release 4)
 24MAR_KSACHENKOV_KOLESNIKOV.PDFArrival of ISAChENKOV and KOLESNIKOV 24 March (Release 5)
 8JUN_VETLUGA.PDFArrival of ship Vetluga 8 June 1943
 5JUN_SOVIET_SHIPS.PDFArrival of Soviet ships 5 June 1943 (Release 4)
 13APR_ARTICLE.PDFArticle in "Sydney Morning Herald" on necessity of unified plan for Secret Service, following arrival of British Rocket Bomb Experimental Mission
 31JUL_ARTUR.PDFARTUR
 21MAY_ARTUR_MEXICO.PDFARTUR in Mexico, KARMEN warned of courier's arrival 21 May 1942 (Release 2)
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