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
 24JUL_MJMD.PDFMARTHA, JEROME, MARY and DICK
 13AUG_MARY.PDFMARY
 5JUN_AIRRAID_DAMAGE.PDFMaster Reports on Air Raid Damage to Wolseley Factory; Erroneous Information on Armoured Formations; Report From PLOTNIK on Air Raid Damage In Stepney
 4JUN_COURIER.PDFMaterial has been dispatched by courier 4 June 1943 (Release 4)
 9AUG_THORNTON_MATERIAL.PDFMaterial received from covername THORNTON 9 August 1943 (Release 4)
 28FEB_MATERIAL_SENT.PDFMaterial to be sent to HQ and to the Ambassador 28 February 1943 (Release 4)
 7DEC_MAURITS.PDFMAURITS Receives Information from Gurwin 7 December 1943 (Release 5)
 23AUG_MAX.PDFMAX and Branch 5 compromised: GUSTAV's treacherous activities
 20FEB_LISA.PDFMax Planck and "LISA"
 24AUG_MAY_DAY.PDFMay Day Celebration security measures
 30APR_MAY_DAY.PDFMay Day greetings to KGB officers
 30APR_MEXICO_KGB.PDFMay Greetings from Mexico KGB to General Fitin and Beria
 24DEC_MEANINGLESS.PDFMeaningless, nearly totally unrecovered 24 December 1942 (Release 2)
 26DEC_MEANINGLESS.PDFMeaningless, nearly totally unrecovered 26 December 1942 (Release 2)
 30DEC_MEANINGLESS.PDFMeaningless, nearly totally unrecovered 30 December 1942 (Release 2)
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