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
 16SEP_DEVUSHKAS_DEPUTY.PDF"DEVUShKA'S" Deputy 16 September (Release 5)
 8JAN_CIPHERS.PDF"DOCTOR", "PROFFESSOR" and "JURIST" to hand over ciphers and secret correspondence to Soviet Embassy in Washington
 1FEB_CIPHERS_MOVED.PDF"DOCTOR's" and "NEIGHBOR's" ciphers and secret correspondence to be moved
 1FEB_CIPHERS_STORED.PDF"DOCTOR's" and "NEIGHBOR's" ciphers and secret correspondence to be stored at the Soviet Embassy in Washington
 11OCT_ENAR.PDF"ENAR'S" arrival in Sweden from Norway; and Information on strategic points in Norway from "ENAR"
 9DEC_GERMAN_CONFERENCE.PDF"FRIEND" reports on a conference in Germany 9 December 1943 (Release 5)
 14JUL_GERTSOG.PDF"GERTsOG" and his contacts 14 July 1943 (Release 2)
 27JUN_GRANDSON.PDF"GRANDSON" reports on an anti-Soviet article in the newspaper "CENTURY" 27 June (Release 5)
 27OCT_GRISHAS_MOVE.PDF"GRIShA's" move 27 October 1942 (Release 5)
 16NOV_GRISLA.PDF"GRISLA" to obtain information on uranium deposits in Sweden 16 November (Release 5)
 18JUL_HELMSMAN.PDF"HELMSMAN" sends "CAPTAIN [KAPITAN]" a telegram 18 July 1943 (Release 2)
 7JAN_HUSBAND.PDF"HUSBAND" to discover agenda of Scandinavian premiers' conference
 8MAY_LACK_OF_DISCIPLINE.PDF"I" signs a message reporting lack of discipline 8 May 1943 (Release 5)
 2DEC_FINLAND.PDF"IRINA" and "KON'KOBEZHETs" report on political situation in Finland 2 December 1943 (Release 5)
 18DEC_IRINA.PDF"IRINA" to be recalled 18 December 1943 (Release 5)
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