Jump to content

Venona project

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Nobs (talk | contribs) at 21:47, 31 May 2005 (→List of Americans in Venona Papers). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

The VENONA project was a long-running and highly secret collaboration between the United States intelligence agencies and the United Kingdom's MI5 that involved the cryptanalysis of Soviet messages.

Background

U.S. Army Signal Security Agency (commonly called Arlington Hall) codebreakers had intercepted large volumes of encrypted high-level Soviet diplomatic and intelligence traffic during and immediately after World War II. The British had stopped intercepting Soviet traffic, at Winston Churchill's orders, shortly after Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941 and had no traffic to contribute to the project after that time. This traffic, some of which was thought to be encrypted with a one-time pad system, was stored and analyzed in relative secrecy by hundreds of cryptanalysts over a 40-year period starting in the early 1940s.

The Venona Project actually initiated when the Chief of Military Intelligence, Carter Clarke, did not trust Joseph Stalin. He feared that Stalin and Hitler would sign a peace treaty in order to focus the Nazi's militaristic forces on the destruction of Great Britain and the U.S.

The British codename for VENONA was Bride. Some brilliant cryptanalysis by American and British codebreakers (the first steps were by a very young Meredith Gardner of what would become NSA) revealed that some of the one-time pad key material had incorrectly been reused by the Soviets, which allowed decryption (sometimes only partial) of a small part of the traffic. Very slowly, using assorted techniques ranging from traffic analysis to defector information, more of the messages were decrypted. Out of some hundreds of thousands of intercepted cyphertexts, it is claimed that under 3000 have been partially or wholly decrypted. Claims have made that information from physical theft of encryption pads (a partially burned one is reported to have been recovered by the Finns) to bugging embassy rooms in which text was entered into encrypting devices (and analyzing the keystrokes by listening to them being punched in), contributed to achieving as much plaintext as was recovered. These latter claims are less than fully supported in the open literature.

This decryption and cryptanalysis project became known to the Soviets not long after the first breaks. It is not clear whether the Soviets knew how much of the message traffic, or which messages, had been successfully decrypted. At least one Soviet agent, Kim Philby, was told about the project as part of his job as liaison between British and US intelligence. The project continued for decades, long after Philby left British intelligence.

The decrypted messages from Soviet aid missions, GRU spies, KGB spies, and some diplomatic traffic, known collectively as the VENONA papers, gave important insights into Soviet behavior in the period during which duplicate one-time pads were used. They also revealed the existence (and in some case implied the identities) of some American, Canadian, Australian, and British Soviet spies in research and in government, including Klaus Fuchs, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, and at least one of the Cambridge Five spy ring (Donald Maclean).

The Soviets eventually stopped reusing key pad material, possibly after learning from their agent(s) of the US / British work, after which their one-time pad traffic reverted to completely unreadable. There has been speculation that the reason for the key material duplication was the increase in work (including key pad generation) in the period after the German attack in June of 1941. Other suggestions have it that it was Guderian's tanks just outside Moscow in early December that year which forced Moscow Centre to make such a fundamental error.

Significance

The VENONA documents, and the extent of their significance, were not made public until 1995. They show that the US and others were targeted in major espionage campaigns by the Soviet Union as early as 1942.

The decrypts include code names for 349 individuals who were maintaining a covert relationship with the Soviet Union. It can be safely assumed that more than 349 agents were active, as that number is from a small sample of the total intercepted message traffic. Among those thought to be identified are Alger Hiss, believed to have been the agent "ALES"; Harry Dexter White, the second-highest official in the Treasury Department; Lauchlin Currie, a personal aide to Franklin Roosevelt; and Maurice Halperin, a section head in the Office of Strategic Services. Almost every military and diplomatic agency of any importance was compromised to some extent, including the Manhattan Project. Even today, the identities of fewer than half of the 349 agents are known with any certainty. Agents who were never identified include "Mole", a senior Washington official who passed information on American diplomatic policy, and "Quantum", a scientist on the Manhattan Project.

Some known spies, including Theodore Hall, were neither prosecuted nor publicly implicated, because the VENONA evidence against them could not be made public. VENONA evidence has also clarified the case of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, making it clear that Julius was guilty of espionage while Ethel was guilty of cooperating, while also showing that their contributions to Soviet nuclear espionage were less important than was publicly alleged at the time. In fact, Ethel had been only an accomplice, and Julius' information was probably not as valuable as that provided by sources like "Quantum" and "Pers" (both still unidentified.)

This is an extremely different picture from the one that which had developed over most of 50 years in the absence of solid evidence. While critics debate the identity of individual agents, the overall picture of infiltration is more difficult to refute. The release of the VENONA information has forced reevaluation of the Red Scare in the US.

In Australia, the founding of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation by Labor Prime Minister Ben Chifley was considered highly controversial within Chifley's own party. Until then, the left-leaning Australian Labor Party had been hostile to domestic intelligence agencies on civil liberties grounds, and a Labor government actually founding one was a surprising about face. VENONA material has now made it clear that Chifley was motivated by evidence that not only were there a large number of very damaging Soviet agents operating in Australia, but that these probably included members of his party. Chifley was succeeded by the conservative, zealously anti-communist Sir Robert Menzies. Menzies began what was long considered an over-zealous anti-communist "witch hunt", but it is now known that VENONA decrypts and associated surveillance had identified one of the Soviet agents as being either the popular "Doc" Evatt (one of Chifley's Cabinet Ministers, instrumental in the early organisation of the United Nations, and former President of the UN General Assembly), or Evatt's secretary Alan Dalziel. As well, other middle ranking government officials were either identified or implicated. Further, investigation had revealed that Wally Clayton (codenamed KLOD), a Soviet agent within the Communist Party of Australia, was forming an illegal "underground network" within the CPA, presumably as a prelude to political violence. When Menzies announced a Royal Commission into Soviet espionage in Australia, it was supported by the anti-communist Roman Catholic factions of the ALP but strongly opposed by "Doc" Evatt and allies. The ALP eventually split over this issue.

List of Americans in Venona Papers

  • John Abt Department of Agriculture; Works Progress Administration; Senate Committee on Education and Labor; special assistant to the United States Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice
  • Solomon Adler, United States Department of the Treasury
  • Elizabeth Bentley
  • Josef Berger, Democratic National Committee
  • Joseph Bernstein, Board of Economic Warfare
  • T.A. Bisson, Board of Economic Warfare
  • Ralph Bowen, United States Department of State
  • Ursula Buerton
  • Norman Bursler, United States Department of Justice Anti-Trust Division
  • Whittaker Chambers
  • Frank Coe, Assistant Director, Division of Monetary Research, Treasury Department; Special Assistant to the United States Ambassador in London; Assistant to the Executive Director, Board of Economic Warfare; Assistant Administrator, Foreign Economic Administration
  • Lona Cohen
  • Morris Cohen
  • Henry J. Collins National Recovery Administration; Department of Agriculture
  • Judith Coplon, Foreign Agents Registration section, United States Department of Justice
  • Lauchlin Currie, Administrative Assistant to President Roosevelt; Deputy Administrator of Foreign Economic Administration; Special Representative to China
  • Marion Davis, Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs
  • Samuel Dickstein, United States Congressman from New York
  • William Dodd Jr.
  • Laurence Duggan, head of United States Department of State Division of American Republics
  • Nathan Einhorn, Executive Secretary of American Newspaper Guild
  • Max Elitcher
  • Jack Fahy, Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs; Board of Economic Warfare; United States Department of the Interior
  • Milton Felson, Office of Strategic Services, IB
  • Nicholas Fisher
  • Maria Fisher
  • Edward Fitzgerald, War Production Board
  • Charles Flato, Board of Economic Warfare
  • Isaac Folkoff
  • Jane Foster, Board of Economic Warfare; Office of Strategic Services; Netherlands Study Unit
  • Boleslaw Gebert, national officer of Polonia Society of International Workers Order
  • Harold Glasser, United States Department of the Treasury; War Production Board; Advisor on North African Affairs Committee
  • Bela Gold, Assistant Head of Program Surveys, Bureau of Agricultural Economics, Agriculture Department; Senate Subcommittee on War Mobilization; Office of Economic Programs in Foreign Economic Administration
  • George Beiser, National Research Estrablishment, Research and Development Board
  • Harry Gold
  • Sonia Steinman Gold, Division of Monetary Research U.S. Treasury Department; U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on Interstate Migration; U.S. Bureau of Employment Security
  • Jacob Golos
  • Gerald Graze, United States Civil Service Commission; Department of Defense, U.S. Navy official
  • Stanley Graze, United States Department of State intelligence
  • David Greenglass
  • Ruth Greenglass
  • Theodore Hall
  • Maurice Halperin, Chief of Latin American Division, Research and Analysis section, Office of Strategic Services; United States Department of State
  • Kitty Harris
  • William Henwood, SOCAL
  • Alger Hiss, United States Department of State
  • Donald Hiss United States Department of State; United States Department of Labor; United States Department of the Interior
  • Bella Joseph, motion picture division of Office of Strategic Services
  • Julius Joseph, Far Eastern section (Japanese Intelligence) Office of Strategic Services
  • Helen Grace Scott Keenen Office of U.S Chief Counsel for Prosecution of Axis War Criminals, Office of Strategic Services
  • Mary Jane Keeney, Board of Economic Warfare; United Nations
  • Philip Keeney, Office of the Coordinator of Information (later OSS)
  • Charles Kramer, Senate Subcommittee on War Mobilization; Office of Price Administration; National Labor Relations Board; Senate Subcommittee on Wartime Health and Education; Agricultural Adjustment Administration; Senate Subcommittee on Senate Civil Liberties; Senate Labor and Public Welfare Committee
  • Christina Kratkova, Office of War Information
  • Stephen Laird, Hollywood Producer; Time Magazine Reporter; Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) correspondent
  • Duncan Lee, counsel to General William Donovan, head of Office of Strategic Services
  • Walter Lippman
  • Helen Lowry
  • Harry Magdoff, Statistical Division of WPB and Office of Emergency

Management; Bureau of Research and Statistics, WTB; Tools Division, War Production Board; Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, United States Department of Commerce

Hiss

Critics of VENONA point out that the intelligence agencies did not have actual names for any of the Soviet agents mentioned, so their identity had to be inferred, often using other information sources. Alger Hiss’s known cryptonyms were "Lawyer" ("Advocate" or "Advokat") in the mid-1930s and "Ales" in 1945. The critics argue that with the lack of actual names (eg, ALES is only assumed to be Hiss, and while Hiss resembles ALES in some respects, like being at Yalta, he could not have been ALES, since ALES was a member of the Armed Forces), all VENONA really shows is that there were numerous Soviet agents in the United States. In response, it has been noted that iron-clad proof is rare in espionage cases, and in fact in many ordinary criminal cases.

Document Release Issues

The NSA has failed to release the VENONA documents as a Unicode based PDF text file. Text processing technology could be used to extract information from the decrypts for historical research if the VENONA documents were released in PDF form.

The NSA website states: "These historical documents are GIF images of formerly classified carbon paper and reports that have been declassified. Due to the age and poor quality of some of the GIF images, a screen reader may not be able to process the images into word documents."

[...] "individuals may request that the government provide auxiliary aids or services to ensure effective communication of the substance of the documents. For such requests, please contact the Public Affairs Office at 301-688-6524."

References

  • The Hidden Hand: Britain, America, and Cold War Secret Intelligence; by Richard J. Aldrich. New York: Overlook Press, 2002. ISBN 1585672742.
  • Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency; by James Bamford. Anchor Books. ISBN 0385499086. See also the same author's earlier, The Puzzle Palace, also about the NSA.
  • Bombshell; by Albright and Kunstel. About Soviet WWII espionage in the US, including Venona.
  • Battle of Wits; by Steven Budiansky. An overview in one volume of cryptography in WWII.
  • NSA official VENONA site
  • VENONA; Decoding Soviet Espionage in America, Yale University Press. Despite the title, this is less about VENONA itself than about Communist Party USA espionage and support of espionage. It is based on research in the CPUSA archives made available to the authors in Moscow. See YUP Web site information on the book
  • Robert L. Benson, The Venona Story, pamphlet (Ft. Meade, MD: Center for Cryptologic History, National Security Agency, 2001)
  • Robert Louis Benson, The KGB and GRU in Europe, South America, and Australia: Venona Historical Monograph #5, pamphlet, Venona Historical Monograph (Fort Meade, Maryland: Center for Cryptologic History, 1998)
  • Robert Louis Benson, The KGB in San Francisco and Mexico City: The GRU in New York and Washington: Venona Historical Monograph #4, pamphlet, Venona Historical Monograph (Fort Meade, Maryland: Center for Cryptologic History, n.d.)
  • Robert Louis Benson, The 1944–45 New York and Washington-Moscow KGB Messages: Venona Historical Monograph #3, pamphlet, Venona Historical Monograph (Fort Meade, Maryland: Center for Cryptologic History, n.d.)
  • Robert Louis Benson, The 1942–43 New York-Moscow KGB Messages: Venona Historical Monograph #2:, pamphlet, Venona Historical Monograph (Fort Meade, Maryland: Center for Cryptologic History, n.d.)
  • Robert Louis Benson, Venona: New Releases, Special Reports, and Project Shutdown: Venona Historical Monograph #6, pamphlet, Venona Historical Monograph (Fort Meade, Maryland: Center for Crytologic History, n.d.)
  • Robert Louis Benson, Introductory History of Venona and Guide to Translations, pamphlet, Venona Historical Monograph (Fort Meade, Maryland: Center for Cryptologic History, n.d.)
  • Selected Venona Messages
  • venona-mirror.html
  • Cover Name, Cryptonym, CPUSA Party Name, Pseudonym, and Real Name Index
  • Exchange with Arthur Herman
  • Venona FBI FOIA Files
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Venona_project&oldid=14510486"