Talk:Venona project

message: The article mentions co-operation between Finnish and Japanese cryptanalysts. Could someone please expand this? I've read the article on Finland's WW2 history but find no reference to their relations with Japan, so that graf makes little sense to me. Perhaps also an explanation of Finland's unusual WW2 status would clarify it for others. And finally, there is a mention earlier in that section of Finnish recovery of partially-burned Soviet pads - was this during WW2 or afterwards? I'm not Finnish btw, just this section stuck out as being confusing.
"Cooperation" may be the wrong word. The Finns in the Winter War (the Soviet invasion of Finland started during the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact) solved several Soviet code books. These were 2-digit, 3-digit, and even 4-digit code books without superencryption with a one-time pad. The Finns became German allies when Germany invaded Russia. As allies, the Finns communicated their intelligence to Berlin, which in turn shard it with Japan. I have not heard if Japan returned the favor in cryptanalysis.
Upon the Soviet defeat of Finland, Finnish intelligence managed to spirit their work (and themselves) out of Finland to relative safety in Sweden, in an operation called Stella Polaris, q.v..
For more details on the Finnish code breaking see .
68.187.33.102 14:01, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: A very late answer, but the answer is yes, there were cryptoanalytic exchanges between Japan and Finland during the war, intercepted material was sent to Japan, and vice versa, this was done in order to help gather more material to work on and to see if the Soviets recycled their codes on other fronts (the Soviets were using one-time pad systems which is "unbreakable" when done properly, but the war-time situation forced the Soviets to use old cod pads, thus giving the opponents possibilities to break the codes by applying e.g. statistical decryption methods.) After the Finnish transfer of codes and material to Sweden, Hallamaa et al tried to obtain monetary funds by selling the gathered information to willing buyers (France, USA, Japan). --MoRsE (talk) 11:59, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Finnish references

message: I remeber reading a fascintating account of venona about 6-7 years ago. I   thought I'd seen this on the NSA site, and so I went there just now ... well gollee wilikers ... what's up with the NSA website? That has got to be one of the cheesier page banners I've seen, worthy of some slimy used-car dealership that aint no good at selling cars. And what's with the narrative directed at someone with an IQ of 80?  And Joules the cartoon squirrel?  Have the Bushites gone stark raving stupid? Why would a branch of government with a bit of a spotlight on it want to look unprofessional and even incompetent?  I vaguely remember being impressed by thier web site once upon a time, what happpened?  Where's the good venona stuff? —This unsigned comment was added by 67.100.217.179 (talk • contribs) 25 March 2006.
:There are two excellent textbooks on VENONA you could find with a Google-search. Then visit your local library. — Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 12:51, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Amazon list titles: (1) The Venona Secrets, Exposing Soviet Espionage and America's Traitors by Herbert Romerstein;  (2) Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America (Yale Nota Bene) by John Earl Haynes; (3) Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies by M. Stanton Evans. (There are 13 books listed now in our Article.) — Ann Coulter's book has a WP article: Treason:_Liberal_Treachery_from_the_Cold_War_to_the_War_on_Terrorism — Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 21:28, 15 September 2013 (UTC)
replies: text:  — The first online ref. "The official website" answers your question: http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/declass/venona/index.shtml — Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 21:37, 15 September 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: A good venona website?

message: That was a major task, and it has created a much more coherent article.  Many thanks to KarlBunker. I do think there are a few tweaks I would like to make. but I will do them one at a time and wait for comments.  The first has to do with the Boardman memo.--Cberlet 15:28, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the kudos. I don't doubt that there are a lot of tweaks and not-so-tweak-y improvements to be made. Your recent edit fixed an unclear point that I'd been meaning to look up myself (The text formerly suggested that the named individuals denied accusations that were specifically based on Venona data.) So thanks for that.--KarlBunker 15:58, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Merged article

message: Some 349 code names are mentioned in the messages,[6] each signifying a person with some type of "covert relationship" with Soviet intelligence.
I'm not sure exactly what this means. Did Walter Lippmann have a covert relationship with Soviet Intelligence? Or is Eric Alterman wrong about him having a code name ("Imperialist") in the documents? (: not sure that link is accessible without a Nation subscription; it's from the September 18, 2006 issue; if it's not accessible, let me know and I'll quote the relevant passage.) Or what? - Jmabel | Talk 04:31, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Walter Lippmann

message: I had an extremely long debate with Berlet on this, so I will recap the more relevant points: 
Schrecker’s comments in this context are no longer usefull because she has drasitcly altered her views since "Many are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America" Schrecker does not deny that their, Haynes’ and Khler’s, analysis is wrong, and she in the primary conclusion of their, Haynes’ and Khler’s, work
:"We now know, based on information obtained from the archives of the former Soviet Union and the VENONA documents, that most of the people Bentley identified, had in fact been giving information to the KGB." - The Age of McCarthyism: A Brief History with Documents
:"As Venona and the Moscow sources reveal, the [US] party recruited dozens, perhaps hundreds, of its members to spy for the Soviet Union."-The Age of McCarthyism: A Brief History with Documents 
:"it is now abundantly clear that most of those who were identified as Soviet agents in the forties and fifties really were—and that most of them belonged to the Communist Party" and "as Venona and the Moscow sources reveal, the party recruited dozens, perhaps hundreds, of its members to spy for the Soviet Union."- Nation magazine, The Right's Cold War Revision, July 24/31, 2000 
Schrecker sees the more damning conclusions of the VENONA material as a way of rehabilitating McCarthyism. I have argued that she is more of an anti-anti-Communist and primarily a critic of McCarthyism, not of VENONA or its conclusions. I also beleive the material from 1998 was made without a serious evaluation, and that based on more current work, she no longer holds those beleifs. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 14:09, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I seriously doubt that Schrecker now disagrees with any of these particular statements. In particular, I cannot imagine that she now believes that Venona material can be "used with complete confidence." Indeed, it's hard to imagine anyone seriously contending such a thing. And in any case, If Schrecker herself were were to point any any or all of these quotes and paraphrases and say "I no longer believe this," I don't see how that would prohibit us from in including it in the article. She wrote it, it's a part of the record of the debate, it's a valid comment from a scholarly source. Lots of scholars change their opinions or the general slant of their views over time. That doesn't mean that all quotes from their older writings can no longer be used as citations. KarlBunker 15:48, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Karl, my point was that the Schrecker quote reflected a view that does not appear in her later works where she makes use of both raw VENONA material as well as Haynes and Khler's writings on them. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 21:54, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "Does not appear" is a long way from specifically repudiated, and before I believed that Schrecker has repudiated such innocuous and common-sense opinions as are under question here, I'd want to see a specific quotation and citation. And that still wouldn't have any effect on my second point above. KarlBunker 00:00, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Schrecker

message: "Navasky wished to parse the concept of espionage itself." Huh? "Parse the concept"? Sounds like vacuous jargon to me. Can't we just say, "Navasky questioned whether many of these contacts with the Soviets constituted espionage." One normally parses sentences, or even works of art, but what does it mean to parse a concept, other than to say it is incoherent? Clearly, he doesn't reject that espionage exists, only that most of these contacts constituted espionage. - Jmabel | Talk 07:37, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "Deconstruct" might be a better word than "parse". The point being that Navasky is examining the component parts of things that have been called "espionage" and thereby finding gradations of "wrongness". Whichever word is used, I think the rest of the passage makes the meaning pretty clear. KarlBunker 10:15, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is one of the few cases where "deconstruct" just might be the right word. - Jmabel | Talk 07:36, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: "Parse"

message: There are those that believe VENONA cable# 1822 is definitive proof that Hiss was ALES.  There are others that do not agree.  Is this not therefore disputed? DEddy 22:54, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Historical disputes

message: I can't follow the many back-and-forth edits over the last month or so, or (to be more precise) I'm not willing to go through them one by one. After the first mention of Alger Hiss, the following citation was removed. ibid pg. 146-47; "Hiss was indeed a Soviet agent and appears to have been regarded by Moscow as its most important." Was the removal deliberate and agreed upon? - Jmabel | Talk 04:43, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: From what I can tell is that generally modern sources agree that Hiss was working for the Soviets based on Venona and non-Venona sources.  However, It needs some nice solid citations to be included.  There are plenty of historical books with this info... I am sure we can find it as well as a couple cites for disagreement with Hiss being a Soviet spy. --Rtrev 06:21, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed the reference Jmabel mentions. As I noted in my edit summary, the reference was incorrect. The "ibid" is placed so that it refers back to "Report of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy," but neither the quoted text nor the page number appears in that document, either in the appendix the "ibid" indicates or in the main (non-appendix) document. FWIW, it may have been me that messed up that reference when I merged in a "Significance of Venona" article some months ago. I also shouldn't have used ibids, because if someone edits the article to move a sentence, the reference moves with it, and an ibid will no longer point back to the correct reference. KarlBunker 11:09, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Hiss

message: I object to any editor posting material from Nobs anywhere on Wikipedia.  Nobs was banned for persistent vicious personal attacks on me. I am horrified at this breach. I expect an apology.--Cberlet 03:54, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Object all you like, its not against the rules. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 20:56, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: E-mail from banned users

message: I call attention of those interested in this topic to the ongoing discussion about the deletion of  a very closely related page: List of Americans in the Venona papers at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/List_of_Americans_in_the_Venona_papers. DGG 21:14, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: AfD on [[List_of_Americans_in_the_Venona_papers]]

message: TDC, I don't have a problem with the content you've removed with this edit. I don't care for the reformatting of references, however. The use of the "cite" templates helps to keep the format of references consistent. Furthermore, you're removed the ISBN numbers from book references. Including ISBNs makes it easy to look up books on WP's Book sources page. At some point I may feel motivated to restore the formatting of the references you've de-formatted. Would you have an objection to that? RedSpruce 16:07, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I really wish that there was some better formatting for citations. I usually do all my editing on MS Word, and review it before ploping it into the article, and the syntax on the old citations dont seem to translate well. I will certainly replace the ISBN #'s if thats the only thing you dont like about the new citation formats. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 16:20, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The missing ISBNs was the worst problem, but I really prefer the cite templates, as do many other editors. I don't understand what the problem is when you use Word. The template is just text, and it should (and does, when I try it) copy-and-paste fine. What is the problem you're experiencing? RedSpruce 17:09, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  When I cut'n past from Word to Wiki, the formats never come out right. I dont know if its spacing or something with the the way the indents paste over or what. If you prefer cite templates I will re-inser them. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 17:19, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems a shame to put you to the extra work, but I do like the "cite"s. I think your default settings in Word must be doing something screwy. Maybe something in Tools->AutoCorrect Options->AutoFormat As You Type? Best solution is to get a Mac. Then you'll have spell checking with access to dictionary definitions and a thesaurus, all within the browser editing window. RedSpruce 17:34, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  A Mac? Thats hippy talk! No, seriously, most my work aps only run on a PC or UNIX. I think I got it figured out though.Torturous Devastating Cudgel 17:51, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: "Critical views" section and references

message: I don't see William Weisband here, the linguist who worked for the Army Signals Security Agency and tipped off the Soviets to Venona's existence. See the Wiki entry on Wesiband:  "The Soviets apparently had monitored Arlington Hall's "Russian Section" since at least 1945, when Weisband joined the unit. Weisband's earliest reports on the work being done by U.S. crypto-analysts on Soviet diplomatic code systems were probably sketchy, but after Weisband began passing information on their work at the Russian section, Soviet authorities changed their code system and the Venona project decryptions dried up. His role as a Soviet agent was not discovered by counterintelligence officers until 1950, by which time the damage had been done. Where Weisband had sketched the outlines of the cryptanalytic success, British liaison officer Kim Philby received actual translations and analyses on a regular basis after he arrived for duty in Washington, D.C. in autumn 1949. Until a thorough review of Soviet KGB archives is made, the full scope of Weisband's role as a Soviet agent will probably not be known."lionhearted 21:32, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Omission: A spy within Venona, William Weisband

message: Weisband isn't mentioned by name or covername in any of the VENONA decrypts. Perhaps that is why he isn't discussed. 
Jktaber (talk) 21:29, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: ==

message: On the whole, I'm pleased with the improvement in tone of Wikipedia's discussion of VENONA. In my view it is more balanced today than when I first read it.
But the tone is still too much American oriented.
There are a number of Mexico City messages ranging from mention of Dukhobors in the Valle de Guadalupe (outside of Ensenada) to the imprisoned Jaime Ramón Mercader, Trotsky's assassin. I'm puzzled why  the Mexico City Rezident, Lev Tarasov (YURIJ) would mention the Dukhobors. Did he think they could be useful to the Soviets? I would appreciate discussion of Communist Party Mexico members such as Adelina Zendejas Gomez whose portfolio in the Mexican government seems to have been women's and children's rights. Apparently she was a personal friend of Frida Kahlo, which ought to elicit some interest. One decrypt identifies covername ADA as Zendejas, while others identify ADA as Kitty Harris. 
There are a number of Stockholm messages dealing with Norwegian intelligence agents working for the Soviets due to the German occupation; and Finnish resistance working for the Germans due to Soviet occupation. Stockholm messages should have more attention. Alexandra Kollontai was the Soviet Ambassador to Stockholm, and is mentioned several times in the decrypts (covername MISTRESS). She at least should be of general interest.
There are also a lot of GRU messages from LONDON that ought to have more coverage in this article. At least summarize some of Nigel West's history.
Jktaber (talk) 22:01, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Internationalizing VENONA

message: with this edit, the article gives two stories about how Venona was revealed to the Soviet Union: Bill Weisband in 1945, and Kim Philby in 1949. The article doesn't quite contradict itself, but these two stories aren't integrated either. Some research and a little rewriting is needed to clarify this aspect of the article. RedSpruce (talk) 11:13, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Exposure of Venona to the Soviet Union

message: In the main article, footnote 17 quotes "the complicity of both Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter White is settled by Venona." but the referred to document (an appendix from something) offers zero supporting references.  
The text next says ""Hiss was indeed a Soviet agent and appears to have been regarded by Moscow as its most important."[19]" quoting from Senator Moynihan's "Secrecy" book.  This strikes me as tremendously naive of the relative important of Hiss & White.  Hiss was a minor functionary in the State Department.  White was ultimately Assistant Secretary of Treasury (promoted to give him negotiating prestige against John Maynard Keynes for the approaching Bretton Woods conference).  Important State "desks," having experienced the ugliness of the Red-White conflict in Russia post WWI,  wanted a tit-for-tat (e.g. I give you something when you give me something, not before) relationship with the Soviets.  Roosevelt wanted to get the Russians all the Lend-Lease support they asked for, essentially no questions asked.  Since State objected to such open-ended largess, FDR simply went around State, raising all sorts of fiefdom hackles.  There are additional intersections, but my point is WHO is claiming Hiss was the Soviet's "most important" agent?  Hiss was hardly in a position to influence or know much of anything.
As a (catty, but telling in the ways of Washington Court) comment... when FDR went to Teheran to meet Stalin in November 1943, Cordell Hull did not go.
I've just re-read Senator Moynihan's "Secrecy" & solidly agree with its premise that the cult of secrecy that permeates Washington is highly dysfunctional.  But as a solid reference for things Cold War & VENONA it is weak.  DEddy (talk) 15:25, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that the "appears to have been regarded by Moscow as its most important." line makes little sense, and I'd love to know what gave Moynihan that idea. But what can ya do? Moynihan is a WP:reliable source. RedSpruce (talk) 00:25, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

text: Here's the quote from that document (which I'd guess is the predecessor to the "Secrecy" book... "The complicity of Alger Hiss of the State Department seems settled.  As does that of Harry Dexter White of the Treasury Department.  White, the closest advisor to Secretary Henry J. Morgenthau and later Assistant Secretary, headed the American delegation to the Bretton Woods Conference of 1944, which shaped postwar financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund."  Do notice there is ZERO supporting references/footnotes/etc. for the statement.  So I conclude that Moynihan did NOT write either this paper or the book.  I assume they were both ghost written/written by Congressional staffers.  It's very odd to flatly say White was "obviously" a Soviet agent and he was the driving force at Bretton Woods & founding of the IMF/World Bank (IRBD)... two of the principal institutions that helped crush the Soviet Union.  Plus the Soviets ultimately did not join the IMF.  Whoever wrote that statement clearly didn't know that White did not SHAPE the IMF/World Bank... he CREATED them.  DEddy (talk) 01:05, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Moynihan quote

message: What link is there between VENONA and the Taman Shud case? Other than the possibility that espionage was a factor in the latter, there's no connection and no evidence in the article for the latter that VENONA is related to that mystery. (If it espionage at all.) Autarch (talk) 02:29, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Taman Shud case

message: Why is it there's no list of Brits in Venona?  TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura  21:45, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Unlisted

message: Since such a relatively small number of the intercepted messages were decrypted, either through manual or early computer methods, I think it'd be an excellent use of distributed computing to finish the job.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bizzybody (talk • contribs) 06:05, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Venona@Home ?

message: In the VENONA cables there are numerous references to "xx Groups undecipherable".   I understand that in general it means "we couldn't decipher this chunk..."  Is there a definition for what a "group" is?  A character?  A word?  A phrase? Could a group be both a word or 100 words?  DEddy (talk) 01:19, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Good catch. The reference is to number groups (technically, code groups) standing for words.  TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura  02:15, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: So what does groups/number groups MEAN?  If memory serves me, the cables as transmitted were in the form of 4 or 5 digit "numbers" representing something (single words?  multiple word phrases?).  How big is a "group"?  DEddy (talk) 13:17, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Think of it this way: 5555=one (encrypted) word (or term, or phrase; the term of art is "word")=one number group. 5555 4444 =2 groups=2 words. "Number group" describes any number of said groups, so "10 number groups"=10 (encrypted) words. Clearer?  TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura  04:43 & 04:45, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  So... a group is sort of a word?  Not precisely, but close enough for gobmnt work. DEddy (talk) 16:14, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: More or less. (And just to be really clear, "codegroup", "number group", & "word" are pretty interchangeable; the exact distinction is one you'd have to ask a crypto guy, which I most assuredly am not. :D) It can also be common phrases, common instructions, places, or other things, things you'd want to use a single word for; for instance, "move the fleet", "report your arrival", "send help", also addresses ("to [place]" or "to [name]"), signatures, punctuation (yep, you need number groups to indicate full stops; commas are omitted). It'll depend on the actual codebook & what it's being used for. (That is, a navy book for operations rather than one for movement, which would deal more with ship callsigns & locations, or a commercial book for business secrets.) It's more/less any words, phrases, or names you'd want to keep private & shorten (short messages are harder to break). Put another way, it's a bit like texting: TYVM, IDK, LOL...but that's actually closer to encyphering than encoding; if 55=TYVM, you have a codegroup. FYI, the size of the group has something to do with the difficulty of breaking it, but that's above my paygrade. ;p Have a look at David Khan's The Codebreakers.  TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura  23:01 & 23:05, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: meaning of "Groups"?

message: Venona would be the Dakota Indian word "We-no-nah", which translates to "first-born daughter".   
Lieutenant Zebulon Pike left Fort Bellefontaine on August 9, 1805 with orders to find the source of the Mississippi. On September 14, 1805, he reached the Mississippi Valley,near "Pike's island" which would one day be Winona, Minnesota, and recorded his impressions in his log. Less than fifty years later, Pike's island was selected by Captain Orrin Smith as a townsite on the west bank of the Mississippi River. For over twenty-five years, Smith had sailed the river between Galena, Illinois and Fort Snelling, Minnesota as owner and pilot of the river packet Nominee. In 1851 Smith learned that the treaties of Traverse des Sioux and Mendota would establish a reservation in the interior of the state, and realized that there would be a rush to develop townsites on the Minnesota side of the river. On October 15, 1851 Orrin Smith became the founder of Winona, by landing his ship's carpenter, Mr. Erwin Johnson, and two other men (Smith and Stevens) with the purpose of claiming title to the riverfront and surrounding prairie land. When the town site was surveyed and plotted by John Ball, United States deputy surveyor, it was given the name of "Montezuma", as requested by Johnson and Smith. Henry D. Huff bought an interest in the town site in 1853. With the consent of Capt. Smith, Huff erased the name of Montezuma and inserted the name of Winona on the plot, a name derived from the Dakota Indian word "We-no-nah", which translates to "first-born daughter".
This name is very important in the american massonic mythology... and sioux very important for cryptology... 
This reminds me that the "first born" are the elfs of the world of the middle land of Tolkien...  — Preceding 153Ichtus comment added by 192.54.145.146 (talk) 09:10, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: VENONA meaning

message: Re: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Americans_in_the_Venona_papers
"Comment on content, not on contributors. Personal attacks damage the community and deter users. Please stay cool and keep this in mind while editing. Thank you." - T3h 1337 b0y
OK so drop the joke about the wiki author being the cite author as it was only used to pose how absurd the page cited is. Lets just focus on that content then. Can you, aside from that one page, find anything that indicates the decoded names were spies? Serious charges require serious evidence, and one webpage plus one wikipage shouldn't mean guilt. So stop supporting this since reverting without taking a hard look at the article itself means nothing but support in the end.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.176.9.105 (talk) 07:42, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: I have removed:  In The Venona Secrets, authors Romerstein and Breindel state the case against White (code name Jurist) was overwhelming, with Jurist being reported to leave the Malta conference to meet with Soviet agents in Moscow, which only matched Harry Dexter White. 
Harry Dexter White was never in Malta.  And most certainly did not attend the 1945 Yalta POLITICAL conference.  One is left confused... was the person for code name "Jurist" in Malta (a way stop for the American delegation heading to Yalta), which therefore proves that White was not Jurist, or what?  Was Jurist both White & Hiss at the same time?
The Moynihan book is highly ambiguous.  While it STATES that Hiss & White were clearly guilty as proved by VENONA decrypts, the book offers absolutely no evidence to sustain the accusation against White.  At least cable 1222 supposedly regarding Hiss & his post Yalta visit to Moscow—but with questions—is printed, but not analyzed in the text.  There is no such supporting evidence against White.
Lumping White & Hiss together is very strange.  White was a major power in the ascendant US Treasury as Henry Morgenthau's trusted aide.  Hiss was a minor functionary in the seriously out-of-favor State Department.  DEddy (talk) 22:43, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  White in Malta? 

message: This is a bad link. Jokem (talk) 14:05, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Note 10 

message: The lead paragraph currently says: "Analysis supported some criminal spy cases, such as that against Julius Rosenberg for some of the charges, but cast doubt on the case against his wife Ethel Rosenberg."  The statement that Venona cast doubt on the case against Ethel is unsourced and contradicts most accounts of the Venona messages.  Haynes and Klehr's Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America (2000) is representative: On p. 16 they say, "The Venona messages do not throw her guilt into doubt; indeed, they confirm that she was a participant in her husband's espionage and in the recruitment of her brother for atomic espionage. But they suggest that she was essentially an accessory to her husband's activities, having knowledge of it and assisting him but not acting as a principal."  In writing about Julius Rosenberg, the lead also introduces the qualification that analysis supported the case against Julius Rosenberg for "some of the charges".  There was only one charge against the Rosenbergs and Morton Sobel, conspiracy to commit espionage. The lead paragraph statements need reliable sources to appear in the article. Rgr09 (talk) 07:30, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  lead paragraph reference needed 

message: The new lead attempts to give a better summary of the nature and achievements of Venona, and to provide more adequate references for these.  It is especially important to point out at the beginning that Venona was a counter-intelligence program. It did not provide military, political, or economic intelligence on the Soviet Union, but was directed primarily at the espionage activities of Soviet foreign and military intelligence. The remainder of the article still has many flaws and needs careful revision to provide an adequate description of the subject.  Better referencing is essential to improve the quality of the article. Rgr09 (talk) 13:22, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  New lead paragraph 

message: The three sections of the article titled "Inherent problems", "The Antenna example", and "Usability in prosecutions" were taken almost verbatim from the article "Cables coming in from the cold"  by Walter and Miriam Schneir, published in The Nation on July 5, 1999. This was originally a review of Haynes and Klehr's book, "Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America." Its use here clearly constitutes plagiary, taking up almost a quarter of the article, without adequate indication that it is someone else's work.  There are three references at the end of the first sentence of the plagiarized section:
:Schneir, Walter and Miriam (1995-08-21). "The Schneirs on the Venona Papers". The Albert Hiss Story. Boston, New York: Harvard, NYU.
:Schneir, Walter; Schneir, Miriam (Aug 1995). "The Venona Papers". The Nation (Washington).
:"FBI Office Memorandum; A. H. Belmont to L. V. Boardman". February 1956. Retrieved 2006-06-27."
These references are cited repeatedly throughout the three sections as if there were three distinct sources, and are never used in conjunction with quote marks despite the repeated use of wording identical with the Schneirs' article.  The first reference is puzzling, but the link shows that the original source the editor used was the "Alger Hiss Story" website at NYU, which reprints the Schneirs' article, but incorrectly dates it August 21, 1995.  There is no link for the second citation, but it obviously comes from the NYU website again, and is simply a bibliographical ghost.  The Schneirs did write an article titled "Cryptic Answers", published in The Nation on August 14, 1995, but this is irrelevant to these three sections.  It has to be, since the Belmont memo was not released until 1999, as the Schneirs themselves note in their article. The third reference is linked to the cryptome website, which provides a transcription of the Belmont memo discussed in these three sections, without any indication of where it came from (it is from the Venona file, pages 61-72, located at the  FBI reading room) and without any indication of who did the transcription.  In fact, since every quote from the Belmont memo in the article comes from the Schneirs' article, there is no justification for referencing the transcription on cryptome, except to make it look like the material was put together by a third party.
I will come back later today and delete this material, replacing it with a summary that is not plagiarized and a link to the proper sources.  Rgr09 (talk) 10:21, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Cables Coming in from the cold" plagiarized 

message: The article originally cited John Lowenthal's article from a secondary source, failed to identify Lowenthal, and failed to indicate that the description it gave of Lowenthal's views was actually a direct quote.  It also failed to indicate the long debate that Lowenthal's article provoked.  All fixed.  Rgr09 (talk) 18:05, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Revision of another improperly cited source 

message: I believe this statement is misleading although another editor evidently believes it to be accurate.  "Several current authors, researchers, and archivists" greatly exaggerates the breadth and depth of scholarly opinion taking this view.  As Stanley Kutler has noted, "the publication of the Venona intercepts of wartime Soviet espionage referring to "Ales" settled the matter -- to all but the truest of believers, "Ales" only could mean Alger Hiss."  Now who are these "truest of believers"?  These few actors are almost all connected in some way to either Hiss personally or to The Nation, Victor Navasky's magazine that calls itself "the flagship of the left."  "The Alger Hiss Story" web site was created for NYU Libraries with grants from The Nation Institute and "participation from members of the Hiss family".  According to the New York Times, the site is "largely the brainchild of Hiss's son Tony".  The NYT quotes a historian who says the website is "the best defense mustered of Hiss by the dwindling band of those who believe in Hiss.  I don't think anyone is going to treat this site as the repository of truth, except for those who have already made up their minds that Hiss was innocent."  The NYT also notes Sam Tanenhaus saying "My only concern would be that the academic/institutional aegis, and the educational angle, might mislead some into supposing this is a balanced, scholarly Web site."  The site is maintained by Jeff Kisseloff, a "NY-based writer who served as Alger Hiss's legal researcher in the 1970s".  Not a scholar, in other words, but a writer supported by The Nation.  Kisseloff uses John Lowenthal's analysis to conclude that linking ALES to Hiss is "incorrect."  Who is Lowenthal?  One of Hiss' lawyers who contends that the VENONA cables must be treated with "caution and skepticism" because of the "professional involvement of intelligence agencies in deception and disinformation".  Historian Eduard Mark reviewed Lowenthal's allegations and thoroughly debunked them, noting how only Hiss met all the criteria to be ALES: he was a State Department employee, not detailed from the military or another agency; had been named by Chambers as involved in espionage in the mid-1930s along with his wife and brother, Donald; would have had several opportunities to speak with Vyshinskiy in Moscow; and had returned to Washington directly from Moscow with Secretary Stettinius.  Mark also disposed of Lowenthal's argument that Hiss couldn't have been a spy because he was named in cable 1579, noting that there are many cases in VENONA where the Soviets mistakenly used true names.  Readers should be advised just who these "researchers" are claiming VENONA is dubious.  The NYT article I have linked here notes that "conservatives hail Chambers as a hero, liberal defenders counter that Hiss was framed" because the NYT considers this left-right dynamic newsworthy.  Wikipedia should do likewise.--Brian Dell (talk) 21:43, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: You seem to want to argue the underlying facts and what is newsworthy. Keep in mind that Wikipedia is neither a primary nor secondary source and has no interest in deciding what is newsworthy, what Wikipedians call "notability" (see WP:NOTABLE). Other than confirming authoritative sources that support notability, it's not something Wikipedians independently decide. If the information presented here isn't neutrally biased, I recommend identifying and referencing additional authoritative sources that provide information which improves neutral bias. See WP:POV. —Danorton (talk) 22:15, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: You seem to want to "argue" that the "facts" are irrelevant.  I dare say Wikipedia's readers may not agree and serving the reader notable, neutral, accurate information is Wikipedia's primary mandate.  What IS irrelevant is your making an issue out of "primary" sources here as no editor is using a primary source. By the way, this whole article currently suffers from giving far too much time and space to what one might call "VENONA skeptics."  Adding yet more material is not going to address the problem of overcoverage of this fringe view.--Brian Dell (talk) 22:32, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Several current authors, researchers, and archivists consider the Venona evidence on Hiss to be inconclusive or incorrect" 

message: User:Bdell555 (talk) has twice inserted the adjective "left-leaning" in a phrase in this article:
This change seems to rely on no reliable source, but is strictly the personal opinion of the editor. Whether or not the source is considered by many or even the source itself as "left-leaning" isn't the point. If we added such an adjective every time we mentioned a left-leaning or right-leaning group, we'd be adding that and many other adjectives to every single article in Wikipedia. Perhaps the editor felt that the information was unduly biased. If that is the case, the editor is free to identify and cite authoritative sources that express that opinion in the context of this article, identifying specific sources and the specific references that the source describes. —Danorton (talk) 21:51, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I just did that in the previous section ("express that opinion in the context"), identifying the New York Times, but I see you ignored that to start this new section.  By the way, you are not the final arbitrator of what is or isn't the point.  The "point" is to inform the reader.  You evidently consider it absolutely outrageous that a political liberal should be properly described, accusing me of vandalism for daring to point it out.  Perhaps you could supplement your outrage with an explanation for just why this is so outrageous.  re adding "such an adjective every time we mentioned a left-leaning or right-leaning group" see Straw man.  The only other instance in this article that I see on a quick look is the Australian context.  Why is it acceptable to make an observation about the political alignments in the Australian context but not the American one?  This piece in the Los Angeles Times goes ON AND ON about left versus right and Alger Hiss!  Here Cass Sunstein says the "Hiss case casts light on why conservatives and liberals are suspicious of each other, on their different attitudes toward elitism, on their understandings of patriotism and on the parallel universes in which they seem to live."  This identification of potentially relevant motive should be brought to the attention of the reader.--Brian Dell (talk) 22:17, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Injection of personal opinion by Bdell555 

message: My impression is that the VENONA cables—as shown on NSA site—are predominantly/only "outbound."  US to Moscow.  Minimal/no "inbound" Moscow to US.  Is this accurate?  If there are inbound, please offer examples.  DEddy (talk) 12:28, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: My VERY rough count for total number of VENONA messages is ~3200, of these about 800 originate in Moscow, so 1/4 more or less.  Note that the Moscow-US lanes make up only a little more than half of the decrypted traffic (~55%); there are as many messages from the Stockholm-Moscow lane as there are from the Washington-Moscow.  The ratio of Moscow originated messages to locally originated messages varies; for New York-Moscow it is about 8-1 local to Center, but for Washington-Moscow it is 2-1 Center to DC.  Many of the best known messages (Rosenbergs, Ted Hall) are Moscow to New York.  Here is Moscow ordering a $4000 payment to "Liberal" (Julius Rosenberg); here is Moscow evaluating material from CHARL'Z (Fuchs) and MLAD (Hall), with Hall identified by name in the notes;  Here is a very complete message giving new cover terms.  There are hundreds of messages sent by Moscow to the States. I recommend again Benson and Warner (Venona: Soviet Espionage and the American Response 1939-1957), which gives over a hundred messages with very clear discussions of their significance. Rgr09 (talk) 16:47, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  VENONA outbound only? 

message: Did Finnish intelligence and its "Stella Polaris" program assist in the deciphering of Venona? This issue has been discussed before; a recent edit sourced Athan Theoharis's Chasing Spies for this claim, but Theoharis does not mention Stella Polaris.  I have replaced this with Nigel West's Venona (2000) which gives the most detailed description.  This is a problematic claim, however; Benson's history of Venona specifically denies it. Rgr09 (talk) 16:56, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stella Polaris and Venona 

message: Although Stockholm decrypts are mentioned in the Venona project article I cannot see that the ca 3600 telegrams intercepted by FRA in Sweden are mentioned. These were given to GCHQ in 1960 and were very important in the continuation of the project. About 390 of these telegrams were subsequently decrypted, partly only in most instances.
The book 'Venona'(Wilhelm Agrell, 2003, ) is an excellent account of the Swedish angle to Venona.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.45.126.160 (talk) 09:38, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, I'll get my book out. After the first revelation, two books came out about the same time. What was the name of the other book? Now, Amazon has several. -- Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 16:35, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Swedish intercepts used by NSA/GCHQ. 

message: The article originally had a section on Ramon Mercader, the Soviet agent who murdered Trotsky, which said the Venona messages 'confirmed' Mercader's identity. During his trial and subsequent imprisonment, Mercader insisted his name was Jacques Mornard.  According to Isaac Don Levine's book on Mercader The Mind of an Assassin, in 1950 Mexican authorities were able to get records, including fingerprints, from Spain which allowed them to identify.  I know of no works that document Venona's role in identifying Mercader.  The section I removed was from the article on Ramon Mercader, and cited a letter from Stephen Schwartz in The Nation, but Schwartz didn't give any specific documentation.  As Klehr and Haynes 1999 noted, there are a number of messages relating to Soviet attempts to help Mercader escape from prison (cryptonyms for Mercader include GNOME and RITA), but Klehr and Haynes say nothing about a Venona role in identifying Mercader. Let me know if there are other references I'm missing. Rgr09 (talk) 04:02, 30 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ramon Mercader 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: The lead originally stated "During the 37-year duration of the Venona project, the Signal Intelligence Service decrypted and translated approximately 3,000 messages." The source for this is Benson 2001, p. 14: "There were about 3,000 VENONA messages translated." Unfortunately I put the wrong page number when sourcing this cite. I have corrected this in the current article. This passage was revised in 2017 to say "During the 37-year duration of the Venona project, the Signal Intelligence Service obtained approximately 3,000 Soviet messages (only a small fraction of which were ever decrypted)." The source for this was cited as David Horner, Official History of ASIO, vol. 1, p. 55. In fact, what Horner says is "Gradually the Americans, assisted by the British, decrypted and translated at least part of almost 3000 Soviet messages sent between 1940 and 1948." The footnote for this passage lists Benson, 'Introductory history of Venona'. This is in fact Benson 2001, which collects Benson's introductions to the four or five releases of Venona material. Thus the source for the number of messages translated is the same.  It is better to use the Benson original, rather than Horner's cite to Benson. The parenthetical remark that "only a small fraction" of these 3000 messages were ever decrypted is false. Rgr09 (talk) 20:10, 20 July 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Number of venona documents decrypted and translated 

message: The Outback is not really a place. The article should be more specific.--Jack Upland (talk) 23:39, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Outback 

message: In fact, it was disclosed by Kim Philby in his book, My Silent War, in 1967.--Jack Upland (talk) 00:17, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Public disclosure 

message: — Assignment last updated by Briannabehnke (talk) 03:33, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
thread_title: Wiki Education assignment: Cold War Science