Venona; Soviet Espionage and the American Response, 1939-1957
Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency, 1996. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Wraps. Quarto. xliv, 450, [2] pages. Wraps. Documents. Footnotes. Chronology. Stain on top edge, some wear to cover edges. Mr. Robert Louis Benson served with the Office of Security of the National Security Agency. A former US Air Force Officer, Me. Benson earned his B.A. in history at the University of Wisconsin. He had written and lectured extensively on Venona. Dr. Michael Warner was Deputy Chief of the Central Intelligence Agency History Staff. He received his Ph.D. in history from the University of Chicago and served as an analyst in CIA's Directorate of Intelligence before join the Center for the Study of Intelligence in 1992. The Venona project was a United States counterintelligence program initiated during World War II by the United States Army's Signal Intelligence Service (later absorbed by the National Security Agency), which ran from February 1, 1943, until October 1, 1980. It was intended to decrypt messages transmitted by the intelligence agencies of the Soviet Union (e.g. the NKVD, the KGB, and the GRU). Initiated when the Soviet Union was an ally of the US, the program continued during the Cold War, when it was considered an enemy.
During the 37-year duration of the Venona project, the Signal Intelligence Service decrypted and translated approximately 3,000 messages. The signals intelligence yield included discovery of the Cambridge Five espionage ring in the United Kingdom and Soviet espionage of the Manhattan Project in the U.S. (known as project Enormous). The espionage was undertaken to support the Soviet atomic bomb project. The Venona project remained secret for more than 15 years after it concluded. Some of the decoded Soviet messages were not declassified and published by the United States until 1995.
The Venona Project analyzed and translated encrypted Soviet diplomatic and trade communications, which turned out to include Soviet KGB and GRU spy messages in addition to diplomatic and trade messages. This collection of documents conveys the flavor of internal U.S. Government discussions and concerns over Soviet espionage in America.
This sensational book, edited by NSA and CIA officers, reveals U.S. "code-breaking" successes in reading KGB and GRU messages during the Cold War. The cryptanalytic efforts of NSA, termed the Venona project, succeeded in dramatically tearing away the veil of secrecy surrounding Soviet intelligence and espionage. Venona breakthroughs -- described in detail -- played a significant role in exposing and confirming the espionage activities of Soviet agents such as the Rosenbergs, Guy Burgess, Kim Philby, Donald Maclean, and others. Aegean Park Press has added a lengthy index to the text, as well as additional monographs with pictures concerning the great significance of the Venona. Condition: good.
Keywords: Cold War, Cryptology, Communist Party, Soviet Espionage, Venona Project, Intelligence, Counterintelligence
[Book #56636]
Price: $60.00