VENONA Praise for VENONA: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

VENONA Praise for VENONA: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America "The full implications of Soviet espionage in the United States during and immediately after World War II are only now being realized. In yet another superbly fascinating volume, Haynes and Klehr make wondrous use of the evi dence in the Venona cables to reveal the scope of this limited, but very real (attack' which remained secret for too long:'-Daniel Patrick Moynihan "With unmatched knowledge of American communism and Soviet espionage in America, Haynes and Klehr settle some of the most persistent historical con troversies of the domestic cold war:'-Richard Gid Powers "Probably the definitive public study of Soviet espionage in the United States:'-Arnold Beichman, Weekry Standard "The reverberations from this cool, balanced, and devastating appraisal will be heard for many years to come:'- Kirkus Reviews "A careful explanation of the greatest codebreak of the Cold War:' -David Ignatius, Washington Monthly "Preeminent authorities on American communism provide the first comprehen sive examination of these files, one of U.S. counter-intelligence's greatest achievements:'- Rorin M. Platt, Foreign Service Journal "Reads like a fast-paced spy nove!:'-John Hanchette, Gannett News Service "May open a fundamental revision of U.S. history:'-Gilbert Taylor, Booklist "Better than anything John Ie Carre could produce, because in this case, truth is really stranger than fiction:'-Library Journal John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr ~ Yale Nota Bene Yale University Press New Haven and London To my wife, Marcia Steinberg - HARVEY KLEHR To my wife, Janette -JOHN EARL HAYNES First published as a Yale Nota Bene The Library of Congress has cataloged the book in 2000. hardcover edition as follows: Copyright © 1999 by Yale Haynes, John Earl. University. Venona: Decoding Soviet espionage in All rights reserved. America / John Earl Haynes and This book may not be Harvey Klehr. reproduced, in whole or in part, p. cm. including illustrations, in any Includes index. form (beyond that copying ISBN 0-300-°7771-8 permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law I. Communist Party of the United and except by reviewers for the States of America-History- public press), without written Sources. 2. Espionage, Soviet- permission from the publishers. United States-History-Sources. 3. Communism-United States-History For information about this and Sources. 4. Spies-Soviet Union other Yale University Press History-Sources. 5. Spies-United publications, please contact: States-History-Sources. 6. Cryptography-United States U.S. office [email protected] History-Sources. I. Klehr, Europe office [email protected] Harvey. II. Title. JK2 39I.C5H39 1999 Printed in the United States of America. 327.1247'073'0904-dc21 98-5 1464 ISBN 0-3°0-08462-5 (pbk.) A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3.

Copy Link

Recommended publications

George Bush and the End of the Cold War. Christopher Alan Maynard Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College
Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 2001 From the Shadow of Reagan: George Bush and the End of the Cold War. Christopher Alan Maynard Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Maynard, Christopher Alan, "From the Shadow of Reagan: George Bush and the End of the Cold War." (2001). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 297. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/297 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI fiims the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction.. In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand comer and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps.
[Show full text]
The Darkest Red Corner Matthew James Brazil
The Darkest Red Corner Chinese Communist Intelligence and Its Place in the Party, 1926-1945 Matthew James Brazil A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a Doctor of Philosophy Department of Government and International Relations Business School University of Sydney 17 December 2012 Statement of Originality This is to certify that to the best of my knowledge, the content of this thesis is my own work. This thesis has not been submitted previously, either in its entirety or substantially, for a higher degree or qualifications at any other university or institute of higher learning. I certify that the intellectual content of this thesis is the product of my own work and that all the assistance received in preparing this thesis and sources has been acknowledged. Matthew James Brazil i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Before and during this project I met a number of people who, directly or otherwise, encouraged my belief that Chinese Communist intelligence was not too difficult a subject for academic study. Michael Dutton and Scot Tanner provided invaluable direction at the very beginning. James Mulvenon requires special thanks for regular encouragement over the years and generosity with his time, guidance, and library. Richard Corsa, Monte Bullard, Tom Andrukonis, Robert W. Rice, Bill Weinstein, Roderick MacFarquhar, the late Frank Holober, Dave Small, Moray Taylor Smith, David Shambaugh, Steven Wadley, Roger Faligot, Jean Hung and the staff at the Universities Service Centre in Hong Kong, and the kind personnel at the KMT Archives in Taipei are the others who can be named. Three former US diplomats cannot, though their generosity helped my understanding of links between modern PRC intelligence operations and those before 1949.
[Show full text]
Spies: the Rise and Fall of the KGB in America by John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr and Alexander Vassiliev: Review
Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America By John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr and Alexander Vassiliev: review Spies by Haynes, Klehr and Vassiliev proves that the KGB’s infiltration of America started earlier and went deeper than we thought, finds Andrew Lownie By Andrew Lownie Published: 5:50AM BST 28 Jun 2009 A common perception is that, both before and after the Second World War, the British Establishment was penetrated by Soviet spies (most notably by the Cambridge Spy Ring) while America somehow escaped infiltration. This important new book, however, which is based on archival material – a rare luxury for intelligence historians – shows the huge extent of Soviet espionage activity in the United States during the 20th century. The authors estimate that from the Twenties more than 500 Americans from all walks of life, including many Ivy League graduates and Oxford Rhodes Scholars, were recruited to assist Soviet intelligence agencies, particularly in the State Department and America’s first intelligence agency, the OSS. John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr have previously collaborated on books about the Venona spy intercepts and American Communism. Their co-author Alexander Vassiliev, a Russian journalist and former intelligence officer, collaborated on The Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America. That book was based on controlled Russian intelligence documents, access to which was negotiated during a moment of Glasnost in the Nineties with a view to supplementing the KGB pension fund, championing Russian intelligence successes and creating a bit of disinformation mischief. What hadn’t been known until recently is that while working on The Haunted Wood, Vassiliev had transcribed and summarised innumerable KGB documents which he had smuggled out with him – more than 1,000 pages of notes – when he began a new life in America.
[Show full text]
ABSTRACT Title of Document: from the BELLY of the HUAC: the RED PROBES of HOLLYWOOD, 1947-1952 Jack D. Meeks, Doctor of Philos
ABSTRACT Title of Document: FROM THE BELLY OF THE HUAC: THE RED PROBES OF HOLLYWOOD, 1947-1952 Jack D. Meeks, Doctor of Philosophy, 2009 Directed By: Dr. Maurine Beasley, Journalism The House Un-American Activities Committee, popularly known as the HUAC, conducted two investigations of the movie industry, in 1947 and again in 1951-1952. The goal was to determine the extent of communist infiltration in Hollywood and whether communist propaganda had made it into American movies. The spotlight that the HUAC shone on Tinsel Town led to the blacklisting of approximately 300 Hollywood professionals. This, along with the HUAC’s insistence that witnesses testifying under oath identify others that they knew to be communists, contributed to the Committee’s notoriety. Until now, historians have concentrated on offering accounts of the HUAC’s practice of naming names, its scrutiny of movies for propaganda, and its intervention in Hollywood union disputes. The HUAC’s sealed files were first opened to scholars in 2001. This study is the first to draw extensively on these newly available documents in an effort to reevaluate the HUAC’s Hollywood probes. This study assesses four areas in which the new evidence indicates significant, fresh findings. First, a detailed analysis of the Committee’s investigatory methods reveals that most of the HUAC’s information came from a careful, on-going analysis of the communist press, rather than techniques such as surveillance, wiretaps and other cloak and dagger activities. Second, the evidence shows the crucial role played by two brothers, both German communists living as refugees in America during World War II, in motivating the Committee to launch its first Hollywood probe.
[Show full text]
The Life and Works of Philip J. Jaffe: a Foreigner's Foray
THE LIFE AND WORKS OF PHILIP J. JAFFE: A FOREIGNER’S FORAY INTO CHINESE COMMUNISM Patrick Nichols “…the capitalist world is divided into two rival sectors, the one in favor of peace and the status quo, and the other the Fascist aggressors and provokers of a new world war.” These words spoken by Mao Tse Tung to Philip J. Jaffe in a confidential interview. Although China has long held international relations within its Asian sphere of influence, the introduction of a significant Western persuasion following their defeats in the Opium Wars was the first instance in which China had been subservient to the desires of foreigners. With the institution of a highly westernized and open trading policy per the wishes of the British, China had lost the luster of its dynastic splendor and had deteriorated into little more than a colony of Western powers. Nevertheless, as China entered the 20th century, an age of new political ideologies and institutions began to flourish. When the Kuomintang finally succeeded in wrestling control of the nation from the hands of the northern warlords following the Northern Expedition1, it signaled a modern approach to democratizing China. However, as the course of Chinese political history will show, the KMT was a morally weak ruling body that appeased the imperial intentions of the Japanese at the cost of Chinese citizens and failed to truly assert its political legitimacy during it‟s almost ten year reign. Under these conditions, a radical and highly determined sect began to form within the KMT along with foreign assistance. The party held firmly on the idea of general welfare, but focused mostly on the rights of the working class and student nationalists.
[Show full text]
Scoping out the International Spy Museum
Acad. Quest. DOI 10.1007/s12129-010-9171-1 ARTICLE Scoping Out the International Spy Museum Ronald Radosh # The Authors 2010 The International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C.—a private museum that opened in July 2002 at the cost of $40 million—is rated as one of the most visited and popular tourist destinations in our nation’s capital, despite stiff competition from the various public museums that are part of the Smithsonian. The popularity of the Spy Museum has a great deal to do with how espionage has been portrayed in the popular culture, especially in the movies. Indeed, the museum pays homage to cinema with its display of the first Aston Martin used by James Bond, when Agent 007 was played by Sean Connery in the films made during the JFK years. The Spy Museum’s board of directors includes Peter Earnest, a former CIA operative and the museum’s first chief executive; David Kahn, the analyst of cryptology; Gen. Oleg Kalugin, a former KGB agent; as well as R. James Woolsey, a former director of the CIA. Clearly, the board intends that in addition to the museum’s considerable entertainment value, its exhibits and texts convey a sense of the reality of the spy’s life and the historical context in which espionage agents operated. The day I toured the museum it was filled with high school students who stood at the various exhibits taking copious notes. It was obvious that before their visit the students had been told to see what the exhibits could teach them about topics discussed in either their history or social studies classes.
[Show full text]
Cultural Detente: John Le Carré from the Cold to the Thaw Leah Nicole Huesing University of Missouri-St
University of Missouri, St. Louis IRL @ UMSL Theses Graduate Works 4-14-2016 Cultural Detente: John le Carré from the Cold to the Thaw Leah Nicole Huesing University of Missouri-St. Louis, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://irl.umsl.edu/thesis Recommended Citation Huesing, Leah Nicole, "Cultural Detente: John le Carré from the Cold to the Thaw" (2016). Theses. 168. http://irl.umsl.edu/thesis/168 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate Works at IRL @ UMSL. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses by an authorized administrator of IRL @ UMSL. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Huesing 1 Cultural Détente: John le Carré from the Cold to the Thaw Leah Huesing B.A. History, Columbia College, 2009 A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Missouri-St. Louis in partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in History May, 2016 Advisory Committee Peter Acsay, Ph. D Chairperson Minsoo Kang, Ph.D. Carlos Schwantes, Ph.D. Huesing 2 Abstract British spy fiction author John le Carré inspired Cultural Détente, a movement in American popular culture which banished the simplicities of the 1950’s and replaced it with a relaxation of tensions from 1960-1965. Cultural Détente manifested from within Western liberal, democratic society after the strict conformities of the 1950s. After the dissipation of McCarthyism and the anti-Communist crusaders, the public was ready to embrace a ‘thaw’ in tensions. Even with all of the evidence already in place, there has yet to be any historical evaluation of a 1960s Cultural Détente that anticipated and made possible the détente of Richard Nixon.
[Show full text]
Enhancing the Historical Record Is Scholars’ Foremost Task, No Matter Where It May Lead
Enhancing the Historical Record Is Scholars’ Foremost Task, No Matter Where It May Lead Atlanta Journal-Constitution, June 7, 2019, p. A18. By David J. Garrow, Special to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Forty years ago, two unanswered questions loomed over the murky history of the FBI’s infamous pursuit of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.: who were the top- secret informants who had fingered King’s confidante Stanley Levison as a former top Communist functionary, and who was the Atlanta informant who had burrowed into the headquarters of King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference? Across 1979 and 1980, I pursued those two mysteries. On the first, Emory University scholar Harvey Klehr provided a crucial assist; on the second, thousands of pages of imperfectly redacted documents sent to me pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act offered decisive clues. When I telephoned former FBI intelligence chief Charles “Chick” Brennan to cite brothers Jack and Morris Childs as the FBI’s top Communist sources, Brennan’s response confirmed Klehr’s clue: “How do you know those names?” Within 24 hours, FBI counterintelligence unit chief Michael Steinbeck called to say he was coming to visit me. Steinbeck’s message was clear: should I proceed to publish the Childs brothers’ names, and that of former SCLC comptroller James A. Harrison as the FBI’s mole close to King, the Bureau would seek my indictment under the Espionage Act of 1917. I declined proffered meetings with President Jimmy Carter and then his successor, Ronald Reagan. In September 1981, my book “The FBI and Martin Luther King, Jr.”, was published, and The Washington Post named the Childs brothers on its front page while The Atlanta Journal did the same with Harrison.
[Show full text]
From Deep Freeze to Détente, 1945-1970, by Anthony Carew (2018) Edmonton: Aupress/Athabaska Press, 510 Pages
Document generated on 09/25/2021 4:17 a.m. Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations American Labour’s Cold War Abroad: From Deep Freeze to Détente, 1945-1970, By Anthony Carew (2018) Edmonton: AUPress/Athabaska Press, 510 pages. ISBN: 978-1-77199-211-4 Jeffrey Muldoon Volume 75, Number 2, Spring 2020 URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1070359ar DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/1070359ar See table of contents Publisher(s) Département des relations industrielles de l’Université Laval ISSN 0034-379X (print) 1703-8138 (digital) Explore this journal Cite this review Muldoon, J. (2020). Review of [American Labour’s Cold War Abroad: From Deep Freeze to Détente, 1945-1970, By Anthony Carew (2018) Edmonton: AUPress/Athabaska Press, 510 pages. ISBN: 978-1-77199-211-4]. Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 75(2), 412–414. https://doi.org/10.7202/1070359ar Tous droits réservés © Département des relations industrielles de l’Université This document is protected by copyright law. Use of the services of Érudit Laval, 2020 (including reproduction) is subject to its terms and conditions, which can be viewed online. https://apropos.erudit.org/en/users/policy-on-use/ This article is disseminated and preserved by Érudit. Érudit is a non-profit inter-university consortium of the Université de Montréal, Université Laval, and the Université du Québec à Montréal. Its mission is to promote and disseminate research. https://www.erudit.org/en/ 412 RELATIONS INDUSTRIELLES / INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS – 75-2, 2020 the more interesting contributions of The Braham Dabscheck Long Deep Grudge. Senior Fellow Melbourne Law School IH was unhappy with the way in which University of Melbourne it had lost control to FE.
[Show full text]
Framing William Albertson the FBI’S “Solo” Operation and the Cold War
Framing William Albertson The FBI’s “Solo” Operation and the Cold War ✣ John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr In 1964 the executive secretary of the New York Communist Party, William Albertson, who was also a member of the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), was falsely rumored to be an informant of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The FBI itself was behind the framing of Albertson as part of its Counterintelligence Pro- gram (COINTELPRO) designed to disrupt groups the FBI saw as subversive. Most of the literature on COINTELPRO has focused on efforts to disrupt the civil rights movement and the New Left, with only scattershot references to operations against the CPUSA. Only one secondary account of the Albertson case has ever appeared: Frank Donner’s indignant 1976 article, which accu- rately describes how the FBI set up Albertson but suggests this was simply part of a generalized effort to sow discord among CPUSA ofﬁcials. Only in recent years have new FBI records released under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) allowed for a full understanding of why the FBI undertook the operation and how much damage it did to the CPUSA.1 In the spring of 1964 the FBI realized that information on one of its most successful intelligence operations was being leaked. Victor Riesel was 1. On the effort against the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party, see Nelson Blackstock, COINTELPRO: The FBI’s Secret War on Political Freedom (New York: Pathﬁnder Press, 1988). On activities directed against the Maoists, see Aaron Leonard and Conor Gallagher, Heavy Radicals: The FBI’s Secret War on America’s Maoists (Washington, DC: Zero Books, 2014); and Frank J.
[Show full text]
H-Diplo Roundtable on Acheson: a Life in the Cold
Dean Acheson: A Life in the Cold War Roundtable Review Reviewed Work: Robert Beisner. Dean Acheson: A Life in the Cold War. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Roundtable Editor: Thomas Maddux Reviewers: John Earl Haynes, Matthew Jacobs, Deborah Larson, Douglas J. Macdonald, James Matray Stable URL: http://www.h-net.org/~diplo/roundtables/PDF/Beisner-AchesonRoundtable.pdf Your use of this H-Diplo roundtable review indicates your acceptance of the H-Diplo and H-Net copyright policies, and terms of condition and use. The following is a plain language summary of these policies: You may redistribute and reprint this work under the following conditions: Attribution: You must include full and accurate attribution to the author(s), web location, date of publication, H-Diplo, and H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online. Nonprofit and education purposes only. You may not use this work for commercial purposes. For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. Any of these conditions may be waived if you obtain permission from the copyright holder. For such queries, contact the H-Diplo editorial staff at [email protected]. H-Diplo is an international discussion network dedicated to the study of diplomatic and international history (including the history of foreign relations). For more information regarding H-Diplo, please visit http://www.h-net.org/~diplo/. For further information about our parent organization, H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online, please visit http://www.h-net.org/. Copyright © 2007 by H-Diplo, a part of H-Net.
[Show full text]
A Reevaluation of the Damage Done to the United States by Soviet Espionage April Pickens James Madison University
James Madison Undergraduate Research Journal Volume 4 | Issue 1 2016-2017 A Reevaluation of the Damage Done to the United States by Soviet Espionage April Pickens James Madison University Follow this and other works at: http://commons.lib.jmu.edu/jmurj Recommended Chicago Citation Pickens, April. “A Reevaluation of the Damage Done to the United States by Soviet Espionage". James Madison Undergraduate Research Journal 4, no. 1 (2017): 56-64, accessed Month day, year. http:// commons.lib.jmu.edu/jmurj/vol4/iss1/5. This full issue is brought to you for free and open access by JMU Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in James Madison Undergraduate Research Journal by an authorized administrator of JMU Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. JMURJ Popular opinion and many historians portray the effects of Soviet espionage on the ABSTRACT United States as disastrous. Although covert Soviet efforts undeniably harmed America, their extent and gravity has been greatly exaggerated. This paper evaluates primary and secondary sources on the subject to strike a delicate balance between minimizing and inflating the effects of Soviet activities. It acknowledges that espionage did some damage, but questions the legal status, extent, and effect of much of the Soviets’ “stolen” information, ultimately arguing that most Soviet espionage was actually more harmful to the Soviet Union than to the United States. RUSSIAN COLONEL IS INDICTED Any argument downplaying covert Soviet endeavors HERE AS TOP SPY IN U.S.1 must begin with an admission that some espionage unquestionably led to detrimental consequences for CHIEF ‘RUSSIAN SPY’ the United States.
[Show full text]