1. Prologue

A message from July 26, 1944 contained the clue that sent Julius Rosenberg to the electric chair for espionage. US intelligence deciphered the text in 1950. Rosenberg was executed in 1953.

Painstaking analysis of information for payoffs sometimes decades later, that is the story of the Venona project.

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2. The Venona Project

In 1939, at the outset of World War II, US intelligence started collecting international cables. At that time, the communications with the Soviet Union did not receive special attention. In any case, since foreign governments encrypted their sensitive messages, reading the cables required a code-breaking effort.

In 1943, not fully trusting the Soviets, now allies, US intelligence began to take an active interest in the messages sent by the Soviet embassy, the Soviet trade delegation, and other agencies that might serve as cover for spies. The ensuing code-breaking project operated under a series of names until "Venona" stuck.

It became quickly apparent that the Soviets employed a sophisticated, two-step scrambling process: replacement of words by numeric codes, followed by encryption through so-called one-time pads. When their creators and users adhere to a strict discipline, one-time pads are unbreakable because decryption methods rely on the existence of patterns. Still, US intelligence determined to try.

In 1946, after discovering a number of Soviet lapses, US intelligence broke a first message. Although the Soviets soon learned of Venona and ultimately changed their security system, work on the backlog of information continued until 1981 when a last cable was translated.

Despite not decoding all known messages, Venona yielded such direct results as the identification of Julius Rosenberg as an atomic spy. Venona's product also provided the context against which other information from behind the iron curtain could be verified. As late as 1990, the defector Oleg Gordievsky's revelations were cross-checked against Venona findings.

Until 1995, US intelligence kept the Venona project and its successes secret. Results were disguised as coming from other sources or not publicly exploited at all. Since their opening, Venona records have led to a reassessment of Cold War history. In particular, the large scale on which Soviet intelligence attacked the United States in the 1940's and early 1950's is better understood.

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3. Moral of the Story

Questions for your organization:

• Do you sit on a treasure trove of unexploited information?
• Could an analysis uncover nuggets of still current value?
• Even if the information has no longer a direct bearing on the current situation, can you use it to validate other sources?
• Can the information provide a more accurate understanding of past events?

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4. Acknowledgment

The key facts about the Venona project are taken from "Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America" by John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, Yale University Press 1999.