Rating: 
Summary: Liberal
Review: A great man once took up the cause of defending our nation against the most terrible enemy we had ever known. For this, we was hounded and slandered relentlessly by the Left, his associates gay-baited, his very name made a malediction for generations to come. But was he right?
Definitive evidence shows that Joseph McCarthy was right to an extent even he could not have imagined. Venona describes the ultra-secret code-breaking project begun by Carter Clarke of the US Army Military Intelligence division and later run by the National Security Agency. Through incredible persistence and ingenuity, we managed to intercept and decode secret communications between Moscow and its embassies in America. The work that went into this effort is astounding, and even though we managed to decrypt only a tiny fraction of that traffic, the information that we obtained showed that the United States government was infiltrated to the highest levels.
Roosevelt was not even made aware of the Venona project because his personal aide Lauchlin Currie was a Soviet spy. The director of the International Monetary Fund, Harry Dexter White, was a Soviet spy. Alger Hiss, assistant to the Secretary of State and advising Roosevelt at Yalta, was a Soviet spy.
If American liberals didn't think that Communist Party members were potential recruits, the KGB certainly did. Beginning in 1942, the Soviets abused our war-time alliance to stage an all-out espionage assault on our territory. Hundreds, literally hundreds of CPUSA members were active spies. Haynes and Klehr conclude that one-seventh to one-third of OSS employees were Soviet agents. Venona clearly shows that CPUSA operations were not directed by its nominal leader but by Moscow. After the end of World War II, the CPUSA tried to expand its base by allying itself with the Democratic Party but reversed under direction from Moscow.
But KGB operations on American soil were not limited to spying alone. Defectors from the USSR who jumped ship seeking refuge here were kidnapped from American soil and restored to the Soviet Union. The CPUSA also provided invaluable assistance to the assassins sent to kill Trotsky in Mexico.
Disinformation campaigns were mounted to affect public opinion of the USSR. The KGB used journalists to influence editorial policy as well as obtain inside information. Stephen Laird would report in The New Republic the Polish elections as being free and fair, a view not shared by many of his colleagues. Journalist I.F. Stone, hailed by the elite when he spread the lie that the United States started the war in Korea, was on the KGB payroll. In France, the Communist party ran a campaign of defeatism toward the German invasion.
The naivety and apologetics of some of the Soviets' supporters is beyond belief. Open Communist sympathisers and spies were fêted by the social elite. Academicians readily took up the cause of KGB spies, assassins, and traitors. Books written in the 70s about Senator McCarthy still exculpate people whom we know beyond the shadow of a doubt were Soviet spies. While Laurence Duggan is often described as an innocent victim driven to suicide after relentless FBI interrogation, he was in fact Soviet a spy who saw the jig was up. Ironically, Maurice Halperin, a spy who escaped arrest, became disillusioned first by Soviet and then Cuban Communism and eventually settled in Canada.
But also politicians on the Left showed bad judgment. The State Department convinced Roosevelt to return as a goodwill measure to the USSR, uncopied, code books that were found in Finland and that would have had fantastic intelligence value. Truman ignored the Venona evidence and dismantled the OSS after World War II, reversing himself in 1947 fearing Republican charges of laxity. Further interesting is learning how the persistence of Richard Nixon helped expose more spies, and that the FBI and J. Edgar Hoover actually protested the internment of Japanese during World War II.
Although the FBI at times was really on the ball in investigating espionage, they had great difficulty obtaining convictions because of the inability to use intelligence evidence in court, or even indictments because of the State Department's desire not to upset relations with the Soviet Union. Even after having actually witnessed Judith Coplon handing over state secrets to a KGB agent, that evidence was ruled inadmissible. Many spies were never punished at all for their crimes.
The Rosenbergs were not only spies themselves but actively recruited their own network which did horrifying damage to our national security. They handed over designs for advanced jet engines, radar systems, and the highly advanced 'proximity fuse'. When they were arrested, two members of their ring (Alfred Sarant and Joel Barr) immediately escaped to the USSR where they received fantastic benefits not accorded to ordinary Soviet citizens. They founded the Soviet microelectronics industry and created the first Soviet radar-guided anti-aircraft missle system which became highly successful against the United States during the Vietnam War. Of course, the Rosenberg ring allowed the Soviets to develop the atomic bomb and terrorize the free world for the next half a century. In his memoirs, Khrushchev thanked the Rosenbergs for their sacrifice to the Communist cause.
Haynes and Klehr proffer the suggestion that the penalties against convicted spies might have been less severe had the Venona evidence been made public at the time. Given the extent of damage that was done to our national security I find this difficult to believe, but in any case it is ludicrous to expect the United States to surrender its most valuable intelligence source to exonerate traitors.
Oh, and the KGB code name for Julius Rosenberg? 'Liberal'.
Rating: 
Summary: Facts on Soviet spying
Review: BACKGROUND Venona was the cover name of a top secret US government project that from the 1940's to the 1980's intercepted and decoded Soviet government messages all over the world. Venona gave numerous facts about Soviet espionage from some 3000 messages. Venona was officially revealed in 1995 The Soviets got hints about Venona, but thought their codes were safe. TIDBITS Learning details about spies, the US government often did not prosecute, since it would alert the Soviets that their codes were being broken. Instead the FBI often maneuvered to keep spies away from sensitive positions by stopping promotions or having people fired. Often when a spy was brought to trial, the government still held back evidence. Therefore, many spies were never convicted, or got off easy. This gave ammunition to leftist public opinion who claimed "McCarthyism". The book details hundreds of spies/cases such as Alger Hiss, the Rosenbergs, the Manhattan Project, ... just to name a few. OUTLINING The authors tells how the book came about. The basics of Venona. What the codes looked like. In detail how they were constituted and broken. Then its off to numerous "cases". Typically a person or "ring" is reported on a couple of pages. Some cases cover whole chapters. FACTS / OPINIONS Filled with facts of the Soviet operations. Such as birth names, KGB/GRU internal cover names and cover names used in the US. The book gives dates, cities, US Business', government offices and political organizations. We see the orders the KGB gave, who recommended who to sensitive posts, how much money changed hands... The authors stays with the facts and gives almost no opinions, but some background. The book is not about telling stories, so often we get facts without "punch-lines". Venona does not explain everything, and open ended cases are presented as well. Then the book sometimes speculates in a couple of possible scenarios referring to other facts. Fact and speculation are always easy to separate. READ The text is sober and easy to read. The authors always gives clear and open references. We learn only a little about the personal lives and feelings of the spies. Except for their basic motivation. Which are the usual black-mail, ideology, greed, personal vendetta,... COMMENTS The sheer number of spies is staggering. They were everywhere. Including the top of the US government. It makes you wonder how much of what the Western World did, actually was controlled from Moscow. The book makes it easy to understand how all the weapons of mass destruction we develop comes back to haunt us.
Rating:
Summary: Facts on Soviet spying
Review: BACKGROUND Venona was the cover name of a top secret US government project that from the 1940's to the 1980's intercepted and decoded Soviet government messages all over the world. Venona gave numerous facts about Soviet espionage from some 3000 messages. Venona was officially revealed in 1995 The Soviets got hints about Venona, but thought their codes were safe. TIDBITS Learning details about spies, the US government often did not prosecute, since it would alert the Soviets that their codes were being broken. Instead the FBI often maneuvered to keep spies away from sensitive positions by stopping promotions or having people fired. Often when a spy was brought to trial, the government still held back evidence. Therefore, many spies were never convicted, or got off easy. This gave ammunition to leftist public opinion who claimed "McCarthyism". The book details hundreds of spies/cases such as Alger Hiss, the Rosenbergs, the Manhattan Project, ... just to name a few. OUTLINING The authors tells how the book came about. The basics of Venona. What the codes looked like. In detail how they were constituted and broken. Then its off to numerous "cases". Typically a person or "ring" is reported on a couple of pages. Some cases cover whole chapters. FACTS / OPINIONS Filled with facts of the Soviet operations. Such as birth names, KGB/GRU internal cover names and cover names used in the US. The book gives dates, cities, US Business', government offices and political organizations. We see the orders the KGB gave, who recommended who to sensitive posts, how much money changed hands... The authors stays with the facts and gives almost no opinions, but some background. The book is not about telling stories, so often we get facts without "punch-lines". Venona does not explain everything, and open ended cases are presented as well. Then the book sometimes speculates in a couple of possible scenarios referring to other facts. Fact and speculation are always easy to separate. READ The text is sober and easy to read. The authors always gives clear and open references. We learn only a little about the personal lives and feelings of the spies. Except for their basic motivation. Which are the usual black-mail, ideology, greed, personal vendetta,... COMMENTS The sheer number of spies is staggering. They were everywhere. Including the top of the US government. It makes you wonder how much of what the Western World did, actually was controlled from Moscow. The book makes it easy to understand how all the weapons of mass destruction we develop comes back to haunt us.
Rating:
Summary: Facts on Soviet spying
Review: BACKGROUND Venona was the cover name of a top secret US government project that from the 1940's to the 1980's intercepted and decoded Soviet government messages all over the world. Venona gave numerous facts about Soviet espionage from some 3000 messages. Venona was officially revealed in 1995 The Soviets got hints about Venona, but thought their codes were safe. TIDBITS Learning details about spies, the US government often did not prosecute, since it would alert the Soviets that their codes were being broken. Instead the FBI often maneuvered to keep spies away from sensitive positions by stopping promotions or having people fired. Often when a spy was brought to trial, the government still held back evidence. Therefore, many spies were never convicted, or got off easy. This gave ammunition to leftist public opinion who claimed "McCarthyism". The book details hundreds of spies/cases such as Alger Hiss, the Rosenbergs, the Manhattan Project, ... just to name a few. OUTLINING The authors tells how the book came about. The basics of Venona. What the codes looked like. In detail how they were constituted and broken. Then its off to numerous "cases". Typically a person or "ring" is reported on a couple of pages. Some cases cover whole chapters. FACTS / OPINIONS Filled with facts of the Soviet operations. Such as birth names, KGB/GRU internal cover names and cover names used in the US. The book gives dates, cities, US Business', government offices and political organizations. We see the orders the KGB gave, who recommended who to sensitive posts, how much money changed hands... The authors stays with the facts and gives almost no opinions, but some background. The book is not about telling stories, so often we get facts without "punch-lines". Venona does not explain everything, and open ended cases are presented as well. Then the book sometimes speculates in a couple of possible scenarios referring to other facts. Fact and speculation are always easy to separate. READ The text is sober and easy to read. The authors always gives clear and open references. We learn only a little about the personal lives and feelings of the spies. Except for their basic motivation. Which are the usual black-mail, ideology, greed, personal vendetta,... COMMENTS The sheer number of spies is staggering. They were everywhere. Including the top of the US government. It makes you wonder how much of what the Western World did, actually was controlled from Moscow. The book makes it easy to understand how all the weapons of mass destruction we develop comes back to haunt us.
Rating: 
Summary: Problems with the book
Review: I read this book with interest, and then read a review that made me realize that Haynes and Klehr may have played a little fast and loose with some facts themselves. For example (taken from the review by Walter and Meriem Schnier), "when parts of Bentley's story are shown to be consistent with Venona, they are prepared to declare without any qualification that 'Elizabeth Bentley had told the truth.' They overlook the fact that the decoders of Venona used names and incidents from the FBI files to help make identifications and fill gaps - the very names and incidents that were often supplied in the first place by Chambers and Bentley." Their review, which can be found online ...doscuments numerous instances of sloppy interpretations and selective omission of facts. I suggest that prospective readers of this book read the full review for other examples of problems with the book's handling of material from Venona.
Rating:
Summary: Problems with the book
Review: I read this book with interest, and then read a review that made me realize that Haynes and Klehr may have played a little fast and loose with some facts themselves. For example (taken from the review by Walter and Meriem Schnier), "when parts of Bentley's story are shown to be consistent with Venona, they are prepared to declare without any qualification that 'Elizabeth Bentley had told the truth.' They overlook the fact that the decoders of Venona used names and incidents from the FBI files to help make identifications and fill gaps - the very names and incidents that were often supplied in the first place by Chambers and Bentley." Their review, which can be found online ...doscuments numerous instances of sloppy interpretations and selective omission of facts. I suggest that prospective readers of this book read the full review for other examples of problems with the book's handling of material from Venona.
Rating:
Summary: The Venona Project:
Review: I see that many others have added comments on this book.. I purchased a copy of this one several months ago.. I must mention that I collect non-fiction, hard-cover books on the Intelligence Community, Covert Ops, SIGINT, ELINT, and related subjects... Over the past 30 years, I've built up a collection of approximately 350 volumes and this particular book ranks right up there with the likes of "The Puzzle Palace", "Handbook for Spies" (Alexander Foote), and David Kahn's "The Codebreakers" .. This one is real insight into what happens when crypto keys are carelessly handled... In this case many messages, generated by the Russians, with one-time pads that had been used more than once, in order to save time in the heat of WWII.. Encrypting multiple messages with the same one-time-pad allows a cryptographer to "break" the traffic and peer into its contents, which this book documents quite well... SGD Patricia Gibbons : " wa6ube at tactical-link.com "
Rating:
Summary: "TO VOTE FOR BILL CLINTON."
Review: In 1943, the U.S. Navy intercepted word that Josef Stalin was going to sue for a separate peace with Adolf Hitler. They also discovered that Alger Hiss, a leading New Deal Democrat and top advisor to President Roosevelt, was a Soviet spy. In addition, numerous high-level Democrats in FDR's Administration were Soviet spies and "fellow travelers." They approached FDR, whose response was "f--k off." The Navy, during this time of greatest national security threat, reached the conclusion that the Democrats could not be trusted! In response to this, they began the Venona Project, designed to read all the Soviet cable dispatches. Venona continued to confirm that the American government and society was rife with Soviet espionage from within the ranks of the anti-American Democrat Left. When the war ended, the Republicans began to investigate these rumors. Richard Nixon asked FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to assist. Hoover told him he could not let him view Venona because it was too important to the on-going Cold War vs. Soviet Communism, but that Nixon's instincts, particularly about Hiss, were right. Hiss was convicted. Numerous Leftists were convicted or exposed, as were many in Hollywood. When McCarthy went after them, the Left attempted to discredit him. Venona would have justified him, but Hoover refused to disclose Venona's secret. McCarthy was sacrificed and allowed to twist in the end, and for decades the Left proffered the lie that there were no Communists in Hollywood, the government, the Army or in America. After Ronald Reagan won the Cold War, Soviet archives were opened. Venona was discovered and became the Venona Papers. It verified that Hiss and all the accused and convicted Communists in Hollywood, the government, the Army and in America were in fact Soviet spies or "fellow travelers." One of those fellow travelers had escaped to Russia, but returned when the Statute of Limitations ran out. He returned to the U.S. in 1996. He was asked why. "To vote for Bill Clinton," he replied. Is further commentary really necessary?(...)
Rating:
Summary: An amazing eye opener
Review: Speaking as someone who taught US History in California schools for a short time, I can attest that this book reveals facts that reverse much of what is taught in our high schools. As an example, the case of the Rosenbergs being convicted of espionage is explained as an extremist reaction that had no legal merit. This book exposes the truth that the Rosenbergs were deep in the network of soviet espionage that has existed since the 1920s. Its amazing to read the stories of agent after agent that worked in nearly every level of American government. From the most sensitive to the most politically charged events... a soviet spy was not far. The techniques and style of soviet espionage leaves one looking at todays situation and thinking, if that is what the soviets did then, imagine what China, North Korea, Iraq or Syria could be doing now. If you have any interest in espionage, its history or how nations deal with each other, you can't afford to leave this off your must read list.
Rating: 
Summary: Fills in many blanks in Cold War history
Review: This book and others like it fill in the gaps in the record of the Cold War. I find it fascinating, for example, that pre-war Soviet spies were driven mostly by ideology, while those in the post war era were driven by cash. The book itself can be dry at times, but it is a complete treatment of the subject. I also read 'The Sword and The Shield, The Mitrokin Archive' by Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokin and found that the two books correlate closely. Very informative about a time in history I have lived through.
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