The Venona project was a United States counterintelligence program initiated during World War II by the United States Army's Signal Intelligence Service and later absorbed by the National Security Agency (NSA), that ran from February 1, 1943, until October 1, 1980. It was intended to decrypt messages transmitted by the intelligence agencies of the Soviet Union. Initiated when the Soviet Union was an ally of the US, the program continued during the Cold War, when the Soviet Union was considered an enemy.
The United States Office of War Information (OWI) was a United States government agency created during World War II. The OWI operated from June 1942 until September 1945. Through radio broadcasts, newspapers, posters, photographs, films and other forms of media, the OWI was the connection between the battlefront and civilian communities. The office also established several overseas branches, which launched a large-scale information and propaganda campaign abroad. From 1942 to 1945, the OWI revised or discarded any film scripts reviewed by them that portrayed the United States in a negative light, including anti-war material.
Robert Soblen was a prominent member of the pro-Trotsky Left Opposition in Germany in the 1930s. He moved to the United States in 1941 with his brother Jack Soble, and was arrested in 1960 as a Soviet spy. Convicted and sentenced to life in prison, he fled the United States while on bail and sought asylum first in Israel, then in Britain. He committed suicide by overdosing on barbiturates when his last appeal for asylum in Britain was denied.
Isaac "Pop" Folkoff also known as "Volkov," "Folconoff," and "Uncle", was a senior founding member of the California Communist Party and West Coast liaison between Soviet intelligence and the Communist Party USA (CPUSA).
As early as the 1920s, the Soviet Union, through its GRU, OGPU, NKVD, and KGB intelligence agencies, used Russian and foreign-born nationals, as well as Communists of American origin, to perform espionage activities in the United States, forming various spy rings. Particularly during the 1940s, some of these espionage networks had contact with various U.S. government agencies. These Soviet espionage networks illegally transmitted confidential information to Moscow, such as information on the development of the atomic bomb. Soviet spies also participated in propaganda and disinformation operations, known as active measures, and attempted to sabotage diplomatic relationships between the U.S. and its allies.
Julius J. Joseph was an American government official. He was alleged to be a Soviet spy in the Venona Project transcripts. During World War II, he worked in the Office for Emergency Management (1942) and the Labor War Manpower Commission (1943) and from 1943 to 1945 for the Far Eastern section of the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS) where his wife Bella Joseph also worked.
Maria Wicher was married to Professor Enos Wicher and was the mother of Flora Wovschin. The family were all spies for the Soviet Union during the 1940s. Maria had previously been married to Dr. William A. Wovschin, Flora's father. Her code name in Soviet intelligence and in the Venona project is "Dasha".
Samuel Simon Krafsur was a Boston-born journalist who worked for the Soviet news agency TASS during World War II. He was also known as Bill Krafsur.
Rudy Baker, a Communist Party USA (CPUSA) official, is today best known for his role as head of the CPUSA's underground secret apparatus. He succeeded to the position in 1938, after the removal of J. Peters.
Marion Davis Berdecio, born Marion Davis, was a recruit of the Soviet intelligence in the United States.
Perseus was the code name of a hypothetical Soviet atomic spy that, if real, would have allegedly breached United States national security by infiltrating Los Alamos National Laboratory during the development of the Manhattan Project, and consequently, would have been instrumental for the Soviets in the development of nuclear weapons.
Harry Magdoff was accused by a number of authors as having been complicit in Soviet espionage activity during his time in US government. He was accused of passing information to Soviet intelligence networks in the United States, primarily through what the FBI called the "Perlo Group." Magdoff was never indicted, but after the end of the Cold War, a number of scholars have inspected declassified documents from U.S. and Soviet archives. They cite these documents to support the claim that Magdoff was involved in espionage. Other authors have taken issue with some of the broader interpretations of such materials which implicate many Americans in espionage for the Soviet Union, and the allegation that Harry Magdoff was an information source for the Soviets is disputed by several academics and historians asserting that Magdoff probably had no malicious intentions and committed no crimes.
Gertrude Kahn, also known as Mrs. Ray Kahn, was an American who allegedly had a covert relationship with Soviet intelligence during World War II. In a Venona transcript from Moscow, the Moscow Center suggested that Mrs. Kahn had been used for foreign intelligence work. The New York Rezidentura responded that it may not be wise, and that she was best suited for a "passive" role. Kahn's code name in Soviet intelligence and in the Venona decrypts is "Dinah."
Alexander Koral was an American member of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA) who headed a network of spies for Soviet intelligence during World War II called the "Art" or "Berg" group. Koral's wife, Helen Koral, also was involved with the group.
Milton Schwartz was an American who worked for Soviet Military Intelligence GRU during World War II. A 1943 message, later decrypted by the Army Signals Intelligence Corp, revealed Schwartz's activity on behalf of the GRU to be of such value that a request was put in for $1200 to assist Schwartz in personal financial matters.
Bella Joseph was the wife of Julius Joseph. The couple worked for the United States Government. It is alleged that they also worked for Soviet Intelligence during World War II, Bella in the Office of Strategic Services' Motion Picture Division.
Irving Lerner was an American filmmaker.
Robert Owen Menaker was an American exporter who allegedly worked for Soviet intelligence during World War II.
David Aden Salmon was a career government functionary in the U.S. Department of War and the U.S. Department of State. In 1931, Salmon rose to head the State Department's Bureau of Indexes and Archives, a department with over 150 employees at the time. In 2008 Cold War historian John Earl Haynes identified Salmon as "Willy", a codename for a Soviet agent, followed by a 2009 book which argued that Salmon was, from 1934 until early 1937, a paid source of classified diplomatic and military information which ended in the hands of Soviet intelligence. This identification has been challenged by at least one historian specializing in espionage history.
