Related Research Articles
The Venona project was a United States counterintelligence program initiated during World War II by the United States Army's Signal Intelligence Service, 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. Initiated when the Soviet Union was an ally of the US, the program continued during the Cold War, when it was considered an enemy.
Nathan Gregory Silvermaster, an economist with the United States War Production Board (WPB) during World War II, was the head of a large ring of Communist spies in the U.S. government. It is from him that the FBI Silvermaster File, documenting the Bureau's investigation into Communist penetration of the Federal government during the 1930s and 1940s, takes its name. His wife, Helen and stepson, Anatole Volkov, were members of his ring.
Harold Glasser was an economist in the United States Department of the Treasury and spokesman on the affairs of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) 'throughout its whole life' and he had a 'predominant voice' in determining which countries should receive aid. Glasser was a member of the Perlo group of Soviet spies during World War II and worked closely with Harry Dexter White. His code name in Soviet intelligence and in the Venona files is "Ruble".
Charles Kramer, originally Charles Krevisky was a 20th-Century American economist who worked for U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt as part of his brain trust. Among other contributions, he wrote the original idea for the Point Four Program. He also worked for several congressional committees and hired Lyndon B. Johnson for his first Federal job. Kramer was alleged a Soviet spy as member of the Ware Group, but no charges were brought against him.
Edward Joseph Fitzgerald was an American who worked for the War Production Board during World War II and was an adviser to Senator Claude Pepper. He was alleged to have been a member of the Perlo group of Soviet spies. Fitzgerald's name in Venona project decrypt 588 New York to Moscow, 29 April 1944, was sent in the clear to Moscow by Soviet Case Officer Iskhak Akhmerov reporting on Elizabeth Bentley's meeting with Perlo group.
Lt. Col. Duncan Chaplin Lee was confidential assistant to Maj. Gen. William Donovan, founder and director of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), World War II-era predecessor of the CIA, during 1942-46. Lee is identified in the Venona project as the Soviet double agent operating inside OSS under the cover name "Koch," making him the most senior alleged source the Soviet Union ever had inside American intelligence.
Since the late 1920s, the Soviet Union, through its GRU, OGPU and NKVD intelligence services, used Russian and foreign-born nationals as well as Communist, and people of American origin to perform espionage activities in the United States. These various espionage networks had contact with various U.S. government agencies, transmitting to Moscow information that would have been deemed confidential.
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.
Charles S. Flato was an American writer, American Communist Party member and a Soviet agent.
Joel Barr, also Iozef Veniaminovich Berg and Joseph Berg, was part of the Soviet Atomic Spy Ring.
Headed by Victor Perlo, the Perlo group is the name given to a group of Americans who provided information which was given to Soviet intelligence agencies; it was active during the World War II period, until the entire group was exposed to the FBI by the defection of Elizabeth Bentley.
Iskhak Abdulovich Akhmerov (1901–1976) was a highly decorated OGPU/NKVD (KGB) officer, best known to historians for his role in KGB operations in the United States 1942–1945. His name appears in the Venona decryptions over fifty times, often as signatory, and on his return to the Soviet Union in 1945/46, he rose to deputy chief of the KGB's 'illegal' intelligence section.
Several allege that Harry Magdoff was among a number of persons inside the U.S. government used as information sources by Soviet intelligence. However, the allegation is disputed by several academics and historians asserting that Magdoff probably had no malicious intentions and committed no crimes.
Zalmond David Franklin or Salmond Franklin was a Communist Party of the United States member and KGB asset during World War II. Zalmond was married at one time to KGB operative Sylvia Callen. According to the testimony of Louis Budenz, Zalmond did "secret work in Spain during the Spanish Civil War, and he also worked part of the time as a bacteriologist at a Spanish Loyalist hospital. Upon returning in the late 1930s, Zalmond is alleged to have been recruited for anti-Trotsky work and was sent on several missions to Canada on behalf of Soviet intelligence. He worked as a security guard at the Soviet Pavilion in the 1939 New York World's Fair, sharing this work with two of his former comrades from the International Brigade, Morris Cohen and Milton Wolff. He is reported to have worked in Alberta, Canada, in 1943. Michael Straight named Franklin in his FBI interview as one of his Soviet intelligence contacts.
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.
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.
Elza Akhmerova, also Elsa Akhmerova was an American citizen, born Helen Lowry. She was a niece of Earl Browder, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA). She died of leukemia.
Robert Owen Menaker was an American citizen who allegedly worked for Soviet intelligence during World War II.
The Silvermaster File of the United States' Federal Bureau of Investigation is a 162-volume compendium of some 26,000 pages of documents relating to the Bureau's investigation of Communist penetration of the U.S. federal government during the Cold War.
References
 | This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations .(April 2009) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) |
- Allen Weinstein and Alexander Vassiliev, The Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America—the Stalin Era (New York: Random House, 1999).
- Vassiliev, Alexander (2003), Alexander Vassiliev's Notes on Anatoly Gorsky's December 1948 Memo on Compromised American Sources and Networks , retrieved 2012-04-21
- John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America, Yale University Press (1999), pgs. 152, 353, 455.