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.
Jack Soble was a Lithuanian who, together with his brother Robert Soblen, penetrated Leon Trotsky's entourage for Soviet intelligence in the 1920s. Later, in the United States, he was jailed together with his wife Myra on espionage charges. He was born in Vilkaviskis, Lithuania as Abromas Sobolevicius and sometimes used the name Abraham Sobolevicius or Adolph Senin.
Dr. 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 U.S. 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.
Judith Coplon Socolov was a spy for the Soviet Union whose trials, convictions, and successful Constitutional appeals had a profound influence on espionage prosecutions during the Cold War.
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).
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.
Maurice Hyman Halperin was an American writer, professor, diplomat, and accused Soviet spy.
Flora Don Wovschin, was a suspected Soviet spy who later renounced her American citizenship.
Marion Davis Berdecio, born Marion Davis, was a recruit of the Soviet intelligence in USA.
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.
Harvey Elliott Klehr is a professor of politics and history at Emory University. Klehr is known for his books on the subject of the American Communist movement, and on Soviet espionage in America.
John Earl Haynes is an American historian who worked as a specialist in 20th-century political history in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress. He is known for his books on the subject of the American Communist and anti-Communist movements, and on Soviet espionage in America.
Samuel Jacob Rodman, was an American double-agent during World War II. Rodman was employed by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) and spied for the Soviet Union at the same time. Rodman was a member of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA), and his previous occupations were teaching and journalism.
Ilya Wolston was an American citizen who enlisted the U.S. Army in World War II and served as a Russian interpreter.
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.
Sergey Nikolaevich Kurnakov or Sergei N. Kournakoff was a former tsarist cavalry officer who had immigrated to the U.S. and later became an ardent ideological Communist. Kurnakov was born at Aladino in the Russian Caucasus in 1892 into a landed family of Circassian descent. After serving as an imperial page under Tsar Nicholas II, he joined the Circassian cavalry regiment and served in Galicia and Romania during the First World War 1914-17, being wounded in the hand. He described his experiences in Savage Squadrons (1935). He subsequently emigrated to America and became a journalist who wrote on military affairs for the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) paper, the Daily Worker, and other publications. Kurnakov served as a courier to various Soviet intelligence sources, and acted as both a talent-spotter and a vetter of potential recruits. Kurnakov was a highly active liaison agent. He was accused of Communism in Time in January 1944 after teaching at a Russian course at Cornell University in the summer of 1943. He was posthumously named as a communist agent in senate hearings in 1953.
Enos Regnet Wicher was a professor of physics at Columbia University. He had been married to Rae Kidd, future star of the 1938 nudist movie "The Unashamed," while both were students at the University of Wisconsin 1935-37. During World War II he worked in the Wave Propagation Group at Columbia's Division of War Research and was alleged to have spied for Soviet intelligence with code name was "Keen".
