Talk:Venona project

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[edit] Finnish references

The article mentions co-operation between Finnish and Japanese cryptanalysts. Could someone please expand this? I've read the article on Finland's WW2 history but find no reference to their relations with Japan, so that graf makes little sense to me. Perhaps also an explanation of Finland's unusual WW2 status would clarify it for others. And finally, there is a mention earlier in that section of Finnish recovery of partially-burned Soviet pads - was this during WW2 or afterwards? I'm not Finnish btw, just this section stuck out as being confusing.


"Cooperation" may be the wrong word. The Finns in the Winter War (the Soviet invasion of Finland started during the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact) solved several Soviet code books. These were 2-digit, 3-digit, and even 4-digit code books without superencryption with a one-time pad. The Finns became German allies when Germany invaded Russia. As allies, the Finns communicated their intelligence to Berlin, which in turn shard it with Japan. I have not heard if Japan returned the favor in cryptanalysis.

Upon the Soviet defeat of Finland, Finnish intelligence managed to spirit their work (and themselves) out of Finland to relative safety in Sweden, in an operation called Stella Polaris, q.v..

For more details on the Finnish code breaking see [1].

68.187.33.102 14:01, 15 February 2007 (UTC)John K. Taber

[edit] A good venona website?

I remeber reading a fascintating account of venona about 6-7 years ago. I thought I'd seen this on the NSA site, and so I went there just now ... well gollee wilikers ... what's up with the NSA website? That has got to be one of the cheesier page banners I've seen, worthy of some slimy used-car dealership that aint no good at selling cars. And what's with the narrative directed at someone with an IQ of 80? And Joules the cartoon squirrel? Have the Bushites gone stark raving stupid? Why would a branch of government with a bit of a spotlight on it want to look unprofessional and even incompetent? I vaguely remember being impressed by thier web site once upon a time, what happpened? Where's the good venona stuff? —This unsigned comment was added by 67.100.217.179 (talk • contribs) 25 March 2006.

[edit] Merge Discussion

  1. oppose Significance of Venona was created to cover the debate. It deserves to remain.--Cberlet 20:52, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
  2. support Breaking out a an article on "the significance of" anything rarely, if ever makes sense. The current Significance of Venona wastes a huge amount of verbiage on material that either is, or should be in the Venona article. Also, having the two articles makes the job of improving either one difficult. Someone editing Venona would (ideally) have to avoid saying anything about "significance," and someone editing "Significance" would (ideally) have to avoid getting into general material. Neither of those ideals are being met, and consequently the two articles are pretty messy. Lastly, neither article is very large, so, especially considering the amount of overlap that could be eliminated, there simply seems to be no reason for having them separate. KarlBunker 20:39, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
I understand, but check the page history and discussion. There have been huge battles over this page, and the page Venona project has escaped them.--Cberlet 21:52, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
But what has been gained by moving those huge battles off to a separate article? The dry historical and technical facts about Venona would generally be left unmolested by those political POV battles anyway, so they're no "safer" here in this everything-but-the-controversy article.
I can see you have a difficult situation here: It's a politically loaded topic that's also rather obscure and esoteric, and its obscure and esoteric nature tends to keep the article from attracting enough interested editors to "smooth out" extremist edits. But by splitting the article into two pieces--neither of which is worth much without the other--you've made it all the more unattractive to editors who might consider becoming involved and helping to protect it from POV-pushing. Who wants to put time and effort into an article that's structurally ugly because it's really only half of an article? KarlBunker 03:38, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
If you think you can do it without stirring up a hornet's nest, give it a try.--Cberlet 12:37, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
Thanks; I appreciate your willingness to reconsider. I'll tackle the job when I can devote a block of time to it. As for stirring up a hornet's nest, well, if they get stirred up, so be it. One can't be a good WP editor by being too fearful of hornets. KarlBunker 14:08, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Merge is completed.--KarlBunker 21:59, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Another level of encoding

Am I missing something, or is there nowhere in this article that we mention that names of at least anyone working for the Soviets (and possibly others) were, themselves, encoded? Thus, for example, it is another level of (controversial) intepretation to say (for example) that "ALES" was Alger Hiss, or that "Liberal" was Julius Rosenberg. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:32, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

The use of code names is discussed in Significance of Venona. Thanks for pointing out another reason why these articles should be merged. Hopefully I'll have time to do that this weekend. --KarlBunker 00:42, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
I gather that the merge is complete. The possibility of some misidentifications is still not mentioned. All we have is a footnote saying "In these coded messages the spies' identities were concealed beneath aliases, but by comparing the known movements of the agents with the corresponding activities described in the intercepts, the FBI and the code-breakers were able to match the aliases with the actual spies." The failure to discuss this beyond a footnote makes a dubious assumption of consistently flawless work by the FBI. - Jmabel | Talk 00:33, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
There's some discussion of the uncertainty caused by code names in the section "Prosecutions" in the paragraph beginning "In addition, according to Boarman, 'the fragmentary nature of the messages and the extensive use of cover names therein make positive identification of the subjects difficult.'"
You're probably right that this deserves further discussion, however. --KarlBunker 00:49, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
There is a tendency in this article to assume that every identification is accurate, when even the Boardman memo questions this. That is one of the main criticisms raised by Navasky, Schrecker, and others.--Cberlet 01:35, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merged article

That was a major task, and it has created a much more coherent article. Many thanks to KarlBunker. I do think there are a few tweaks I would like to make. but I will do them one at a time and wait for comments. The first has to do with the Boardman memo.--Cberlet 15:28, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the kudos. I don't doubt that there are a lot of tweaks and not-so-tweak-y improvements to be made. Your recent edit fixed an unclear point that I'd been meaning to look up myself (The text formerly suggested that the named individuals denied accusations that were specifically based on Venona data.) So thanks for that.--KarlBunker 15:58, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Walter Lippmann

Some 349 code names are mentioned in the messages,[6] each signifying a person with some type of "covert relationship" with Soviet intelligence.

I'm not sure exactly what this means. Did Walter Lippmann have a covert relationship with Soviet Intelligence? Or is Eric Alterman wrong about him having a code name ("Imperialist") in the documents? ([2]: not sure that link is accessible without a Nation subscription; it's from the September 18, 2006 issue; if it's not accessible, let me know and I'll quote the relevant passage.) Or what? - Jmabel | Talk 04:31, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Walter Lippman is mentioned several times in Venona decrypts, with more than one cover name: IMPERIALIST, BUMBLEBEE, and KATZ at various times. See my index of covernames to real names at [3]. A second index at this site relates real names and covernames to the messages they occur in.

He is a source of information on Western intentions, but the decrypts do not show any evidence of a covert relationship. Similarly, Thomas Dewey is KULAK (FIST) and a source of information. One must remember that the US and the Soviet Union were allies during the war, and there was considerable sharing of information in the interest of defeating Germany.

68.187.33.102 14:15, 15 February 2007 (UTC) John K. Taber

[edit] Schrecker

I had an extremely long debate with Berlet on this, so I will recap the more relevant points:

Schrecker’s comments in this context are no longer usefull because she has drasitcly altered her views since "Many are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America" Schrecker does not deny that their, Haynes’ and Khler’s, analysis is wrong, and she in the primary conclusion of their, Haynes’ and Khler’s, work

"We now know, based on information obtained from the archives of the former Soviet Union and the VENONA documents, that most of the people Bentley identified, had in fact been giving information to the KGB." - The Age of McCarthyism: A Brief History with Documents
"As Venona and the Moscow sources reveal, the [US] party recruited dozens, perhaps hundreds, of its members to spy for the Soviet Union."-The Age of McCarthyism: A Brief History with Documents
"it is now abundantly clear that most of those who were identified as Soviet agents in the forties and fifties really were—and that most of them belonged to the Communist Party" and "as Venona and the Moscow sources reveal, the party recruited dozens, perhaps hundreds, of its members to spy for the Soviet Union."- Nation magazine, The Right's Cold War Revision, July 24/31, 2000

Schrecker sees the more damning conclusions of the VENONA material as a way of rehabilitating McCarthyism. I have argued that she is more of an anti-anti-Communist and primarily a critic of McCarthyism, not of VENONA or its conclusions. I also beleive the material from 1998 was made without a serious evaluation, and that based on more current work, she no longer holds those beleifs. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 14:09, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Good point! --regalseagull 11/02/06

-:Be all that as it may, the Schrecker material in question here is: "Because they offer insights into the world of the secret police on both sides of the Iron Curtain, it is tempting to treat the FBI and Venona materials less critically than documents from more accessible sources. But there are too many gaps in the record to use these materials with complete confidence." Later she argues in general terms about Haynes's and others' "black and white" view of history.

I seriously doubt that Schrecker now disagrees with any of these particular statements. In particular, I cannot imagine that she now believes that Venona material can be "used with complete confidence." Indeed, it's hard to imagine anyone seriously contending such a thing. And in any case, If Schrecker herself were were to point any any or all of these quotes and paraphrases and say "I no longer believe this," I don't see how that would prohibit us from in including it in the article. She wrote it, it's a part of the record of the debate, it's a valid comment from a scholarly source. Lots of scholars change their opinions or the general slant of their views over time. That doesn't mean that all quotes from their older writings can no longer be used as citations. KarlBunker 15:48, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
Karl, my point was that the Schrecker quote reflected a view that does not appear in her later works where she makes use of both raw VENONA material as well as Haynes and Khler's writings on them. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 21:54, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
"Does not appear" is a long way from specifically repudiated, and before I believed that Schrecker has repudiated such innocuous and common-sense opinions as are under question here, I'd want to see a specific quotation and citation. And that still wouldn't have any effect on my second point above. KarlBunker 00:00, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Hanes & Klehr: Venoa "expose[d] beyond cavil the American Communist Party as an auxiliary of the intelligence agencies of the Solviet Union....(The Communist Party in America was) "A fifth column working inside and against the U.S." Sounds like someone was convinced of Venona's legitimacy!

P.S. Bunker says: "it's a valid comment from a scholarly source. Lots of scholars change their opinions or the general slant of their views over time. That doesn't mean that all quotes from their older writings can no longer be used as citations.

Yes it does, unless you want to play by your own rules, and put in parenthisis behind every quote: "She later saw the light, and changed her mind about this-- so it's pretty much worthless as a 'scholarly' source."!!! --regalseagull

[edit] "Parse"

"Navasky wished to parse the concept of espionage itself." Huh? "Parse the concept"? Sounds like vacuous jargon to me. Can't we just say, "Navasky questioned whether many of these contacts with the Soviets constituted espionage." One normally parses sentences, or even works of art, but what does it mean to parse a concept, other than to say it is incoherent? Clearly, he doesn't reject that espionage exists, only that most of these contacts constituted espionage. - Jmabel | Talk 07:37, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

"Deconstruct" might be a better word than "parse". The point being that Navasky is examining the component parts of things that have been called "espionage" and thereby finding gradations of "wrongness". Whichever word is used, I think the rest of the passage makes the meaning pretty clear. KarlBunker 10:15, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
This is one of the few cases where "deconstruct" just might be the right word. - Jmabel | Talk 07:36, 27 September 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Historical disputes

There are those that believe VENONA cable# 1822 is definitive proof that Hiss was ALES. There are others that do not agree. Is this not therefore disputed? DEddy 22:54, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hiss

I can't follow the many back-and-forth edits over the last month or so, or (to be more precise) I'm not willing to go through them one by one. After the first mention of Alger Hiss, the following citation was removed. ibid pg. 146-47; "Hiss was indeed a Soviet agent and appears to have been regarded by Moscow as its most important." Was the removal deliberate and agreed upon? - Jmabel | Talk 04:43, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

From what I can tell is that generally modern sources agree that Hiss was working for the Soviets based on Venona and non-Venona sources. However, It needs some nice solid citations to be included. There are plenty of historical books with this info... I am sure we can find it as well as a couple cites for disagreement with Hiss being a Soviet spy. --Rtrev 06:21, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
I removed the reference Jmabel mentions. As I noted in my edit summary, the reference was incorrect. The "ibid" is placed so that it refers back to "Report of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy," but neither the quoted text nor the page number appears in that document, either in the appendix the "ibid" indicates or in the main (non-appendix) document. FWIW, it may have been me that messed up that reference when I merged in a "Significance of Venona" article some months ago. I also shouldn't have used ibids, because if someone edits the article to move a sentence, the reference moves with it, and an ibid will no longer point back to the correct reference. KarlBunker 11:09, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Cleaning up email, I notice that I received the following from Nobs on 30 November 2006:

[Begin email]

Regarding your question here,

"the following citation was removed. ibid pg. 146-47; "Hiss was indeed a Soviet agent and appears to have been regarded by Moscow as its most important." Was the removal deliberate and agreed upon? "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Venona_project#Hiss

The correct sourcing is to be found here,

Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Secrecy: The American Experience, (New Haven: Yale University Press 1998), pg. 146-47; "Hiss was indeed a Soviet agent and appears to have been regarded by Moscow as its most important."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_mediation/Cberlet_and_Nobs01#.3DAlger_Hiss.3D

This may not be the only instance of a mistake or error. There is one particularly glaring error which I would like to carry to WP:ATT Talk page because of the flawed methodology; I have already discussed it with Fred Bauder and my concerns have been forwarded to the Arbcom-l mailing list as the basis of my pending Appeal.

nobs01

[End email]

[edit] E-mail from banned users

I object to any editor posting material from Nobs anywhere on Wikipedia. Nobs was banned for persistent vicious personal attacks on me. I am horrified at this breach. I expect an apology.--Cberlet 03:54, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Object all you like, its not against the rules. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 20:56, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] POV revisions

The systematic removal of NPOV language and the relentless addition of right-wing POV phrasing has taken a relatively decent article and returned it to the status biased drivel. I have added a totally disputed flag.--Cberlet 19:29, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

It would be nice if you had cited some examples. As no examples were cited, I am taking the disputed tag off. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 20:55, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
That is not acceptable, and you know it.--Cberlet 22:20, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
  • "The Venona transcripts identify approximately 349 Americans who had a covert relationship with Soviet intelligence,"
That is the claim, but it is disputed. Almost every snippet of text that offered some nuanced view or ambiguity concerning the identities of persons matched to code names has been removed from this page. This is how the original long dispute began in the first place. What is now on this page is overwhelmingly the claims of a handful of right-wing anti-communist fanatics who make sweping pronouncements that vastly exceed the facts. Rubbish. The flag is appropriate given the relentless rewriting of text to push a narrow POV.--Cberlet 22:29, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
If you know of sources that directly argue against or dispute the H&K figure of "349 Americans with a covert relationship with Soviet intelligence", please add it to the article, or just mention the source and I'll look into it as soon as I can. I personally think this figure is, at the very least, suspect. That's why my recent edits have downplayed the reliability of this figure, in addition to removing such speculative statements as "It is likely that there were more than 349 participants in Soviet espionage, as that number is from a small sample of the total intercepted message traffic." As you'll see if you look at the history, the article has had a much more "right wing" stance for most of the past year. KarlBunker 02:56, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, and I appreciate the attempts made to make it more NPOV, but now the text is so streamlined that much of the discussion about difficulty in establishing identities has been deleted, and the criticisms and nuance has been relegated to a segregated area of criticism. The page now suffers from this bias.--Cberlet 03:31, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
I can't say that I understand what you're referring to. In my edits since 24 December, the text has been "streamlined" from 37k to 38k, and discussion about difficulty in establishing identities has been specifically added to the "Significance" section. I request that you show some before & after examples, and/or suggest improvements, and/or make improvements yourself. KarlBunker 04:14, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
OK, I accepted your suggestion and made some text changes to illustrate my concerns and make the page more NPOV.--Cberlet 03:11, 1 January 2007 (UTC)


[edit] AfD on List_of_Americans_in_the_Venona_papers

I call attention of those interested in this topic to the ongoing discussion about the deletion of a very closely related page: List of Americans in the Venona papers at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/List_of_Americans_in_the_Venona_papers. DGG 21:14, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Navasky Quote

The Full quote: Tales From Decrypts, Navasky, the Nation

It would be a fine thing if the "new openness" were actually to happen (e.g., can we expect the C.I.A. to release the names of the thousand books whose publication it covertly sponsored, according to the Church Committee?), but if so, the Venona Conference constituted at best a token beginning. Instead, one was left with the impression that the neoconservative spinmeisters who dominated the proceedings are trying to exploit the detritus of Venona to confirm the demonizing myths of the cold war. Their project: to enlarge post­cold war intelligence gathering capability at the expense of civil liberty. The Venona Conference tells us that those who care about democratic freedoms should resist and expose this false interpretation of history.
Torturous Devastating Cudgel 13:20, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
Which confirms that the quote was misrepresented in the article. By "Their project:..." Navasky is referring to those who promote Venona as a justification for reevaluating history, not to Venona itself. RedSpruce 14:21, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
Here is a another quote, from Victor Navasky, "Cold War Ghosts", The Nation, issue of July 16, 2001:
"Espionage" is one of those words that is often out of context when applied to what went on in US left circles in the years leading up to and including World War II. There were a lot of exchanges of information among people of good will, many of whom were Marxists, some of whom were Communists, some of whom were critical of US government policy and most of whom were patriots. Most of these exchanges were innocent and were within the law. Some were innocent but nevertheless were in technical violation of the law.
Looks to me like Navasky is re-defining the word espionage when it comes to members of the Communist Party USA and fellow travelers spying for the Soviet Union during World War II, or am I missing something? Turgidson 14:46, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
The purpose of this Talk page is to discuss the Venona project article. RedSpruce 15:25, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
Right—and I'm doing just that. There is quite a bit of weight given in the article by this fellow Navasky, and I've just given some quotes from what Navasky actually says about the Venona project (and the books about it), as well as a rebuttal to those criticisms (see below). How is that not related to the discussion at hand, which occurs under the section heading "Navasky quote"? Turgidson 16:18, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
You know what I love best about that quote? How much information flowed the "other" way between these people of "good will"? Torturous Devastating Cudgel 16:40, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

While at it, here is a quote from Glenn Garvin, Fools for Communism - Still apologists after all these years, Reason Magazine, April 2004 (a review of "In Denial: Historians, Communism and Espionage", by John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr), putting in perspective the criticism by Schrecker and Navasky:

A prodigious apologist, Schrecker in one article conceded that Julius and Ethel Rosenberg delivered atomic secrets to the Soviets, then plaintively demanded: "Were these activities so awful?" She also coined the immortal phrase "non-traditional patriots" for the Rosenbergs, a felicitous way of saying that they lived in the United States but were loyal unto death to the Soviet Union.
Her accusation that Haynes and Klehr were a fascist Leviathan with their tentacles writhing in every right-wing plot of the past four decades appeared in The Nation, which, because it has 70 years of Stalinist apologias to justify, unsurprisingly offers some of the most die-hard resistance to the new Cold War scholarship. It also has contributed some hilarity to the debate, including then-editor Victor Navasky's argument that the word espionage was "out of context" when applied to American Communists during the Cold War. It would be more appropriate, he wrote, to say that "there were a lot of exchanges of information among people of good will."
There's no arguing with at least one part of that sentence: "a lot." One of those people of good will, KGB officer Itzhak Akhmerov, reported back to his bosses that CPUSA spies in America had provided him with enough U.S. government documents between 1942 and 1945 to fill 2,766 reels of microfilm. It apparently was a pretty one-sided exchange, since Akhmerov does not list any Soviet documents that he offered in return.

How seriously can one take such criticism? Turgidson 14:13, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

By the way, I see that the article is fast becoming a rant about what this guy Navasky said about the Venona project, and his take on espionage by Soviet agents in the United States during WWII. Isn't there a policy out there about giving undue weight -- WP:UNDUE? I mean, is Navasky an expert on Venona? Why would his opinion carry so much weight, as opposed to that of real scholars, such as John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, who studied those papers inside out, and wrote several acclaimed books about it? I think it's fine to debate this on the talk page (I've done that myself), and perhaps even expand on it in the article about Navasky, but to put so much weight on his opinion in the Venona article is odd, to say the least. Turgidson 23:00, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
What do you expect, Navasky spent his entire freakin life defending spies and traitors, you dont give up conviction like that too easily. People like Navasky and Schrecker have spent thier entire professional careers maintaining a certian narrative about what happened during the cold war and cant let it go. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 23:07, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
Fine, let them -- it's a free country. But why devote so much space here at WP expounding on their opinions? More specifically, why give so much weight to their criticism in this article? A couple of lines (perhaps a paragraph at most) for each one should do. I say, let's devote more space about the Venona project itself -- historical context, technical stuff on decryption, the people involved (on both sides), its significance, etc -- than elaborating at such length on the point of view of Navasky and Schrecker, which is tangential at best to the whole story. Turgidson 23:39, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
Sounds dandy to me, but the talk archives are full of some rather unreasonable editors who though it prudent to amplify the minority POV. I once argued that Schrecker's comments be removed as it would appear that over the years here opinion has changed, and she largely supports most of the VENONA researchers conclusions, and she eve uses it as a source in one of her more recent books. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 00:04, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
Schrecker, again:
[Maurice Isserman and myself] suggested [in "The Right's Cold War Revision", the Nation, July 2000] that discussions about Soviet espionage in World War II would benefit from some "intellectual fine shading." Rather than view spies as "moral monsters," we might want to pay more attention to historical context in order to understand their motivation. "Context counts," we suggested.'
- Letter to the Editor, the Nation, October 9, 2000 issueBdell555 00:08, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Critical views" section and references

TDC, I don't have a problem with the content you've removed with this edit. I don't care for the reformatting of references, however. The use of the "cite" templates helps to keep the format of references consistent. Furthermore, you're removed the ISBN numbers from book references. Including ISBNs makes it easy to look up books on WP's Book sources page. At some point I may feel motivated to restore the formatting of the references you've de-formatted. Would you have an objection to that? RedSpruce 16:07, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I really wish that there was some better formatting for citations. I usually do all my editing on MS Word, and review it before ploping it into the article, and the syntax on the old citations dont seem to translate well. I will certainly replace the ISBN #'s if thats the only thing you dont like about the new citation formats. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 16:20, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
The missing ISBNs was the worst problem, but I really prefer the cite templates, as do many other editors. I don't understand what the problem is when you use Word. The template is just text, and it should (and does, when I try it) copy-and-paste fine. What is the problem you're experiencing? RedSpruce 17:09, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
When I cut'n past from Word to Wiki, the formats never come out right. I dont know if its spacing or something with the the way the indents paste over or what. If you prefer cite templates I will re-inser them. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 17:19, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
It seems a shame to put you to the extra work, but I do like the "cite"s. I think your default settings in Word must be doing something screwy. Maybe something in Tools->AutoCorrect Options->AutoFormat As You Type? Best solution is to get a Mac. Then you'll have spell checking with access to dictionary definitions and a thesaurus, all within the browser editing window. RedSpruce 17:34, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
A Mac? Thats hippy talk! No, seriously, most my work aps only run on a PC or UNIX. I think I got it figured out though.Torturous Devastating Cudgel 17:51, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Navasky has written more recently (probably more recently than this, but at least as recently as this). Difficult to excerpt; regards the Venona transcripts as useful but exceeding prone to misuse (and misused.) Navasky, Victor (July 16, 2001). "Cold War Ghosts". The Nation 273 (3): 36-43. New York: The Nation Company. ISSN 0027-8378.  Schissel | Sound the Note! 03:53, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

(edit: the essay is on the www.thenation.com site: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20010716/navasky Schissel | Sound the Note! 03:55, 16 October 2007 (UTC)


(ah, now see that the more recent article is indeed excerpted from above.) Schissel | Sound the Note! 00:05, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Venona's "left wing" critics

TMLutas, you would find that you waste less time making useless edits on Wikipedia if you attempted to educate yourself on some of its policies. Of course, I'm assuming here that you want to make meaningful and lasting edits, and given that you make edits like "The ideological distribution of critics is skewed far to the left.", that's a risky assumption. It strikes me as entirely possible that edits such as that are only intended as an annoyance and a joke. But, assuming for the moment that you have good-faith intentions, I will point out to you that this sort of thing is both POV and unreferenced. You are referring to a collection of individuals who are connected by nothing more than the fact that they have had critical things to say about some of the uses to which Venona has been put. To say that they're all "far left" is absurd -- except as an expression of someone's personal opinion (and a silly and uninformed opinion at that). And obviously, other people would have other opinions. In this case the opinion you're expressing is your own, and in that respect I'm sure that it's entirely honest. I have no doubt that everyone to the left of Genghis Kahn is "far left" by your standards.

Wikipedia, as you may be vaguely aware, is not intended to be a forum for you to express your personal opinions. That's what Blogs are for. It is occasionally appropriate to note the opinions of notable reliable sources in Wikipedia, but when this is done one has to either establish that the opinion is a widely-held consensus, or alternatively one needs to represent the range of opinions held by reliable sources on the issue. This, in fact, is what this article does in the "critical views" section: It presents some opinions that have been expressed on both sides of some of the issues involved. It's no doubt the case that some of the parties mentioned are considered "left wing" or "right wing" by some, but that's not germane to the article. RedSpruce 15:57, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Lots of things strike me as entirely possible about a lot of people, mostly I don't share with others because I'm supposed to assume good faith, be civil, and generally not be disruptive. I recommend the practice. Whenever I violate it (and I freely admit that I have on occasion) I usually regret it sooner rather than later and issue apologies for my lapses.
The ideological distribution of significant critics of Venona is a matter of fact, not point of view. The ideological opinions of Stalin, Hitler, George Bush, or Hillary Clinton are what they are and it's a central part of political science to assess people and put them into ideological camps. You are correct that it's unreferenced as of now, which is why they invented tags to bring attention to that and allow a reasonable time for other editors to bring in a reference. Slash and burn reverts are not recommended practice in this project. Try reading WP:0RR for some guidance. That all the critics mentioned so far are leftists is obvious to anybody paying attention and not wilfully blinding themselves. Are they being honest critics or are they going into the tank (consciously or as an unconscious tribal impulse) to protect their ideological camp? That's a very important question that needs answering.
If there is something objectively wrong with Venona, ideally I would expect that left wingers and right wingers to be equally outraged at a Venona fraud. At the very least a request to find a right winger who was honest enough to buy into the evidence shouldn't be a major task. But it does seem to be a major task else why not slam dunk me with a name or two and some URLs talking about how Venona was a fraud? It's not like the right has a shortage of people willing to entertain the most fringe of analyses. TMLutas 21:44, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
The ideological distribution of significant critics of Venona is a matter of fact, not point of view. If that were the case, it would be easy enough to document it. Do so and I'll remove my objection--as long as all the right-wing authors quoted in the the article are identified as such, of course. RedSpruce 22:33, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Omission: A spy within Venona, William Weisband

I don't see William Weisband here, the linguist who worked for the Army Signals Security Agency and tipped off the Soviets to Venona's existence. See the Wiki entry on Wesiband: "The Soviets apparently had monitored Arlington Hall's "Russian Section" since at least 1945, when Weisband joined the unit. Weisband's earliest reports on the work being done by U.S. crypto-analysts on Soviet diplomatic code systems were probably sketchy, but after Weisband began passing information on their work at the Russian section, Soviet authorities changed their code system and the Venona project decryptions dried up. His role as a Soviet agent was not discovered by counterintelligence officers until 1950, by which time the damage had been done. Where Weisband had sketched the outlines of the cryptanalytic success, British liaison officer Kim Philby received actual translations and analyses on a regular basis after he arrived for duty in Washington, D.C. in autumn 1949. Until a thorough review of Soviet KGB archives is made, the full scope of Weisband's role as a Soviet agent will probably not be known."lionhearted 21:32, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] ==

Weisband isn't mentioned by name or covername in any of the VENONA decrypts. Perhaps that is why he isn't discussed.

Jktaber (talk) 21:29, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Internationalizing VENONA

On the whole, I'm pleased with the improvement in tone of Wikipedia's discussion of VENONA. In my view it is more balanced today than when I first read it.

But the tone is still too much American oriented.

There are a number of Mexico City messages ranging from mention of Dukhobors in the Valle de Guadalupe (outside of Ensenada) to the imprisoned Jaime Ramon Mercader, Trotsky's assassin. I'm puzzled why the Mexico City Rezident, Lev Tarasov (YURIJ) would mention the Dukhobors. Did he think they could be useful to the Soviets? I would appreciate discussion of Communist Party Mexico members such as Adelina Zendejas Gomez whose portfolio in the Mexican government seems to have been women's and children's rights. Apparently she was a personal friend of Frida Kahlo, which ought to elicit some interest. One decrypt identifies covername ADA as Zendejas, while others identify ADA as Kitty Harris.

There are a number of Stockholm messages dealing with Norwegian intelligence agents working for the Soviets due to the German occupation; and Finnish resistance working for the Germans due to Soviet occupation. Stockholm messages should have more attention. Alexandra Kollontai was the Soviet Ambassador to Stockholm, and is mentioned several times in the decrypts (covername MISTRESS). She at least should be of general interest.

There are also a lot of GRU messages from LONDON that ought to have more coverage in this article. At least summarize some of Nigel West's history.

Jktaber (talk) 22:01, 30 March 2008 (UTC)