Editing Venona project (section)

===Significance===
The decrypted messages gave important insights into Soviet behavior in the period during which duplicate one-time pads were used. With the first break into the code, Venona revealed the existence of Soviet espionage<ref>
{{cite book
| last = Moynihan
| first = Daniel Patrick
| year = 1998
| title = Secrecy: The American Experience
| url = https://archive.org/details/secrecyamericane00moyn
| url-access = registration
| publisher = Yale University Press
| page = [https://archive.org/details/secrecyamericane00moyn/page/54 54]
| isbn = 978-0-300-08079-7
}} "these intercepts provided ... descriptions of the activities of precisely the same Soviet spies who were named by defecting Soviet agents [[Aleksandr Mikhailovich Orlov|Alexander Orlov]], [[Walter Krivitsky]], [[Whittaker Chambers]] and [[Elizabeth Bentley]]."</ref> at the [[Los Alamos National Laboratory#The Manhattan Project|Manhattan Project's Site Y (Los Alamos)]].<ref>
{{cite web
 |url          = http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/commissions/secrecy/pdf/12hist1.pdf
 |title        = A Brief Account of the American Experience
 |author       = Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy
 |work         = Report of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy. VI; Appendix A
 |publisher    = US Government Printing Office
 |pages        = A–27
 |access-date   = 2006-06-26
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20110514040131/http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/commissions/secrecy/pdf/12hist1.pdf
 |archive-date = 2011-05-14
 
}} "Thanks to successful espionage, the Russians tested their first atom bomb in August 1949, just four years after the first American test. As will be discussed, we had learned of the Los Alamos spies in December 1946—December 20, to be precise. The US Army Security Agency, in the person of Meredith Knox Gardner, a genius in his own right, had broken one of what it termed the Venona messages—the transmissions that Soviet agents in the United States sent to and received from Moscow."</ref> Identities soon emerged of American, Canadian, Australian, and British spies in service to the Soviet government, including [[Klaus Fuchs]], [[Alan Nunn May]], and Donald Maclean. Others worked in Washington in the [[State Department]], the Treasury, OSS,<ref>
{{cite web
 |url          = http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/commissions/secrecy/pdf/12hist1.pdf
 |title        = A Brief Account of the American Experience
 |author       = Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy
 |work         = Report of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy. VI; Appendix A
 |publisher    = US Government Printing Office
 |pages        = A–7
 |access-date   = 2006-06-26
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20110514040131/http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/commissions/secrecy/pdf/12hist1.pdf
 |archive-date = 2011-05-14
 
}} "KGB cables indicated that the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in World War II had been thoroughly infiltrated with Soviet agents."</ref> and even the White House.

The messages show that the US and other nations were targeted in major espionage campaigns by the Soviet Union as early as 1942. Among those identified are [[Julius and Ethel Rosenberg]], [[Alger Hiss]], [[Harry Dexter White]] (the second-highest official in the Treasury Department), [[Lauchlin Currie]]<ref>{{cite web
| url = http://www.nsa.gov/about/_files/cryptologic_heritage/publications/wwii/eavesdropping.pdf
| title = Eavesdropping on Hell
| publisher = National Security Agency
| access-date = 2006-06-26
| archive-date = November 8, 2017
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20171108151305/https://www.nsa.gov/about/_files/cryptologic_heritage/publications/wwii/eavesdropping.pdf
| url-status = dead
}} "Currie, known as PAZh (Page) and White, whose cover names were YuRIST (Jurist) and changed later to LAJER (Lawyer), had been Soviet agents since the 1930s. They had been identified as Soviet agents in Venona translations and by other agents turned witnesses or informants for the FBI and [[United States Department of Justice|Justice Department]]. From the Venona translations, both were known to pass intelligence to their handlers, notably the [[Greg Silvermaster#Silvermaster group|Silvermaster network]]."</ref> (a personal aide to Franklin Roosevelt), and [[Maurice Halperin]]<ref>{{cite web|last=Warner |first=Michael |year=2000 |url=https://www.cia.gov/csi/books/oss/art07.htm |title=The Office of Strategic Services: America's First Intelligence Agency; Chapter: X-2 |publisher=Central Intelligence Agency Publications |access-date=2006-06-27  |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060629114037/http://www.cia.gov/csi/books/oss/art07.htm |archive-date=June 29, 2006}}</ref> (a section head in the Office of Strategic Services).

The identification of individuals mentioned in Venona transcripts is sometimes problematic, since people with a "covert relationship" with Soviet intelligence are referenced by [[cryptonym]]s.<ref>{{cite book
| last = Moynihan
| first = Daniel Patrick
| year = 1998
| title = Secrecy: The American Experience
| publisher = Yale University Press
| page = [https://archive.org/details/secrecyamericane00moyn/page/54 54]
| isbn = 978-0-300-08079-7
| url = https://archive.org/details/secrecyamericane00moyn/page/54
}}</ref> Further complicating matters is the fact the same person sometimes had different cryptonyms at different times, and the same cryptonym was sometimes reused for different individuals. In some cases, notably Hiss, the matching of a Venona cryptonym to an individual is disputed. In many other cases, a Venona cryptonym has not yet been linked to any person. According to authors [[John Earl Haynes]] and [[Harvey Klehr]], the Venona transcripts identify approximately 349 Americans who they claim had a covert relationship with Soviet intelligence, though fewer than half of these have been matched to real-name identities.<ref>
{{cite book
|author1=Haynes, John Earl |author2=Klehr, Harvey
|name-list-style=amp |year = 2000
| title = Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America
| publisher = Yale University Press
| page = 12
| isbn = 978-0-300-08462-7
}}</ref> However, not every agent may have been communicating directly with Soviet intelligence. Each of those 349 persons may have had many others working for, and reporting only to, them.

The OSS, the predecessor to the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] (CIA), housed at one time or another between fifteen and twenty Soviet spies.<ref>
{{cite web
| last = Warner
| first = Michael
| year = 2000
| url = https://www.cia.gov/csi/books/oss/art07.htm
| title = The Office of Strategic Services: America's First Intelligence Agency; Chapter: X-2
| publisher = Central Intelligence Agency Publications
| access-date = 2006-06-26
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070510011705/https://www.cia.gov/csi/books/oss/art07.htm
| archive-date = 2007-05-10 <!-- new URL: https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/oss/art07.htm -->
}}</ref> [[Duncan Lee]], [[Donald Niven Wheeler|Donald Wheeler]], [[Jane Foster Zlatowski]], and Maurice Halperin passed information to Moscow. The [[War Production Board]], the [[Board of Economic Warfare]], the [[Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs]], and the [[Office of War Information]], included at least half a dozen Soviet sources each among their employees.