Venona Project

The Venona Project was a joint US / British counter-intelligence operation aimed at decrypting secret Russian intelligence cables during and after World War II.

The Venona Project ran for over 30 years decrypting more than 3,000 top secret cables. The program remained secret during this time and led to the arrest of the Russian atomic spies including Klaus Fuchs, Harry Gold, David Greenglass, as well as Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.

The decryption was possible due to an error at the Moscow factory where one-time encryption pads were printed. As German troops were advancing on Moscow late in the war, 35,000 duplicate pages were printed, rendering the one-time pads insecure.

There are several good books on The Venona Project. The best is “The FBI-KGB War” by Robert J. Lamphere, a fourteen-year FBI agent who launched the project to decrypt top-secret Russian cables and shared the work with MI5. His book reads like a thriller. Sadly, it is out of print, though used copies abound on eBay.