Talk:Venona project

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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.

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.

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)

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)

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)

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? ([1]: 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)

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)

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Good point! --regalseagull 11/02/06

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-: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)

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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!

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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

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"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)

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)

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]