VENONA project

The VENONA project was a long-running and highly secret collaboration between United States intelligence agencies and the United Kingdom's MI5 that involved the cryptanalysis of messages sent by several Soviet intelligence agencies. There were known to be at least 13 code words for this effort used by the US and UK. VENONA was the last code word for the project.

Significance

:Main articles: Significance of Venona

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The NSA followed Soviet intelligence traffic for only a few years in World War II, and decrypted only a small portion of that traffic. The Venona project was a thirty-eight year investigation conducted by the NSA and FBI counter-intelligence, and held classified for an additional fifteen years after the program ended. Researchers, historians, and the public continue to debate its significance and meaning. A few writers are skeptical of some claims made by certain analysts of the Venona documents, and urge a more cautious interpretive approach. This debate is discussed at Significance of Venona.

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