The following list of Americans in the Venona papers is a list of names deciphered from codenames contained in the

Venona project The Venona project was a United States counterintelligence program initiated during World War II by the United States Army's Signal Intelligence Service (later absorbed by the National Security Agency), which ran from February 1, 1943, until Octob ...

, an American government effort from 1943–1980 to decrypt coded messages by intelligence forces of the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

. To what extent some of the individuals named in the Venona papers were actually involved with

Soviet intelligence This is a list of historical secret police organizations. In most cases they are no longer current because the regime that ran them was overthrown or changed, or they changed their names. Few still exist under the same name as legitimate police fo ...

is a topic of dispute. The following list of individuals is extracted in large part from the work of historians

John Earl Haynes John Earl Haynes (born 1944) is an American historian who worked as a specialist in 20th-century political history in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress. He is known for his books on the subject of the American Communist and anti- ...

and

Harvey Klehr Harvey Elliott Klehr (born December 25, 1945) is a professor of politics and history at Emory University. Klehr is known for his books on the subject of the American Communist movement, and on Soviet espionage in America (many written jointly wit ...

and reflects their previous points of view.John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr (1999)
''Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America''
Yale University Press, However, Haynes' positions on the meaning and correct identification of names on the list continues to evolve. Non-Americans may also be mentioned in passing.

Notes and disclaimers on the list

Names marked with a double asterisk (**) do not appear in the Venona documents. Inclusion has been inferred to correlate with codenames or similarly spelled names found in the documents. Similarly, identities that have been inferred by researchers (i.e., the name appears in the Venona documents, but positive identification of the individual bearing that name does not), are also marked with a double asterisk (**).

List

John Abt John Jacob Abt (May 1, 1904 – August 10, 1991) was an American lawyer and politician, who spent most of his career as chief counsel to the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and was a member of the Communist Party and the Soviet spy network "Ware Gro ...

, attorney and politician** * Solomon Adler, economist** * Rudy Baker, politician** *

Joel Barr Joel Barr (January 1, 1916 – August 1, 1998), also Iozef Veniaminovich Berg and Joseph Berg, was part of the Soviet Atomic Spy Ring. Background Born Joyel Barr in New York City, to immigrant parents of Ukrainian Jewish origin. He attended C ...

, engineer *

Alice Barrows Alice Prentice Barrows (November 15, 1878 – October 2, 1954) was a secretary of Dr. William A. Wirt, who headed the U.S. Office of Education in the early days of the New Deal of President Franklin Roosevelt. Barrows had been a member of the Co ...

, educator * Theodore Bayer, President, ''Russky Golos'' Publishing *

Cedric Belfrage Cedric Henning Belfrage (8 November 1904 – 21 June 1990) was an English film critic, journalist, writer and political activist. He is best remembered as a co-founder of the radical US weekly ''National Guardian''. Later Belfrage was referenced ...

, journalist * Elizabeth Bentley, teacher and politician * Joseph Milton Bernstein * Earl Browder, American communist and General Secretary of the Communist Party USA from 1934 to 1945. * Paul Burns** *

Sylvia Callen Sylvia Callen Franklin, also known as Sylvia Lorraine Callen, and Sylvia Caldwell, was a young Chicago communist, recruited by Louis Budenz into the Communist Party USA's ''secret apparatus'' c. 1937. Callen was assigned by Dr. Gregory Rabino ...

** * Virginius Frank Coe *

Lona Cohen Lona Cohen (, ''Leontina Vladislavovna Koen''; January 11, 1913 – December 23, 1992), born Leontine Theresa Petka, also known as Helen Kroger, was an American who spied for the Soviet Union. She is known for her role in smuggling atomic bomb ...

** * Morris Cohen**, Communist Party USA &

Portland Spy Ring The Portland Spy Ring was a Soviet spy ring that operated in England from the late 1950s to 1961, when the core of the network was arrested by the British security services. It is one of the most famous examples of the use of resident spies, who ...

member who was courier for

Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...

physicist

Theodore Hall Theodore Alvin Hall (October 20, 1925 – November 1, 1999) was an American physicist and an atomic spy for the Soviet Union, who, during his work on United States efforts to develop the first and second atomic bombs during World War II ...

. *

Judith Coplon Judith Coplon Socolov (May 17, 1921 – February 26, 2011) was a spy for the Soviet Union whose trials, convictions, and successful constitutional appeals had a profound influence on espionage prosecutions during the Cold War. In 1949, three majo ...

, Department of Justice employee * Lauchlin Currie, White House economic adviser to President Franklin Roosevelt and director of World Bank mission to Colombia. * Byron T. Darling** * William Dawson, United States Ambassador to Uruguay *

Eugene Dennis Francis Xavier Waldron (August 10, 1905 – January 31, 1961), best known by the pseudonym Eugene Dennis and Tim Ryan, was an American communist politician and union organizer, best remembered as the long-time leader of the Communist Party USA a ...

, politician and labor organizer *

Samuel Dickstein Samuel Dickstein (February 5, 1885 – April 22, 1954) was a Democratic Congressional Representative from New York (22-year tenure), a New York State Supreme Court Justice, and a Soviet spy. He played a key role in establishing the committee th ...

, politician and judge** *

Martha Dodd Martha Eccles Dodd (October 8, 1908 – August 10, 1990) was an American journalist and novelist. The daughter of William Edward Dodd, US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's first Ambassador to Germany, Dodd lived in Berlin from 1933–1937 an ...

**, daughter of William Dodd, who served as the United States ambassador to Germany between 1933 and 1937. * William E. Dodd, Jr., educator; son of William Dodd and brother of Martha Dodd *

Laurence Duggan Laurence Duggan (May 28, 1905 – December 20, 1948), also known as Larry Duggan, was a 20th-century American economist who headed the South American desk at the United States Department of State during World War II, best known for falling to his ...

, head of the South American desk at the

United States Department of State The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government responsible for the country's fore ...

during World War II. *

Eufrosina Dvoichenko-Markov Eufrosina Dvoichenko-Markov (1901–1980) was a Russian-American history and literary scholar identified by National Security Agency as agent ''Masha'' who worked for the New York NKGB ''Rezidentura'' from 1943 to 1945. Her son, Sgt. Demetrius ...

* Nathan Einhorn * Jack Bradley Fahy * Linn Markley Farish, senior liaison officer with Josip Broz Tito's

Yugoslav Partisan The Yugoslav Partisans, Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian, Slovene: , or the National Liberation Army, sh-Latn-Cyrl, Narodnooslobodilačka vojska (NOV), Народноослободилачка војска (НОВ); mk, Народноослобод ...

forces * Edward J. Fitzgerald * Charles Flato * Isaac Folkoff *

Jane Foster Jane Foster is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character was introduced as a love interest of the superhero Thor Odinson until becoming a superhero in her own right. Created by writers Stan Lee an ...

* Zalmond David Franklin * Isabel Gallardo * Boleslaw K. Gerbert * Rebecca Getzoff *

Harold Glasser Harold Glasser (November 24, 1905 – November 16, 1992) was an economist in the United States Department of the Treasury and spokesman on the affairs of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) 'throughout its whole ...

, U.S. Treasury Dept. economist,

United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) was an international relief agency, largely dominated by the United States but representing 44 nations. Founded in November 1943, it was dissolved in September 1948. it became part o ...

(UNRRA) spokesman. * Bela Gold *

Harry Gold Harry Gold (born Henrich Golodnitsky, December 11, 1910 – August 28, 1972) was a Swiss-born American laboratory chemist who was convicted as a courier for the Soviet Union passing atomic secrets from Klaus Fuchs, an agent of the Soviet Union, ...

, sentenced to 30 years for his role in the Rosenbergs' ring * Sonia Steinman Gold *

Jacob Golos Jacob Golos (born Yakov Naumovich Reizen, Russian: Яков Наумович Рейзен; April 24, 1889 - November 27, 1943) was a Ukrainian-born Bolshevik revolutionary who became an intelligence operative in the United States on behalf of the U ...

, "main pillar" of

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. ...

spy network, particularly the Sound/Myrna group, he died in the arms of Elizabeth Bentley * George Gorchoff * Gerald Graze** *

David Greenglass David Greenglass (March 2, 1922 – July 1, 2014) was an atomic spy for the Soviet Union who worked on the Manhattan Project. He was briefly stationed at the Clinton Engineer Works uranium enrichment facility at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and then ...

, machinist at Los Alamos sentenced to 15 years for his role in Rosenberg ring; he was the brother of executed

Ethel Rosenberg Julius Rosenberg (May 12, 1918 – June 19, 1953) and Ethel Rosenberg (; September 28, 1915 – June 19, 1953) were American citizens who were convicted of spying on behalf of the Soviet Union. The couple were convicted of providing top-secret i ...

Ruth Greenglass Ruth Leah Greenglass (née Printz; April 30, 1924 – April 7, 2008) was an American citizen who acted as a spy for the Soviet Union along with her husband, David Greenglass. Early life Ruth Leah Printz was born to a Jewish family on April 30 ...

* Theodore Alvin Hall, Manhattan Project physicist who gave

plutonium Plutonium is a radioactive chemical element with the symbol Pu and atomic number 94. It is an actinide metal of silvery-gray appearance that tarnishes when exposed to air, and forms a dull coating when oxidized. The element normally exhibi ...

purification secrets to Soviet intelligence. * Maurice Halperin, American writer, professor, diplomat, and Soviet spy (NKVD code name "Hare"). *

Kitty Harris Kitty Harris (Unknown – 1966) was a Soviet Union, Soviet secret agent and "long-time special courier of the OGPU-NKVD foreign intelligence during the 1930s and 1940s." Harris was identified only in 2001 when her code name "Ada" or "Aida" was ...

* Clarence Hiskey** * Cary Hiles * Alger Hiss, Lawyer involved in the establishment of the United Nations, both as a U.S. State Department and UN official. * Donald Hiss** * Harry Hopkins, One of FDR's closest advisers & New Deal architect, esp.

Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...

(WPA); as a diplomat in charge of relations between FDR and Stalin his name naturally appears on the list. * Louis Horwitz *

Bella Joseph Bella Joseph was the wife of Julius Joseph. The couple worked for the United States Government. It is alleged that they also worked for Soviet Intelligence during World War II, Bella in the Office of Strategic Services' Motion Picture Division. ...

** * Emma Harriet Joseph * Gertrude Kahn * Joseph Katz *

Helen Grace Scott Keenan Helen Grace Reswick Scott Keenan (June 16, 1915 — November 20, 1987), more commonly, Helen Grace Scott, was a United States citizen employed in the Office of Strategic Services and later the Office of U.S Chief Counsel for Prosecution of Axis ...

* Mary Jane Keeney, librarian *

Philip Keeney Philip Olin Keeney (1891–1962), and his wife, Mary Jane Keeney, were librarians who became part of the Silvermaster spy ring in the 1940s.Rosalee McReynolds, Louise S. Robbins: ''The Librarian Spies: Philip and Mary Jane Keeney and Cold War Espi ...

* Alexander Koral** * Helen Koral *

Samuel Krafsur Samuel Simon Krafsur (January 10, 1913 – June 1983) was a Boston-born journalist who worked for the Soviet news agency TASS during World War II. He was also known as Bill Krafsur. Biography Krafsur was mentioned in the Venona intercepts ...

* Charles Kramer, economist * Christina Krotkova * Sergej Nikolaevich Kurnakov *

Fiorello La Guardia Fiorello Henry LaGuardia (; born Fiorello Enrico LaGuardia, ; December 11, 1882September 20, 1947) was an American attorney and politician who represented New York in the House of Representatives and served as the 99th Mayor of New York City fro ...

, mayor of

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

* Stephen Laird * Oscar Lange, economist and diplomat *

Richard Lauterbach Richard Edward Lauterbach (June 18, 1914, New York - September 20, 1950, New York) was the ''Time'' magazine Moscow bureau chief during World War II. Background Lauterbach was born in New York in 1914. He studied China and the Far East under Pro ...

, employee at ''Time'' magazine * Duncan C. Lee * Michael S. Leshing *

Helen Lowry Elza Akhmerova, also Elsa Akhmerova was an American citizen, born Helen Lowry. She is a niece of Earl Browder, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA). She died of leukemia. From 1936 to 1939, Lowry was an equal pa ...

* William Mackey * Harry Samuel Magdoff * William Malisoff, owner and manager of United Laboratories *

Hede Massing Hede Tune Massing, née "Hedwig Tune" (also "Hede Eisler," "Hede Gumperz," and "Redhead") (6 January 1900 – 8 March 1981), was an Austrian actress in Vienna and Berlin, communist, and Soviet intelligence operative in Europe and the United State ...

** * Robert Owen Menaker * Floyd Cleveland Miller *

James Walter Miller James Walter Miller (1890–1950) was an American citizen and an alleged asset of the San Francisco Office of the KGB from 1943 to 1945. Miller worked in the United States Government wartime mail censorship office. Miller was allegedly Agent han ...

* Robert Miller** * Robert G. Minor, Office of Strategic Services, Belgrade * Leonard Emil Mins * Nichola Napoli * Franz Neumann** * David K. Niles * Eugénie Olkhine * George Oppen** * Mary Oppen** *

Frank Oppenheimer Frank Friedman Oppenheimer (August 14, 1912 – February 3, 1985) was an American particle physicist, cattle rancher, professor of physics at the University of Colorado, and the founder of the Exploratorium in San Francisco. A younger brother ...

** * Julius Robert Oppenheimer, Scientific director of the Manhattan Project and chief advisor to the

U.S. Atomic Energy Commission The United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was an agency of the United States government established after World War II by U.S. Congress to foster and control the peacetime development of atomic science and technology. President ...

. * Nicholas V. Orloff * Edna Margaret Patterson * William Perl *

Victor Perlo Victor Perlo (May 15, 1912December 1, 1999) was an American Marxist economist, government functionary, and a longtime member of the governing National Committee of the Communist Party USA. Biography Early years Victor Perlo was born May 15, 19 ...

* Vladimir Aleksandrovich Posner,

United States War Department The United States Department of War, also called the War Department (and occasionally War Office in the early years), was the United States Cabinet department originally responsible for the operation and maintenance of the United States Army, a ...

* Lee Pressman * Mary Wolfe Price * Bernard Redmont** * Peter Rhodes * Stephan Sandi Rich * Kenneth Richardson, World Wide Electronics * Samuel Jacob Rodman, United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration * Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President of the United States, his name appears on the list under the code name "capitan". (

Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from ...

's codename was "boar." * Allen Rosenberg *

Julius Rosenberg Julius Rosenberg (May 12, 1918 – June 19, 1953) and Ethel Rosenberg (; September 28, 1915 – June 19, 1953) were American citizens who were convicted of spying on behalf of the Soviet Union. The couple were convicted of providing top-secret i ...

, United States

Army Signal Corps The United States Army Signal Corps (USASC) is a branch of the United States Army that creates and manages communications and information systems for the command and control of combined arms forces. It was established in 1860, the brainchild of Ma ...

Laboratories, executed for role in the Rosenberg ring *

, executed for role in Rosenberg ring based on testimony of her brother,

* Amadeo Sabatini * Alfred Epaminodas Sarant * Marian Miloslavovich Schultz * Milton Schwartz * John Scott, journalist *

Ricardo Setaro Ricardo Manlio Leonidas Setaro (1903–1975) was an Argentinian who served as deputy chief of the Latin American department of CBS Radio during World War II and maintained a covert relationship with Soviet intelligence, including Iosif Grigule ...

Charles Bradford Sheppard C. Bradford Sheppard was an American working as a radio engineer for Hazeltine Electronics during World War II. Sheppard, who worked on radar in the design office, wished to fight Nazi Germany in the armed forces but was turned down by the US Army ...

, Hazeltine Electronics * Abraham George Silverman *

Nathan Gregory Silvermaster Nathan Gregory Silvermaster (November 27, 1898 – October 7, 1964), an economist with the United States War Production Board (WPB) during World War II, was the head of a large ring of Communist spies in the U.S. government. It is from him that t ...

, U.S. War Production Board (WPB) economist and head of a major ring of spies in the U.S. government. * Helen Silvermaster, Leader of the American League for Peace & Democracy and the

National Federation for Constitutional Liberties The National Federation for Constitutional Liberties (NFCL) (1940–c. 1946) was a civil rights advocacy group made up from a broad range of people (including many trade unionists, religious organizations, African-American civil rights advocates a ...

. *

Morton Sobell Morton Sobell (April 11, 1917 – December 26, 2018) was an American engineer and Soviet spy during and after World War II; he was charged as part of a conspiracy which included Julius Rosenberg and his wife. Sobell worked on military and gover ...

Jack Soble Jack Soble (May 15, 1903 – 1967) was a Lithuanian who, together with his brother Robert Soblen, penetrated Leon Trotsky's entourage for Soviet intelligence in the 1920s. Later, in the United States, he was jailed, with his wife Myra, on ...

* Robert Soble * Johannes Steele * I. F. Stone, Investigative journalist whose newsletter, I. F. Stone's Weekly, was ranked 16th out of 100 by his fellow journalists. *

Augustina Stridsberg Augustina Stridsberg, formerly Augustina Jirku (1892–1978), was an American citizen, and the mother of Margietta Voge (née Jirku). Both mother and daughter worked for Soviet intelligence between 1943 and 1944. Stridsberg worked for the K ...

Anna Louise Strong Anna Louise Strong (November 24, 1885 – March 29, 1970) was an American journalist and activist, best known for her reporting on and support for communist movements in the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China.Archives West,Anna Loui ...

* Helen Tenney** * Mikhail Tkach, editor of the ''Ukrainian Daily News'' * William Ludwig Ullmann * Irving Charles Velson * Margietta Voge * Henry A. Wallace * William Weisband** * Donald Wheeler * Maria Wicher *

Harry Dexter White Harry Dexter White (October 29, 1892 – August 16, 1948) was a senior U.S. Treasury department official. Working closely with the Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr., he helped set American financial policy toward the Allies of World ...

, Senior U.S. Treasury department official, primary designer of the

International Monetary Fund The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a major financial agency of the United Nations, and an international financial institution, headquartered in Washington, D.C., consisting of 190 countries. Its stated mission is "working to foster glo ...

and the

World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Inte ...

. * Ruth Beverly Wilson *

Ignacy Witczak Ignacy Witczak was a GRU (Soviet Union), GRU ''illegal'' officer in the United States during World War II. Witczak's code name with the GRU and as deciphered by the Venona project and other counterintelligence investigations was "R". He operated u ...

**Haynes notes: "Witczak, Ignacy = V (in Los Angeles, Witczak was icfalse papers taken from real Witczak a Polish Jew migrant to Canada who died in Spain. ource Stephenson Intrepid's Last * Ilya Elliott Wolston * Flora Don Wovschin *

Jones Orin York Jones Orin York (August 5, 1893 – July 1970) was recruited in California by Soviet spy Stanislav Shumovskij approximately in 1935. In 1950 York told the FBI that he had passed secrets to the KGB since the mid-1930s, including plans for a new air ...

* Daniel Abraham Zaret, Spanish War veteran * Mark Zborovski, anthropologist

Footnotes

External links

NSA Venona site

FBI Files relating to Venona
Released in conjunction Moynihan Committee report. * John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr, ''Venona; Decoding Soviet Espionage in America'', Yale University Press, 1999. . Se
Yale University Press Web site information on the book
* John Earl Haynes

(revised April 2009), on the author's web site. {{DEFAULTSORT:Americans In The Venona Papers 01 .Verona Espionage in the United States Spy rings Cold War spies World War II spies World War II espionage Venona papers

Notes and disclaimers on the list

List

See also

References

Footnotes

External links