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Books : Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America (Yale Nota Bene)In association with Amazon.com Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Binding: PaperbackDewey Decimal Number: 327 EAN: 9780300084627 ISBN: 0300084625 Label: Yale University Press Manufacturer: Yale University Press Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 504 Publication Date: August 11, 2000 Publisher: Yale University Press Studio: Yale University Press Sales Rank: 115280 Related Items:
Editorial Review: Amazon.com: With this new volume, John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr build upon their groundbreaking work in The Secret World of American Communism and solidify their reputations as the foremost historians of Soviet espionage in America. In Venona, they provide a detailed study of how the United States decrypted top-secret Communist cables moving between Washington and Moscow. This account, based on information unavailable to researchers for decades, reveals the full extent of the Communist spy network in the 1940s. At least 349 citizens, immigrants, and permanent residents of the United States had a covert relationship with Soviet intelligence agencies, among them Harry White (assistant secretary of the treasury in FDR's administration and the Communists' highest-ranking asset) and State Department official Alger Hiss, whose association with the Soviets had been hotly debated since the moment he was first publicly accused in 1948. "The Soviet assault was of the type a nation directs at an enemy state," write Haynes and Klehr. They go on to suggest that Venona's code-breaking "indicated that the Cold War was not a state of affairs that had begun after World War II but a guerilla action that Stalin had secretly started years earlier." Moreover, "espionage saved the USSR great expense and industrial investment and thereby enabled the Soviets to build a successful atomic bomb years before they otherwise would have." Haynes and Klehr deliver what is at once a real-life spy thriller and a vital piece of scholarship. A grand achievement. --John J. Miller Average Rating:
 Rating:  - Great research, but somewhat moralisticInformative, though reads a little like a phonebook. The all-too-often repeated pattern: so-and-so -- name, birthdate, birthplace, education -- became a Soviet agent, and passed such and such secrets (and so on for about hundred times). Motives of individual agents are seldom explored (though the final chapter has important insights into the "why" of agent work), while the authors rush to make moralistic judgments: so and so betrayed his country, so and so committed treachery, how many lives would ... Read More Rating:  - A Shocking Book, Well Written, Desperately NeededThe subject of this book is a shocking fact of American history that, for reasons inconceivable, has been thoroughly neglected by the historical community for more than a decade. The secrets uncovered through the VENONA Project and presented here by Haynes -- all of them factual -- dramatically re-cast American Cold War history, so much so that any American, regardless of political orientation, should and will be shocked by the story Haynes tells. "VENONA: Decoding Soviet Espionage in ... Read More Rating: - A valuable and important contribution to the history of Soviet Cold War espionageSpying is the everyday word for the fancier word espionage. The main thing is that we know every side does it. Everyone is trying to get an edge on knowing what the other is doing. So, why does it matter what the now defunct Soviet Union was doing in its spying efforts during World War II? Simply, it is because it still plays a part in our current political debate. Our super secret efforts in developing the atom bomb were compromised; this is certain. There is still debate how much of our diplomacy ... Read More Rating:  - A High Standard of ScholarshipIn his book, A People's History of the United States, historian Howard Zinn described the Communist Party of the United States of America as a Party "known to pay special attention to the problem of race equality." Zinn said very little about communist espionage in the United States, and instead emphasized the roles of communist activists in the labor movement and the civil rights movement. Zinn is characteristic of leftist American historians who are quick to describe the Red Scare as an assault on civil ... Read More Rating: - Spies and LiesA well-researched book on an interesting subject. The findings of the Venona project shed new light on communism in America. It was fascinating to learn that communists in this country during the first half of the 20th century were doing more than just freely practicing their political and sociological beliefs - they were making serious and deliberate attempts to undermine our government, our defenses, and our technology. The detailed descriptions of espionage by communists in America, supported by factual ... Read More Browse for similar items by category:
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