Posted on 01/05/2010 11:53:47 AM PST by Tailgunner Joe
The Bard tells us, rightly, that the past is prologue. But until America's greatest military intelligence success -- and failure -- becomes common knowledge Americans will remain intellectual sitting ducks, herded hither and yon, hoping to build a sheltering future on shaky misinformation.
I'm talking about the Venona Code intercepts: The 3000 encrypted communications between Soviet spies operating in this country and their masters in Moscow, which American and British code breakers began deciphering in 1946.
These KGB messages revealed that the Soviets had agents at the highest levels of the executive and legislative branches of our government -- and those of our allies -- before, during, and shortly after, WWII.
In just the small fraction of intercepted cables we're able to decrypt more than 300 American residents are identified as Soviet agents. The enormous damage they did us still affects lives today.
We've long known that scientists at Los Alamos handed the Soviet Union the secrets of nuclear fission, enabling Stalin to build his own A-bomb. The geo-political fall-out from that (pun intended) can hardly be overestimated.
Venona gives us extensive detail. And much more.
When the Allies met at Yalta and Potsdam at the close of WWII, Soviet agents were among America's highest level representatives, helping to send millions of non-Soviet citizens into Stalin's Gulag, and set up the Soviet take-over of Eastern Europe.
And why was the West blind-sided in 1950 when North Korea invaded the South, starting the Korean War?
Because Willam Weisband, a Soviet spy and language expert helping American code breakers working on Venona and other Soviet codes, told the Soviets in 1948 of our successes. All their military/intelligence codes consequently went black, almost overnight, keeping us from learning they were helping China and North Korea prepare to invade the South.
That intelligence failure kept us from preparing for, or preventing, the Korean War.
Venona decrypts also describe how Soviet spies in America gave them our jet fighter secrets, enabling their MiG-15s to slaughter thousands in Korea.
So why do Americans typically think that Soviet spies in the US were a figment of Joe McCarthy's imagination; and that the Rosenbergs, Hiss and Oppenheimer were wrongfully accused?
Because the US government didn't release our Venona evidence till 1995. And then largely because two American scholars, John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, had written about the Russian side of the Venona encryptions they'd discovered in Russia's KGB archives in 1992.
The US initially had good reasons for hiding what we knew from Venona; like not wanting the Soviets to know what we'd learned and what we hadn't, so spies we were watching wouldn't be pulled and replaced.
But not releasing the Venona decryptions allowed forty years of misinformation to mislead American minds; to whitewash Hiss and the Rosenbergs; to vilify Bentley and Chambers, Soviet spies who changed their ways and came clean in the forties.
Still today, when the truths revealed in our Venona decrypts have been out for fourteen years, the general news media, Hollywood in particular (which continues to release misinformation on American spy hunts annually), as well as many in academia, remain strangely silent.
It's no less dangerous now. Islamic terrorists are a different enemy, but the same intelligence challenges remain. And we seem to be making s similar mistakes: Political correctness whitewashes our enemies; enemy agents distort the facts; enemy friends ignore the truth. So we don't know what to believe.
These are the lessons of 9/11. Unlearned. Still coded. Ignored. If we don't learn from Venona - from the handful left who know what happened - the future will be catastrophic.
Facts mean nothing if you can change the past and rewrite history (we are at war with Oceania)....
I'm talking about the Venona Code intercepts: The 3000 encrypted communications between Soviet spies operating in this country and their masters in Moscow, which American and British code breakers began deciphering in 1946. These KGB messages revealed that the Soviets had agents at the highest levels of the executive and legislative branches of our government -- and those of our allies -- before, during, and shortly after, WWII.
To hear Communist sympathizers in America tell it, there never was a Communist presence in the United States and besides if there was it was purely domestic and humanitarian with no external influence and if there was foreign funding and prodding there was no espionage and activity on behalf of the Soviets and besides they meant us no harm and if there was harm it was overstated and besides we had all of those mean old nuclear weapons so they were just defending themselves against the evil racist capitalist imperialist pigs.
“the general news media, Hollywood in particular (which continues to release misinformation on American spy hunts annually), as well as many in academia, remain strangely silent.”
Strangely silent?
You’ve got to be kidding!
Why should the enemy reveal his position?
These are the lessons of 9/11. Unlearned. Still coded. Ignored. If we don't learn from Venona - from the handful left who know what happened - the future will be catastrophic
The Left expressed SUCH outrage that McCarthy and Cohn would allege that there were Communist sympathizers working within our military and our State department to undermine US foreign policy.
Yet the evidence bears out the accusation.
We were told the same thing when red flags came up about the Ft. Hood shooter. How dare you question his patriotism (before he acts on his threats and ideology). And the fifth column in the State Department remains entrenched.
Hollywood Reds aren’t “strangely silent”, the continue to spin the same old tire Stalinist lie.
‘In just the small fraction of intercepted cables we’re able to decrypt more than 300 American residents are identified as Soviet agents.’
Would love to see that list and discern how many are parents of the red diaper babies currently in positions of power in the current administration.
Venona bump
“The Venona Secrets, Exposing Soviet Espionage and America’s Traitors. By Herbert Romerstein and Eric Breindel.
Follow that up with: Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joeseph McCarthy, by M. Stanton Evans.
He makes a very good argument It does make you wonder who prevented the release of the Venona files until 1995, and why.
It's dry reading but I'm making my way through it.
bflr
Given the timespan, 60+ years ago, more likely grandparents.
"McCarthyism", properly speaking would refer to a concerted effort in the direction of unmasking real traitors, spies, and enemy propagandists in positions of political or military power, or of social influence.
We need some "McCarthyism" right now, to unmask the socialists, fascists, and islamists currently infesting government and media.
Dry? I started that about 4 years ago. It's like taking a stroll through Death Valley without water.
Still, very good.
Dittos.
bumping for later...
My wife got me Evans’ book for Christmas.
I am at page 150 or so.
I’ve learned so much of that era and I thought I was pretty well versed before reading this book.
It is a must read to understand what happened then and what continues to happens to this day.
As to Sword & Shield, I’ve had that book forever - bought it at a CPAC years ago - can’t read it and have tried a dozen or so time.
It’s the Russian names that make it difficult for me.
Good Venona bump....my trilogy of anti-US Communism include Blacklisted by History and Comrade J...in 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed, the Cold War officially ended, and a new world order began. We thought everything had changed. But one thing never did: the spies. From 1995 until 2000, a man known as “Comrade J” directed all Russian spy action in New York and oversaw all covert operations against the U.S. and its allies. He recruited spies, planted Russian agents, penetrated U.N. and U.S. security, and manipulated events that influenced American policy, under the direct leadership of Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin. He was a legend, the man who guarded Russia’s secrets – secrets that he never revealed.....until now. Based on exclusive interviews with Russian spymaster and double agent, Sergei Tretyakov, Comrade J exposes how the “new” Russia continues to spy and undermine the U.S.
Comrade J was Russian Spy Sergei Tretyakov who also said that he had Helped Iraq Steal From UN, Oil for Food scam.
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