Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America

by Harvey Klehr, John Earl Haynes

Release Date: August, 2000

Edition: Paperback

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Plod through the Sink of Iniquity

This book is a minor contribution to the history of the Cold War. I found herein a multitude of questions answered that had been nagging me for years. Such as the Duncan Lee story. That said, this is not a definitive history. We will wait a long time for that maybe twenty years after all the Soviet Archives have been mined. The authors have taken all the names that were revealed in the Venona materials by the US government. They took advanage of a brief window of opportunity to get in the Soviet Archives before access was again restricted. Then they collated all of this, sorted out the names into topical chapters, researched as much as could be done to briefly discuss each person, and then put it all together. Because this is based only on individuals mentioned in the Venona intercepts, the story is spotty, incomplete, and sketchy in places. This is more a volume to consult for names seen elsewhere than to read straight through. It is far from a bedside thriller or a "good read." Workmanlike but not all inclusive. Did what they intended.

Fills in many blanks in Cold War history

This book and others like it fill in the gaps in the record of the Cold War. I find it fascinating, for example, that pre-war Soviet spies were driven mostly by ideology, while those in the post war era were driven by cash. The book itself can be dry at times, but it is a complete treatment of the subject. I also read 'The Sword and The Shield, The Mitrokin Archive' by Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokin and found that the two books correlate closely. Very informative about a time in history I have lived through.