List of Americans in the Venona papers

Updated on Sep 21, 2024

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The following list of Americans in the Venona papers is a list of names deciphered from codenames contained in the Venona project, an American government effort from 1943-1980 to decrypt coded messages by intelligence forces of the Soviet Union. To what extent some of the individuals named in the Venona papers were actually involved with Soviet intelligence is a topic of dispute.

The following list of individuals is extracted in large part from the work of historians John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr and reflects their previous points of view. 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.

List

Theodore Bayer, President, Russky Golos Publishing

Cedric Belfrage

Elizabeth Bentley

Joseph Milton Bernstein

Earl Browder, American communist and General Secretary of the Communist Party USA from 1934 to 1945.

Paul Burns**

Sylvia Callen**

Virginius Frank Coe

Lona Cohen**

Morris Cohen**, Communist Party USA & Portland Spy Ring member who was courier for Manhattan Project physicist Theodore Hall.

Judith Coplon

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

Samuel Dickstein**

Martha Dodd**, daughter of William Dodd, who served as the United States ambassador to Germany between 1933 and 1937.

William E. Dodd, Jr.

Laurence Duggan, head of the South American desk at the United States Department of State during World War II.

Eufrosina Dvoichenko-Markov

Nathan Einhorn

Jack Bradley Fahy

Linn Markley Farish, senior liaison officer with Josip Broz Tito's Yugoslav Partisan forces

Zalmond David Franklin

Isabel Gallardo

Boleslaw K. Gerbert

Rebecca Getzoff

Harold Glasser, U.S. Treasury Dept. economist, United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) spokesman.

Bela Gold

Harry Gold, sentenced to 30 years for his role in the Rosenbergs' ring

Sonia Steinman Gold

Jacob Golos, "main pillar" of NKVD spy network, particularly the Sound/Myrna group, he died in the arms of Elizabeth Bentley

George Gorchoff

Gerald Graze**

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

Ruth Greenglass

Theodore Alvin Hall, Manhattan Project physicist who gave plutonium purification secrets to Soviet intelligence.

Maurice Halperin, American writer, professor, diplomat, and Soviet spy (NKVD code name "Hare").

Kitty Harris

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

Louis Horwitz

Bella Joseph**

Emma Harriet Joseph

Gertrude Kahn

Joseph Katz

Helen Grace Scott Keenan

Sergej Nikolaevich Kurnakov

Fiorello La Guardia, mayor of New York City

Stephen Laird

Oscar Lange

Richard Lauterbach, employee at Time magazine

William Mackey

William Malisoff, owner and manager of United Laboratories

Hede Massing**

Robert Owen Menaker

Floyd Cleveland Miller

James Walter Miller

Robert Miller**

Robert G. Minor, Office of Strategic Services, Belgrade

Leonard Emil Mins

Nichola Napoli

Franz Neumann**

David K. Niles

Eugénie Olkhine

Frank Oppenheimer**

Julius Robert Oppenheimer, Scientific director of the Manhattan Project and chief advisor to the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission.

Nicholas V. Orloff

Edna Margaret Patterson

William Perl

Victor Perlo

Vladimir Aleksandrovich Posner, United States War Department

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's codename was "boar."

Allen Rosenberg

Julius Rosenberg, United States Army Signal Corps Laboratories, executed for role in the Rosenberg ring

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

Amadeo Sabatini

Alfred Epaminodas Sarant

Marian Miloslavovich Schultz

Milton Schwartz

John Scott

Ricardo Setaro

Charles Bradford Sheppard, Hazeltine Electronics

Abraham George Silverman

Nathan Gregory Silvermaster, U.S. War Production Board (WPB) economist and head of a major ring of spies in the U.S. government.