Christopher Andrew - The Sword and the Shield

15. VENONA decrypts, 4th release, part 4, pp. 115-16.

16. vol. 6, ch. 5, part 2; vol. 6, app. 2, part 7. Zarubin’s immediate successor as resident in New York in the summer of 1943, probably on a temporary basis, had been Pavel Klarin (codenamed LUKA); VENONA decrypts, 2nd release, pp. 180ff. On Abbiate’s previous career see above, chapter 4.

17. VENONA decrypts, 3rd release, part 2, pp. 205-6.

18. VENONA decrypts, 3rd release, part 3, p. 175. The telegram from the Center appointing Abbiate as resident refers to him by his codename SERGEI, identified in the NSA decrypt as Pravdin (Abbiate’s alias in the USA). Apresyan’s transfer to San Francisco was not necessarily a demotion in view of the forthcoming organizing conference of the United Nations, attended by NKGB agent Harry Dexter White and presided over by the GRU agent Alger Hiss.

19. vol. 7, ch. 2, 1; app. 3, n. 21.

20. Among the documents Philby passed to the NKGB were the German foreign ministry documents obtained by OSS in Switzerland and probably also supplied by NKGB agents in OSS. Philby, My Silent War, pp. 84-6; Andrew, For the President’s Eyes Only, pp. 141-2.

21. Borovik, The Philby Files, pp. 232-3.

22. Philby, My Silent War, ch. 6; Cecil, “The Cambridge Comintern.” On Krötenschield, see Modin, My Five Cambridge Friends, pp. 103-4, 124-5.

23. Modin, My Five Cambridge Friends, p. 114. From 1944 to 1947 Modin was responsible for the files of the Five at the Center, before being posted to London to act as their controller.

24. Andrew and Gordievsky, KGB, p. 314.

25. Pincher, Too Secret Too Long, p. 397.

26. Cecil, A Divided Life, pp. 74-5.

27. vol. 7, ch. 10, para. 9.

28. Andrew and Gordievsky, KGB, pp. 309-12; Cecil, “The Cambridge Comintern.”

29. vol. 7, ch. 10, app., para. 2.

30. See above, chapter 7.

31. There are a number of references to Fuchs’s codenames in the VENONA decrypts. Fuchs said later that he never knew which branch of Soviet intelligence he was working for. During his interrogation after his arrest in 1950 he claimed to have been previously unaware that more than one branch existed. Andrew and Gordievsky, KGB, p. 323.

32. vol. 6, ch. 6. The GRU did, however, keep control of its agents in the Anglo-Canadian atomic research center at Chalk River; Andrew and Gordievsky, KGB, pp. 325-6.

33. Norwood ceased contact with SONYA (referred to in KGB files as FIR) in 1944. However, the first contact between Norwood and her new (unidentified) controller recorded in Mitrokhin’s notes took place in 1945. vol. 7, ch. 14, item 17.

34. vol. 7, ch. 14, item 17.

35. VENONA decrypts, 5th release, part 2, p. 249. Norwood’s codename at this period was TINA.

36. West and Tsarev, The Crown Jewels, p. 234.

37. VENONA decrypts, 1st release, pp. 8-9.

38. FBI FOIA 65-58805, file 38, p. 7.

39. VENONA decrypts, 1st release, pp. 8-9.

40. FBI FOIA 65-58805, files 38, 40.

41. VENONA decrypts, 1st release, pp. 25, 27.

42. Gold’s evidence to the FBI on renewing contact with Fuchs is reprinted in Williams, Klaus Fuchs, Atom Spy, pp. 206-12.

43. vol. 6, ch. 8, part 1.

44. The agents in Rosenberg’s ring included the scientist William Perl (GNOME), who provided intelligence on jet engines, and the military electronics engineers Joel Barr (METRE) and Alfred Sarant (HUGHES), both of whom were radar experts; VENONA decrypts, 1st release, pp. 12, 18-19, 47, 51. On the origins of the Rosenberg spyring, run initially — according to Semenov — “on the principles of a Communist Party group,” see Weinstein and Vassiliev, The Haunted Wood, pp. 177-9.

45. VENONA decrypts, 1st release, pp. 15, 36, 45-6.

46. Radosh and Milton, The Rosenberg File, ch. 3.

47. VENONA decrypts, 1st release, pp. 44-5; 3rd release, pp. 255-6, 261-6. Hall explained his belief that his atomic espionage had been a way “to help the world” in the BBC Radio 4 documentary VENONA (presenter: Christopher Andrew; producers: Mark Berman and Helen Weinstein), first broadcast March 18, 1998.

48. vol. 6, ch. 5, part 2.

49. VENONA decrypts, 2nd release, p. 424.

50. Bentley, Out of Bondage, pp. 160-1. The first VENONA decrypt in which Akhmerov reports intelligence from Bentley is dated December 11, 1943; VENONA decrypts, 2nd release, pp. 430-1.

51. Bentley, Out of Bondage, pp. 163-5. Bentley’s story is, once again, largely corroborated by VENONA and other evidence. Cf. VENONA decrypts, 3rd release, part 1, pp. 26-8; and Klehr, Haynes and Firsov, The Secret World of American Communism, pp. 312-15.

52. vol. 6, ch. 5, part 2. Doubtless through a slip of the pen, Mitrokhin also refers to Perlo in this note as PEL. VENONA and other sources make clear that PEL (also codenamed PAL and ROBERT) was Greg Silvermaster. The other members of Perlo (RAIDER)’s group, all described as Communists, were Charles Kramer, Edward Fitzgerald, Harry Magdoff, John Abt, Charles Flato and Harold Glasser.

53. VENONA decrypts, 3rd release, part 1, pp. 26-8.

54. Bentley, Out of Bondage, pp. 166-7. Once again, VENONA confirms the substance of Bentley’s version of events.

55. VENONA decrypts, 3rd release, part 1, p. 272.

56. Bentley, Out of Bondage, pp. 173-7.

57. VENONA decrypts, 1st release, part 1, p. 14; 3rd release, part 2, pp. 139, 152, 196.

58. Bentley, Out of Bondage, pp. 179-80.

59. VENONA decrypts, 3rd release, part 2, pp. 17-18. In January 1945 White was appointed Assistant Secretary of the Treasury.

60. Romerstein and Levchenko, The KGB against the “Main Enemy,” pp. 111-12. George Silverman, to whom (according to Bentley) Currie rushed to deliver his warning “sort of out of breath,” is identified by the VENONA decrypts as a Soviet agent (codenamed ELERON [AILERON]). Currie himself may well be the agent codenamed PAGE to whom there are a number of references in the decrypts. Though denying that he had ever been a Soviet spy, Currie later acknowledged that he been entertained at Gorsky’s home. Senior White House officials such as Currie were among the very small group privy to the highly classified information that OSS had obtained a charred NKGB codebook. There is no reference to Currie in Mitrokhin’s notes.

61. The senior FBI agent who took part in the early analysis of the VENONA decrypts, Robert Lamphere, wrongly claims in his memoirs ( The FBI-KGB War, pp. 87ff) that the NKGB codebook was later used to assist the process of decrypting. National Security Agency, Introductory History of VENONA and Guide to the Translations, p. 8.

62. Andrew and Gordievsky, KGB, p. 295.

63. vol. 6, ch. 8, part 1. vol. 7, ch. 2, para. 22.

64. vol. 6, ch. 6.

65. Holloway, “Sources for Stalin and the Bomb,” p. 5.

66. vol. 7, ch. 2, para. 19.

67. Albright and Kunstel, Bombshell, pp. 121-7.

68. Albright and Kunstel, Bombshell, ch. 15. The career of Morris and “Lona” Cohen is summarized in vol. 6, ch. 5, part 2.

69. Albright and Kunstel, Bombshell, pp. 138-9.

70. NKGB report to Beria, July 10, 1945, first published in Kurier Sovietski Razvedke (1991); extract reprinted in Sudoplatovs, Special Tasks, appendix 4, pp. 474-5 (Sudoplatov misidentifies MLAD as Pontecorvo).

71. The story of Lona Cohen’s trip to Albuquerque is briefly told in the short biography of her in Samolis (ed.), Veterany Vneshnei Razvedki Rossii, p. 71. See also Albright and Kunstel, Bombshell, ch. 17.

72. vol. 6, ch. 5, part 2. Unsurprisingly, this remarkable tale improved with the telling. In some recent Russian versions, Mrs. Cohen hid the documents in a box of Kleenex. The less elaborate account noted by Mitrokhin appears more reliable. He does not, however, identify the Los Alamos scientist who supplied the documents.