Venona The Greatest Secret of the Cold War by West, Nigel - 1999

Harper Collins, 1999. Over 500g, ex-Plymouth lib with plastic over the dj, 384 pp in great order. The hitherto untold story of the peacetime equivalent of ULTRA, an extraordinary cryptographic effort conducted in conditions of unprecedented secrecy over three decades which gave Western counter-intelligence experts a fascinating glimpse into how Soviet Russia recruited and ran hundreds of moles across the globe. Based on the only set of decrypts held in Britain outside Whitehall, supplemented by interviews with most of the principal players in the venona drama. The US National Security Agency and its British counterpart in Cheltenham, GCHQ, spent 37 years analysing cipher traffic to and from Moscow. Venona provided the FBI and CIA with compelling evidence against the Rosenbergs, Hiss, Fuchs, Donald Maclean and many others, but (to protect the source) venona could not be mentioned in any trial. Nigel West identifies for the first time the real names of several important Soviet British spies (including the famous scientist J.B.S. Haldane and the Hon. Ivor Montagu).. Hardcover. Excellent/Very Good/Excellent/very Good. 24 Cm.