named “Homer” in the British embassy was meeting his Soviet case
officers frequently in New York. When one message noted that
Homer was going to New York to be with his pregnant wife who was
living with her mother, it was possible to discern that the agent was
Donald Maclean, whose American wife was pregnant and living at
the time with her mother.
Venona could have done Moscow far greater harm, but the secret
was betrayed by William Weisband, an agent serving in the U.S.
Army signals intelligence service. Through Weisband, Moscow
learned about Venona four years before the CIA did. According to
one KGBofficer’s memoir, several NKVDand GRUcode clerks
were executed for their errors in constructing one-time pads. Venona
almost certainly convinced Moscow to cut ties to some of its most
productive agents and led to the disintegration of the Soviet spy ap-
paratus in North America after 1948.
The Venona program was not acknowledged by either Washington
or London until 1995. The publication of the messages and support-
ing documents in the United States by the Central Intelligence
Agency and the National Security Agency had a dramatic impact on
the writing of Cold Warhistory. While some historians continue to
claim that Venona was created out of whole cloth by Allied intelli-
gence services, most historians and journalists acknowledge that the
information proves that the Soviet intelligence services had pene-
trated the Allied nuclear weapons program, military and diplomatic
services, and intelligence establishments in Washington and Lon-
don. Recently, the SVR(Russian Foreign Intelligence Service) al-
lowed the publication of material from its archives that confirms 58
persons identified in Venona as Soviet spies, and establishes the
identity of nine persons who were hiding behind cover names in the
Venona messages.VETROV, VLADIMIR IPPOLITOVICH (1927–1984).An officer of
Directorate T of the KGB’s First Chief Directorate, Vetrov volun-
teered to work for France in 1980 and was given the code name
“Farewell.” Over a few years, Vetrov provided the French Security
Service with information to frustrate the Soviet collection of scientific
and technical intelligence. Paris used the information to expel more
than 40 KGB officers in 1981 and alerted the United States aboutVETROV, VLADIMIR IPPOLITOVICH (1927–1984)• 27706-313 P-Z.qxd 7/27/06 7:57 AM Page 277