Truman and Venona

In The Weekly Standard in June 2003 columnist Robert Novak wrote an article titled, “The Origins of McCarthyism, What did Harry Truman know and when did he know it?” The gist of Novak's interrogatory referred to the NSA's Venona Program declassified in 1995. Thus, sparking much interest and controversy, Novak's contentious essay devolved to, Did Truman know about Venona?  The question persists with no consensus or resolution. You don’t have to be a professional historian/scholar to find the issue prima facie interesting: How could the President not have been briefed on one of America’s greatest national security secrets as it was unfolding, the Venona Program? Such would almost be akin to FDR not knowing about the Manhattan Project. [1]

The provocation for Novak was the linking of the ‘Truman-Venona’ question to McCarthyism, still a charged political issue after 60 years. His article was a reaction to Senator Daniel Moynihan’s charge in the book Secrecy that Truman had not been informed about the Venona messages, which were "real evidence” of Communist infiltration in the U.S. Government. Consequently, Moynihan believed Truman dealt ineffectually with Soviet espionage and the national politics that resulted in McCarthyism. Moynihan’s culprit for Truman’s purported ignorance of Venona was government bureaucracy generally, and FBI subterfuge specifically. His "smoking gun" was an October 18, 1949, memorandum from FBI Espionage Section head Howard Fletcher to FBI Assistant Director Mickey Ladd. The subject of the memorandum was, BUREAU SOURCE 5 MATERIAL, the FBI’s covername for the Venona Program. This memorandum proved to Moynihan that the Bureau was ‘joined at the hip’ to Venona, yet Hoover had kept Truman in the dark. [2]

Since Moynihan’s thesis seemed to have taken root in American political dialog, Novak’s purpose was to set the record straight, namely that Truman had been informed on Venona, even well-informed. In addition to dissecting the October 1949 FBI Memo, Novak pointed to oral testimony from Oliver Kirby, an Army officer who had been assigned to Arlington Hall and who later served as a senior official at NSA. In interviews with historians Jerrold and Leona Schecter, and then phone calls with Novak, Kirby asserted multiple instances of Truman having been briefed on Venona, principally by General Omar Bradley. For Novak these facts and evidence justified the following commentary: “The same President Truman who was so decisive in authorizing the atom bombing of Japan, military intervention in Korea, the Marshall plan, Greek-Turkish aid, and NATO could not come to grips with Soviet espionage at home.” And, of course, Soviet espionage and Communist subversion were the steroids of McCarthyism. [3]

A month later, Novak’s Weekly Standard article was strongly rebutted by noted American Communism and Venona historians Harvey Klehr and John Earl Haynes. Not finding any indisputable evidence to the contrary, Klehr and Haynes remained in support of Senator Moynihan’s position that Truman was not told about Venona and the mountain of tangible evidence indicating widespread Soviet espionage: “Moynihan uncovered a 1949 FBI memo indicating that Army Chief of Staff Omar Bradley had decided not to inform the president about the top-secret Venona program. The FBI had told Truman the information contained in the messages, but not that it came from decoded Soviet cables. Given Truman’s distrust of Hoover, this denied the president any assurance that the information was reliable and may have misled him about the seriousness of the problem.” From this perspective, one could appreciate Truman’s inclination to treat the events known as the “Red Scare” as domestic political machinations rather than bona fide national security threats. [4]

Material Events

Deeper insight into the “Did Truman know about Venona?” question/debate is afforded by considering the full Fletcher-Ladd FBI memo in the context of events proximate to October 18, 1949, as well as documents related to those events:

• August 1949   A beginning point is the unreported date in late August 1949 when Special Agent Robert Lamphere, FBI liaison to the Soviet Message section of the Army Security Agency, received a large quantity of Venona decrypts from Arlington Hall (ASA). Among these were eight intercepts that dealt with KGB agents REST (CHARLES) and GUS (ARNO). Lamphere split the messages into roughly equal halves and gave half to his partner Special Agent Ernest Van Loon. It so happened that Van Loon’s half contained the eight REST/GUS messages. Although the decryptions were by no means complete, it was clear that these Soviet agents were engaged in atomic espionage. Information then sought from the Atomic Energy Commission quickly identified Klaus Fuchs as a primary suspect for REST/GUS.

• 29 August, 1949   On August 29, 1949, the Soviet Union conducted its first test of an atomic bomb, dubbed Joe 1 in reference to Stalin.

• 22 September 1949   On September 22, 1949, Van Loon opened an official investigation of Fuchs with an eight-page memorandum of that date.

• 23 September 1949   In a remarkable coincidence, the next day, September 23, 1949, President Truman announced to the American public that the Soviet Union had detonated an atomic bomb. The shock to official Washington, particularly the military and the President, was enormous: The CIA was on record that the earliest the USSR would be able to execute an atomic bomb was four years hence, 1953.

• 26 September 1949   On September 26, 1949, an FBI memo drafted by Robert Lamphere was sent to ASA informing them of Bureau investigative results regarding the identification of REST as Klaus Fuchs.

• 29 September 1949   In consequence of Lamphere's memo, three days later, September 29, 1949, General Carter W. Clarke, Arlington Hall Commanding Officer, visited FBI headquarters and called on Assistant Director D. M. Ladd to discuss “the dissemination of the material identifying Dr Fuchs.”

• 18 October 1949   On October 18, 1949, Howard Fletcher informed D. M. Ladd by memorandum of that date of a conference between S. Wesley Reynolds, FBI Liaison to Army Intelligence (G2), and General C. W. Clarke [Deputy G2, Arlington Hall superintendent] in which General Clarke voiced concern “regarding the dissemination of Bureau Source 5 material to the Central Intelligence Agency.”

• 29 October1949   Virtually from the inception of its investigation, the Bureau both sought and provided information to British MI5 on the Fuchs case. On October 29, 1949, the Bureau received a communication from British Intelligence Liaison in Washington, DC, containing the statement, "in the light of information supplied by you Fuchs has been proved beyond all reasonable doubt to be identical with the Soviet agent REST."

Roughly speaking, the foregoing 'timeline' shows that in a 60 day period the FBI began and completed an investigation which informed the Nation's leaders how it was that the USSR was able to execute an atomic weapon 5 years earlier than expected.  [5]

The Moynihan Smoking Gun

Top Secret
Office Memorandum – United States Government
Date: October 18, 1949

To: Mr. D. M. LADD
From: Mr. H. B. FLETCHER
Subj: BUREAU SOURCE 5 MATERIAL (Espionage – R)

         Mr. Reynolds, in a recent conference with General C. W. Clarke, inquired as to the apparent concern of General Clarke regarding dissemination of Bureau Source 5 material to the Central Intelligence Agency.

        General Clarke stated that when Admiral Stone took over in charge of all cryptanalytical work he was very much disturbed to learn of the progress made by the Army Security Agency in reading Bureau Source 5 material. Admiral Stone took the attitude that the President and Admiral Hillenkoetter should be advised as to the contents of all these messages. General Clarke stated that he vehemently disagreed with Admiral Stone and advised the Admiral that he believed the only people entitled to know anything about this source were British MI5 and the FBI. He stated that the disagreement between Admiral Stone and himself culminated in a conference with General Bradley. General Bradley, according to General Clarke, agreed with the stand taken by General Clarke and stated that he would personally assume the responsibility of advising the President or anyone else in authority if the contents of any of this material so demanded. General Bradley adopted the attitude and agreed with General Clarke that all of the material should be made available to British MI5 and the FBI.

        General Clarke stated that the reason that he recently called upon you [September 29, 1949] was for the purpose of informing you as to the difference of opinion between himself and Admiral Stone and to acquaint you with the opinion of General Bradley. He stated that he wanted to be certain that the Bureau was aware of this and to make sure that the Bureau does not handle the material in such a way that Admiral Hillenkoetter or anyone else outside the Army Security Agency, British MI5 and the Bureau are aware of the contents of these messages and the activity being conducted at Arlington Hall.

        Major General Irwin recently advised Mr. Reynolds in connection with this matter and confirmed in toto the remarks previously made by General Clarke. General Irwin commented, however, that General Clarke is of the opinion that Admiral Stone has already orally advised Admiral Hillenkoetter as to this activity.

ACTION:

        It is believed that the individuals in the Bureau handling Bureau Source 5 material should be acquainted with the developments in this matter in order to make absolutely certain the Bureau does not disclose to any unauthorized organization or individual any information dealing with Bureau Source 5 material.

        The confidential nature of Bureau Source 5 material will be re-emphasized at [Espionage] Section conferences of the Security Division during the present week. HBF

SWR:arm
Top Secret [6]

Analysis and Comment

The FBI’s Venona-based investigation of Klaus Fuchs in September 1949 is clearly the catalyst for policy discussions and decisions as to the dissemination of Venona material. The problem and policy was addressed by General Carter Clarke and ratified by General Bradley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (as of August 11, 1949). Bradley’s standing order was simple: Disclosure of Venona material/activity to anybody but MI5 and the FBI required his personal approval. Moynihan’s 'smoking gun,' the 18 October FBI memo, is not 'smoking.' It is not documentary evidence that Bradley “dogmatically kept secret from President Harry Truman the result of communications intercepts revealing Soviet espionage in the United States” (Novak). Nor is it documentary evidence that Bradley informed Truman about Venona and cases stemming therefrom. However, it is documentary evidence that General Bradley considered it his responsibility to brief Truman when warranted, which is contrary to an assertion that he had affirmatively decided not to tell Truman about Venona (Klehr-Haynes). The fact of the matter is, Senator Moynihan misconstrued, either inadvertantly or wittingly, the last sentence of the second paragraph of the FBI memo. That sentence does not countermand Bradley's declaration of the previous sentence, namely, that he would brief President Truman on Venona decrypt matters when circumstances warranted it. The underlying principle at issue here is that the Bureau was a 'consumer' of Venona not the owner. [7]

The Fletcher-Ladd memo of 18 October 1949 should serve to rehabilitate the FBI in the eyes of the open- minded. It should at least mitigate the conviction that Hoover’s modus operandi was to use investigative information to play Washington DC hardball. With respect to Venona, the memo shows that FBI officials understood that the Bureau had no authority or responsibility to disclose Venona information, and that included the person of the President. In this regard, they would have no reason/inclination to do so, as they had been advised of the channel by which that would occur: Omar Bradley. Notwithstanding that reality, the literature provides a dilemma which may have elicited a presidential brief on Venona, one through a cabinet-level channel other than the U.S. military: the Judith Coplon espionage case and trial.

September 1949 was the beginning of a ramped-up investigative relationship between the FBI and the NSA Venona Program. By 1956 the Bureau was “investigating about 100 cases on individuals either mentioned in Bureau Source 5 messages or having a connection to them.” When it came to McCarthyism they were ‘public enemy number’ two (after McCarthy), with no way of publicly proving otherwise. A 1956 Bureau memo summed up the politics: “It is believed that disclosure of existence of [Venona] information at this time would probably place the Bureau right in the middle of a violent political war. This is an election year and the Republicans would undoubtedly use disclosure of the [Venona] information to emphasize the degree of infiltration by Communists and Soviet agents into U.S. Government during the 1940’s when the Democrats were in power. At the same time, the Democrats would probably strike back by claiming that the FBI withheld this information from the proper officials during the Democratic administration and at the same time would salvage what credit they could by claiming that the messages were intercepted and deciphered during the course of their administration and under their guidance. The Bureau would be right in the middle.”  [8]  Well, it still is, witness The Weekly Standard, June 2003.

Did Truman know about Venona?

Of course he did, unless you believe that after Joe 1 the Venona intelligence explaining how Stalin got the bomb, namely British scientist and Soviet agent Klaus Fuchs (REST), did not meet General Bradley's criteria for Presidential 'need to know.' Which of course is absurd.

Notes, Sources, References

1.  “In The Weekly Standard in June …“The Origins of McCarthyism”: June 30, 2003, Vol, 8, No. 41, Robert D. Novak

2.  Secrecy, The American Experience, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Yale University Press, 1998, pps. 70-72.

“His "smoking gun" was an October 18, 1949, memorandum … the ASA Venona Program.”: Ibid., p.72.

3.  “The same President Truman who …with Soviet espionage at home.” The Weekly Standard, R. D. Novak, June 30, 2003.

4.  “A month later, Novak’s Weekly Standard article … by noted Venona and American Communism historians.”: http://hnn.us/articles/1706.html#klehr

5. . “A beginning point is the date …quickly identified Klaus Fuchs as a primary suspect for REST”: The FBI-KGB War, Robert J. Lamphere and Tom Schactman, 2nd Edition, 1995; Private papers of E. J. Van Loon and R. J. Lamphere.

“On September 22, 1949, Van Loon …eight-page memorandum of that date.”:FBI HQ65-58805- Serial 7, Memorandum, H.B. Flletcher to D. M. Ladd, September 22, 1949, Subj: Emil Julius Klaus Fuchs.

“On September 26, 1949, … regarding the identification of REST as Klaus Fuchs.”: Ibid., Serial 9.

“On September 29, 1949, General Carter W. Clarke … the material identifying Dr Fuchs.”: Ibid., Serial 2.

“On October 29, 1949, the Bureau received … identical with the Soviet agent REST.": Ibid., Serial 33. (Note: More probably than not, this British reply to the Bureau was drafted by Kim Philby, the ranking British intelligence official in Washington, D.C., at the time.) 
Note  The surprise and shock of the Soviet success to the Washington Capital would be repeated 8 years later (1957) when the USSR launched Sputnik. However Joe 1 and Sputnik are connected. They are both the result of espionage by the same Soviet agent.

6.  FBI Office Memorandum, Fletcher – Ladd, October 18, 1949.  Secrecy, p. 72.

7.  “dogmatically kept secret from … intercepts revealing Soviet espionage in the United States”: The Weekly Standard, R. D. Novak, June 30, 2003.

“which is contrary to an assertion that he had affirmatively decided not to tell Truman about Venona” : Klehr and Haynes, July 2003 ("Moynihan uncovered a 1949 FBI memo indicating that Army Chief of Staff Omar Bradley had decided not to inform the president about the top-secret Venona program.")

"That sentence does not countermand Bradley’s declaration of the previous sentence.”: FBI Memo, Fletcher – Ladd, October 18, 1949.  Secrecy, p. 712.  "General Bradley, according to General Clarke, agreed with the stand taken by General Clarke and stated that he would personally assume the responsibility of advising the President or anyone else in authority if the contents of any of this material so demanded."

Omar Nelson Bradley  Daniel Patrick Moynihan was a prolific writer of books. Secrecy (1998) was one of his last. The lynchpin of Moynihan's thesis on Government secrecy was that Truman did not know about Venona. His irrefutable proof for this was the 1949 Fletcher-Ladd FBI memo. However, any careful reading of that memo does not support what Moynihan wrote: "It gives one pause to think now that all Truman ever 'learned' about Communist espionage came form the hearings of the House Un-American Activities Committee, the speeches of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, and the like. But, as the commission discovered, the decision not to tell the president was made not by J. Edgar Hoover, who hated Truman. It was made by Omar Nelson Bradley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who admired Truman  in a most personal way and served him with the highest professional standards. The proof was in the binder: On October 18, 1949, FBI agent Howard B. Fletcher, sent to Ladd a memorandum ..." (Secrecy, p. 70)  Not only does Moynihan sully Bradley's professional reputation (performance of duty), but he makes him culpable for McCarthyism. From the Richard Gid Powers Introduction to Secrecy: "And why had President Truman not been informed about the Venona intercepts, when the information they contained might have kept him from ignoring the problem of Communist infiltration of the government and so handing the issue over to McCarthy and his gang?" (Secrecy, p.  17)  The fact of the matter is, the FBI memo is not proof of the Moynihan charge against Bradley. Moynihan and Secrecy do a great disservice to Omar Bradley. As reported by Novak, Moynihan had been advised to reconsider the FBI memo and his allegation, particularly in light of the Kirby information. But the Secrecy Commission Report and the book project were in the can and Moynihan wasn't going to let due diligence interfere with his a priori agenda.

Venona and the CIA   With respect to the October 1949 Fletcher-Ladd document, perhaps as interesting or important as the Truman-Venona question, is what the memo reveals about relations/politics at the time between the the U.S. military and the CIA. On 20 May 1949, the Army Security Agency (ASA) was merged with other military signals intelligence (COMINT) organizations to form the joint Armed Forces Security Agency (AFSA) which reported to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It appears that Mr. Fletcher is a little  behind the times since in October 1949 he is still referring to the new AFSA as ASA, perhaps a polite nod to the generals. Thus it should be noted that the Fletcher-Ladd memo wasn't about Truman and Venona, but about the CIA and Venona. The Army (Clarke-Bradley) did not want the CIA brought into Venona in any way, shape or form. Whatever the basis for this "attitude," it appears that the Navy Admiral running the new AFSA (Earl Stone) thought that the Navy Admiral who was the Director of the CIA (Roscoe Hillenkoetter) had a compelling 'need to know' as regards Venona, and unilaterally acted on it. Whether Stone's judgment was a general matter, or specific to certain Venona messages, e.g. Venona # 1354, is not clear (Goldberg-Reds refers).

8.  “A 1956 Bureau memo summed up the politics … The Bureau would be right in the middle”:  FBI Office Memorandum, Belmont to Boardman, Subj: Bureau Source 5, February 1, 1956. Venona, FBI  Documents of Historic Interest

The Judith Coplon Case  The first successful espionage investigation stemming from the NSA’s Soviet decrypts was the Judith Coplon Case, spearheaded by FBI Special Agent Robert Lamphere. Certain Venona messages dated 1944, decrypted by the Army and read by Lamphere in late 1948, concerned a KGB agent codenamed "SIMA" who worked for the U.S. Justice Department in New York. The messages indicated that this agent, a woman, was transferred in 1944 to a job at Justice Department Headquarters in Washington DC. Lamphere took the information to his boss, Howard Fletcher (Assistant Director, Espionage Section, Domestic Intelligence Division, and the self-same Howard Fletcher who authored Senator Moynihan’s purported ‘smoking gun’.) Fletcher immediately understood the significance of the information and went to the Department of Justice’s offices in the same building as the Bureau. Within an hour, Fletcher returned with a positive identification. There was one and only one female Justice employee who transferred from the New York office to Justice Headquarters in 1944. That person was Judith Coplon, and moreover she was still employed at Justice. The case presented some unique investigative and political challenges. The first realization was that Coplon’s job involved reviewing sensitive FBI reports, so there was pressure to quickly remove her from her position, if not Justice altogether. The competing counterintelligence interest was to put her under electronic and physical surveillance to learn her operating methods and espionage contacts. Fletcher and Lamphere opted for the latter. Accordingly, they got Hoover’s signature on a letter to Attorney General Tom Clark, informing him of the Coplon case and seeking approval for wiretaps. Clark approved them. FBI background checks on Coplon at this time revealed that she had been involved with the Young Communist League at school and had written pro-Soviet articles for the school newspaper. Physical surveillance on Coplon in January 1949 netted observation of a meeting in New York with a male individual whom the Bureau subsequently identified as Valentin Alekseevich Gubitchev, a Soviet National. The FBI investigation of Coplon culminated on the evening of March 4, 1949, when agents observed a second meeting in New York between Coplon and Gubitchev. Coplon was carrying classified documents and a message she had written for her contact. Although originally a member of the Soviet legation with diplomatic immunity, Gubitchev had become an employee of the United Nations and as such was not eligible for immunity from prosecution. Both Coplon and Gubitchev were arrested and charged by the Justice Department. Of the two, Gubitchev was an immediate presidential issue. Lamphere: “On March 5, 1949, the Soviets tried hard to claim diplomatic immunity for Gubitchev; the ambassador expressed his shock that the United States would arrest a Soviet citizen as if he were a ‘common criminal.’ The State Department retorted that under United Nations rules, Gubitchev and given up his diplomatic immunity when he signed the U.N.’s oath of employment. At a hearing before a federal judge, Gubitchev refused to speak English or to recognize the court’s authority. He was clapped into jail for seven weeks until the Soviet Embassy recognized the court’s jurisdiction by posting $100,000 bail.” Notwithstanding that Gubitchev had no diplomatic standing and had ostensibly committed a serious crime, the U.S. State Department recommended that he be deported and not stand trial. AG Clark addressed State’s position in a memo to President Truman dated March 16, 1949. He concluded: “I cannot, of course, substitute my opinion for that of the State Department in matters of foreign relations. … It is my considered recommendation that I be authorized to proceed with the trial of Gubitchev without delay, reserving until a later time the question of deportation.” The Attorney General’s position spelled out in the memo was based on one overriding consideration, a prosecution of Coplon was almost certainly to fail if Gubitchev was not in the country and available at the trial. Truman sided with Clark. Coplon’s trial began on April 25, 1949. The Government’s case was led by Assistant Attorney General John Kelley. Opening witnesses for the prosecution were FBI agents involved in the Coplon surveillance and arrest, followed by Fletcher and then Lamphere. As regards the origin of the investigation, Fletcher testified that Lamphere had advised him that a “confidential informant of known reliability” had given the Bureau reason to suspect Coplon of espionage. The 'informant' of course was the Army Security Agency (ASA) by virtue of its Venona Program. In 1948, going into 1949, it can be said with assurance that persons in the FBI with authorized knowledge of the “confidential informant” were R. Lamphere, W. Reynolds, H. Fletcher, M. Ladd and J. Edgar Hoover. In his book Lamphere records a discussion of the Coplon prosecution that took place between AG Clark, M. Ladd and Director Hoover. With regard to Clark’s position as Attorney General and prosecutorial role, he was necessarily advised by the FBI that there was a fundamental matter that could not be disclosed at trial, namely the Army top secret decryption program which exposed Coplon. Evidence that the Attorney General was so advised is a copy of AG Clark’s Memorandum for the President, re Gubitchev, which was received by the ASA with a “filed” date of March 28, 1949. Hand written below the file date is the word “Justice.” It must be concluded therefore that the decision to prosecute Coplon necessitated that the Attorney General be 'read-into' Venona. The ‘Coplon-trial problem’ would come up again, in spades, a year later when Harry Gold was arrested,and then again a few months after that when the Rosenbergs were arrested. The notion that President Truman would not have been advised of the bedrock evidence in these cases, i.e. the Venona Program, is simply not tenable. Refs: The FBI-KGB War, R. Lamphere, 1986, pps. 99-125;
Venona, Soviet Espionage and the American Response, 1996, R. L. Benson and M. Warner, Editors, "Proposed Deportation of V. A. Gubitchev", Office of the Attorney General, March 16, 1949, p.129;
The Spy Who Seduced America, Marcia and Thomas Mitchell, 2002