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Catalogue description Government Code and Cypher School and Government Communications Headquarters: Venona Project: Records
| Reference: | HW 15 |
|---|---|
| Title: | Government Code and Cypher School and Government Communications Headquarters: Venona Project: Records |
| Description: |
The series contains reports by a joint UK-US team to UK intelligence authorities consisting of translations of decrypted messages passing between the Soviet Foreign Ministry and its missions abroad. The bulk of the messages were originated by the Soviet intelligence authorities, but there are also some diplomatic and trade messages. The messages sent by the intelligence organs were primarily concerned with the acquisition and running of agents and the collection and evaluation of intelligence under close supervision from Moscow. Reports contain the translated texts of one or more messages. Because reports were produced as the end products of cooperating organisations, they may be of British or American origin. Many reports were updated (reissued) several times as additional textual material became available from the cryptographers. The external serial numbers of the Soviet messages indicate that only a fraction of the total messages sent were readable, either wholly or in part and never in real time - usually years later. Selection of decrypted messages for reporting depended on the interest of the contents. Thus few diplomatic and trade messages were issued as reports, whereas messages from intelligence authorities were almost always made available. In all cases the last and most complete version of the message is the one now released. Copies of the original final versions, with appropriate deletions where necessary, have been made available. The originals have been retained under section 3(4) of the Public Records Act 1958. The first release included:
A second release included the remaining MGB and GRU messages to and from destinations in the Americas, plus a small number of messages sent by the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade. British reports show the report serial number (3/NBF/T.... ) and the date of original issue in brackets, where appropriate. (A subset of reports covering certain messages passing between Moscow and the GRU Residency in London between 1940 and 1942 were numbered in the 3/PDDT/T series.) This is followed by the date of issue of the report in question, the copy number, the reissue status (eg"2ND REISSUE") and the report title (a summary of the subject of the report). American reports follow much the same format, but reissues mostly omit the title and either omit or abbreviate the report reference (eg"Reissue (T1367)"); the date of reissue is usually, but not always, given at the very end of the report. In the reports surnames and cover names are given in capitals. Note that it was the practice to transliterate some Russian characters by 2 or more Roman letters, the first in upper case and the rest in lower case, eg Ts, Kh and Shch. Where the report title is not available, e.g. on certain American re-issues, a title was supplied (in brackets) by the cataloguer before transfer. Agents, important personalities such as Roosevelt and Churchill, locations and targets were often designated by cover names, which were changed periodically. Very many of these cover names were never identified. Those whose meaning is known include:
|
| Date: | 1940-1949 |
| Arrangement: |
Messages are listed by originating organisation, in the order MGB, GRU, GRU Naval, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Trade and Secret Writing and within that in alphabetical order by country and location (communications lane). In each communications lane (two-way), the order is by date and message external serial number. For pieces HW 15/58-62, the items as listed in the catalogue descriptions were numbered arbitrarily before accessioning; the items in pieces 1-57 were subsequently numbered arbitrarily in the same way. In all instances, these numbers do not appear on the records themselves. |
| Held by: | The National Archives, Kew |
| Legal status: | Public Record(s) |
| Language: | English |
| Creator: |
Foreign Office, Government Code and Cypher School, 1922-1946 Government Communications Headquarters, 1946- |
| Physical description: | 62 file(s) |
| Access conditions: | Subject to 30 year closure unless otherwise stated |
| Immediate source of acquisition: |
Government Communications Headquarters |
| Accruals: | Series is accruing |
| Administrative / biographical background: |
In early 1943 the US Army's Signal Intelligence Service at Arlington Hall, Virginia, had begun a small pilot effort to study Soviet cypher messages intercepted between the Soviet Foreign Ministry in Moscow and its missions abroad. Analysis revealed that five separate organisations were served:
In 1945 the Government Code and Cypher School was made aware of this effort and in early 1947, following the initial success in reading some of this traffic in late 1946, a British cryptanalyst was integrated into the US team. In December 1948 decrypts revealed a leak of documents to the Soviet MGB residency in Canberra: this evidence of activity by the Soviet Intelligence Services in a Commonwealth country led to the setting up of the UK's own cryptanalytic party in Government Communications Headquarters soon after. In 1950 formal reporting of decrypted material was instituted in the NBF series and the cover name BRIDE was allocated to the combined UK-US effort. BRIDE was subsequently replaced by DRUG and then VENONA. The two parties worked in very close cooperation, each undertaking separate tasks and exchanging integrees at the working level. |
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