Ever hear of “Venona?” It was the code name for American counterintelligence to understand the Soviet spy code book. Starting in 1939, thousands of intercepts had been accumulated as part of a massive Allied effort sent by the Germans, Japanese and other Axis nations. On Feb. 1, 1943, the Army set up Arlington Hall in Virginia to decrypt the messages.

Even though the men were made famous, the fact remains, 90% of Arlington Hall code breakers were young women. It was there where the analytic math, where the painstaking work to compare early code groups on thousands of messages were prepared and matched. The Japanese and German codes were more easily decoded, however it took elaborate steps for two years to break the KGB code, because they used noncarrying arithmetic and very complicated steps to encrypt their messages.

Venona revealed information on thousands of Soviet diplomat telegrams, on trade, the KGB and GRU. It revealed Soviet espionage at Los Alamos and other shocking secrets.

Gene Grabeel, (female) mathematician/cryptanalyst. U.S. Army SIS - Signal Intelligence Service code breaking division who founded the Venona Project.

Genevieve Feinstein, cryptanalyst, her major breakthrough helped build the Analog Machine and led to decoding the Japanese “purple” code. Lucille Campbell helped break the KGB cipher.

Elizabeth Bentley, American spy (controversial) exposed two networks of spies. She wrote an in-depth report for the FBI about Soviet espionage in the U.S.

Marie Meyer, linguist and NSA spy, was credited with recovering the Soviet code book from Saxony and Schleswig. Space does not allow all the names.

In 1948 President Harry S. Truman signed the Integration Act, giving women the right to be full members of the Armed Forces.

Russia, different name, different day, same place, same wave.

Debra Becker

Effort