Project Venona

Project Venona was a secret U.S. government effort during the Cold War to intercept and decode encrypted communications between Soviet spies and their handlers. Conducted from the 1940s to the 1980s, it helped uncover espionage activities by revealing coded messages and identifying spies working in the U.S. and other Western countries. The project significantly contributed to understanding Soviet intelligence operations, though it remained classified for many years. Its revelations impacted Cold War politics and security, demonstrating the importance of signals intelligence in national defense.