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The article focuses on the book "Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America," by John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr. Nearly four years ago, soon after the initial public release by the National Security Agency of its long-secret "Venona" archive, decoded Soviet intelligence messages transmitted by telegraphic cable to and from Moscow during World War II, researchers predicted "historians of the cold war will be examining these documents for a long time." It is reported that the release of the "Venona" archive has unleashed a flood of scholarship and engendered a growing controversy among cold war historians of the left and right.

The forty-nine decoded Russian intelligence messages released on July 11 by the National Security Agency (N.S.A.) contain so much amazing, sad, disturbing material, one hardly knows where to begin. Historians of the cold war will be examining these documents, as well as more than 2,000 others to come, for a long time. The messages were transmitted to and from the Moscow K.G.B. center and the Russian consulate in New York between 1943 and 1945 and were intercepted by the U.S. Army in a highly secret program called Venona. Occasionally a person's real name appears in a message, but individuals, organizations and locales are generally designated by cover names. The identity of many of the people alluded to by pseudonym is still unknown. The initial release of decoded documents includes every-thing available on the Rosenberg case or atomic espionage.