Revision as of 16:48, 27 September 2005

Archives

• Talk:VENONA project/Archive1
  • Moved text
  • all caps
  • Block deletion of Australian material
  • Duplicate one-time pads
  • Coe, Adler & Strong
  • List of Americans in Venona Papers
  • Maybe a bit too much View?
  • Yikes! Let's not go ballistic
  • Fine tuning
  • Cberlet's claims
    • Simple question - Simple Answer
    • Sources for "349"
    • I repeat the same question--again
    • Discussion
    • Lets find resolve the 349 Names issue
  • Notes on Soviet methods
  • Response to Ebralph and nobs

Alger Hiss and his alleged codename

He's referenced as being either "ALES" or as "GISS"- I assume only one of these would be accurate. Good luck! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.69.139.136 (talk • contribs) 05:38, 31 May 2004 (UTC)

one part of article says Alger Hiss WAS IDENTIFIED. another part says it's UNCERTAIN. which? 64.165.203.195 08:16, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I don't know, but one possibility tbat springs to mind is that Alger Hiss was identified as an agent, but it's uncertain exactly whether "ALES" was his codename; maybe? Hmm...However, the "Alger Hiss" article suggests that not everyone agrees he was certainly a spy, so maybe it does indeed need to be altered for NPOV. — Matt Crypto 00:59, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

In re: GISS. Russian has no 'H'. It is usually transliterated to Cyrillic 'G'. Thus HISS in Latin letters would be transliterated to GISS (or GIS) in Cyrillic.

I have to correct my previous paragraph, in re: GISS; it is irrelevant. NSA's footnote iv says that HISS was spelled out in the Latin spelling alphabet. This means there was no "GISS". It was sent as HISS. I have no idea where GISS is coming from, it is NOT in the GRU message, nor the ALES message. See NSA decrypt 1579, Sept 28, 1943. The rest of my comments stands.

Further, both HISS and ALES could be one person. It's not either/or.

Prof Haynes has made the comment that it is uncertain who HISS was in the one decrypt where he is mentioned. It could be Alger Hiss's brother Donald.

From some recent exchanges in H-DIPLO, the identification of ALES as Hiss was apparently made by Robert Lamphere, the FBI agent assigned as liaison to the VENONA project. The reason for the identification isn't clear. Some of the correspondents in H-DIPLO firmly believe that ALES is Alger Hiss, and some firmly believe it isn't.

Only one decrypt mentions HISS, and only one mentions ALES.

As for me, I am resolved to stay out of Hissing matches.

User: John K. Taber, jktaber à charter point net. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.113.192.110 (talk • contribs) 20:52, 7 April 2005 (UTC)

It appears many of the code names were translitered audibly, i.e. one Soviet Case Officer heard the name rather than referenced a written spelling of it, transforming it into a homophone. We see this in the various spelling of the code name for Joel Barr = Metre = Metr = Meter. Numerous other examples can cited. ALES (pronounced Al-ess) & ALEX are homophones to a non-native speaker of English. nobs 17:42, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

While I agree with you about the use of homophones in transliterations, your examples are not well chosen. Meter is not homophone convergence, but variant spelling. meter/center is American English; metre/centre is British, and metre in VENONA is most likely due to the British contingent at Arlington Hall. METR is Russian spelling.

A good example of homophonic confusion is DAJTON, the cipher clerk in New York GRU traffic. The NSA note says it is not possible to determine the nationality of the name nor what it represented. For simplicity I use DAYTON, but it could be DEIGHTON, or several other names.

Also, I'm not sure what you are saying about ALES:ALEX. ALEX is an easy transliteration to ALEKS in Cyrillic. Could you explain your AL-ESS contention a little more? Someplace I thought I saw that Lamphere thought ALES was ALger hISS, but I can no longer find the citation.

I wonder if it would be helpful if I explained the spelling alphabets used in VENONA?

User John K. Taber 66.169.119.129 16:54, 19 August 2005 (UTC) jktaber à charter point net

Thanks for the interest. Native readers of English read "Ales" something like "ails"; this in incorrect. "Ales" is more properly like "Alice" (Al-es), which is softer and less gutteral (i.e. epiglotteral) than "Aleks" ("Alex"). Here's another example
Jacob Epstein = Harry = Garri (KGB U.S. and Mexico City line). nobs 17:15, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Thank you, the pronunciation of ALES is what I was missing. Your explanation is a big help. Jktaber 13:59, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Astronishing Bias

You guys rely way too much on Klehr and Haynes -- and Moynahan for that matter -- all of whom treat the VENONA transcripts as if they were the unvarnished truth handed down from God. Klehr and Haynes have been grinding the same axe for many years and refuse to acknowledge any of the many problems with the Venona papers. Can anyone trace the provenance of even one message? Of course not. How did the orignal material reach the fellow who encoded it and sent it to Moscow? No one knows. Was it collected from one source or many sources, and who were they? How accurate was it in the first place? Were there translation problems, or any problems at all, anywhere along the chain from intial collection to final transmission? Were the Agents under pressure from Moscow to produce? One would assume so, and if so, what were the consequences for those agents who did not produce? Would it be too far-fetched to assume an agent might elaborate a bit to make himself look good to his bosses? And if one did or did not, how would anyone in the Venona know for certain?

Raw intelligence reports are notoriously unreliable. I've interview FBI agents from that period who openly told me that under pressure from Hoover to produce their monthly quota of Communist Party informers, an impossible task to maintain, they resorted to picking names out of phone books and the newspapers and maintained them as sources by assigning information garnered from taps and bugs to these made-up sources. If FBI agents, in the face of pressure from above, resorted to such ruses, what are the odds the other side, with far worse consequences awaiting unproductive agents, did not do the same?

Then there is the problem of the decoding itself. We know that the FBI worked closely with the cryptanalysts, supplying surmise at points (Ales as "probably Hiss; also the codenamed agent, identified as Morton Sobel, who was said to have a wooden leg. The problem here being that Mort doesn't have a wooden leg. I know Mort. I've seen both his legs, and both are his own). Where else did the FBI provide material? How often were they wrong? We don't know because they won't say, or even reveal the extent of FBI influence on the final product. If the FBI's influence was undue in any fashion then all we would have in those instances is not confirmation, but the FBI confirming itself.

The notion that VENONA reveals the names of 349 Americans working as Soviet espionage agents is just not true, nor can be it be sustained by the record, no matter what Klehr and Haynes assert. If you want to do a fair and accurate job you should at least look to the critics, and those who take a more measured approach. For a start try reading "Venona and Alger Hiss," by John Lowenthal. Intelligence and National Security, Vol. 15, Autumn 2000, Number 3. I believe you'll find food for thought there. --Griffin Fariello67.120.98.144 07:47, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Hi Griffin, we've covered this ground already in the last few days and I would appreciate if you took the time to read the other posts on this page before getting into this. I've reverted your changes but don't understand it as an attempt to remove your view. It's been difficult enough to reach the current state as it is. Please list the specific name, source which reasons that the person was not an agent and then lets try to get those into the pages as they are. The second set of changes were unconstructive to the extreme. --Ebralph 14:19, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Note to Griffin: I would be delighted to have a dialogue; as you may not be aware, there is a problem of persistent vandalism to various articles. I will assume good faith, and I humbly request you give a few days for me to catch up on some maintainence chores. Let declare, this is not an attempt at a wholesale hatchet job, it is simply an effort to bring out various open source materials in their proper context. All issues I propose be dealt with fairly. I note your copyright 1992 book is pre-Venona release, so I will need time if you will permit, to understand and place those materials likewise in a proper context.

So with your cooperation, I extend the invitation to collaborate. All appropriate disclaimers can be placed where necessary. Thank you so much. nobs 18:30, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

P.S.: I thought "wooden leg" was codeword for "drinks too much". nobs 17:52, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Proposal

Due to the interst in this article and discussion of persons named etc., please see Talk:Significance of Venona. I propose, for now, removing names from the text of this article of persons identified in the Venona transcripts with the exception of the List of Americans named in Venona. This would entail I beleive removing two paragraphs from the "Significance" subhead relating to Philby, Fuchs & few others, and removing the entire "Hiss" subhead and section. The new article Significance of Venona, is essentially created from these paragraphs. Also, Anon 67.120.98.144 who signed his name Mr. Griffin Fariello, contributions to the main article which were reverted have been retrieved and placed on the Talk page for discussion. nobs 20:36, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Note to Cberlet: There is a good faith effort underway to depoliticize the controversies around release of Venona materials and return this wiki article page to the practicianers of the cryptographic arts. All names of persons referred to in Venona transcripts have been removed from this main page article, and the two sections Significance of Venona, and List of Americans in the Venona papers have been spun off into separate articles. Someone forgot to remove the dispute tag on this page. I would request that you remove the dissenting opinion Navasky material from this page to where you may deem it more appropriate (I hope we cooperate and get a feel for the structural contents of where all this material will be placed without an unneccessary edit war. Feel free to contact me with you sentiments once you have caught up on what has transpired over the past two weeks). As always, I remain trustfully dedicated to the relentless pursuit of truth, justice, & a persons God-given right to believe whatever lies they so choose. Thank you. nobs 17:49, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Alright nobs, you got me.

Although I still cannot see how you guys are going to get from A to Z in this fashion -- particularly with the resources and references you appear to be so heavily relying upon, this indeed is Misplaced Pages, a cooperative effort, as you say. I'm not quite sure how any other voices get into this mix, but I'll be putting my two cents in.

Like now:

Why there is an insistence on listing the names I do not understand at all. One should consider the moral responsibility of the act. It is impossible, at this late date, when we have no clear idea how and why each and every one of those names got into the files, to determine who actually cooperated with the Soviets and who didn't, or if they did to what extent, or how knowingly. Thus, to list these names, and to claim they all were soviet agents essentially becomes the same game that was played during the Red Scare when thousands of Americans found their names smeared on one blacklist or another and were forced into the impossible task of trying to prove their innocence. That most of those listed are quite likely dead by now saves you from a lawsuit, but I do not believe it relieves you (and here I use the editorial you) of the heavy burden of proof, and of basic decency. The work of Klehr and Haynes is not well thought of outside right-wing circles, and their insistence on these names has not gained them any respect. It is poor history, to put it mildly, and to further their efforts in this regard does Misplaced Pages no credit. To smear the memory of a dead man is no morally different than to smear that of the living. How can you and the other editors ever be sure you are not doing just that?--Grif Fariello67.120.98.144 07:40, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Thank you Grif. I don't suppose we can discuss everything that needs to be discussed in just a few postings, and what you specifically cite is valid and needs discussion. Somewhere either in the Moynihan Report or Moynihan's book it says it took a generation to get the documents out and probably will take another generation to understand its meaning. I can't possibly seek to justify everything here in this short posting, and there are numerous issues to be considered. There are the conclusions regarding government secrecy in the Moynihan Report, there is the historical significance, the cryptographical & espionage lessons to be learned, there is the matter of completing well rounded biographical scetches, very importantly as you stated the moral questions. This work needs to be done, and this is merely the starting point. Things can be moved, merged, checked, rechecked, analyized and so on for accuracy. This is a review, in many respects, of FBI & NSA's work over a 40 year period. For now, I think we've set a good tone, and I very much hope to continue a cooperative effort & discussion. Thank you. nobs 20:00, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

moving the names

187 names, taking up 187 lines of alleged spies are in this article. On Misplaced Pages:Votes for deletion/Significance of Venona, TJive and others have said this article is too long. So I have moved the list of names to List of American names and code names in VENONA. Having 187 people listed one to a line in this 559 line article is quite silly. Thus, as they moved the discussion of the significance to to its own article, so I am moving the names from this section. Ruy Lopez 16:24, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

That makes sense. — Matt Crypto 16:46, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Are you guys making changes just to annoy each other? Just asking. Mirror Vax 17:02, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

I suggest we wait til the VfD on Misplaced Pages:Votes for deletion/Significance of Venona expires. nobs 18:11, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

You moved the section you wanted out, I moved the section I wanted out. This article was approx. 3,848 words (559 lines) before I moved it out. The new article has 187 entries (one to a line) and approx. 1734 words. If this is the time to move out sections, we should move them both out, and then see what happens. And of course, it is within your power to VFD the new article. Ruy Lopez 18:22, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

I am shocked at User:Nobs01's vandalism. He moved List of American names and code names in VENONA to the nonsensical List of Americans in Venona Papewr and then removed the link to the page. I am beside myself in shock at his blatant vandalism. Ruy Lopez 19:18, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Look, I don't have any views on your dispute, but it's quite plain that the list of names is better stored in a separate list article, as most long lists are on Misplaced Pages. So can we just leave them at List of American names and code names in VENONA and stop the edit warring? Cheers. — Matt Crypto 23:12, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Thank you Matt. The problem (1) is the title of that article, it is unqualified to begin with because it contains no code names. And there are other issues invloved, (2) the lack of good faith editing on the part of User:Ruy Lopez. I would very much like to give this page back to the crpytographers, for their use, but you may not be aware of what Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan said "it may take a generation to understand meaning". I've outlined a proposal below to cut sometime off that. nobs 23:33, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Your second reason I reject outright; on Misplaced Pages we don't just undo a good change simply because we don't get on with someone or think they're doing it in bad faith. Your first reason also makes little sense; the best remedy is move the list to a new name, not to undo the spinning out of the list in the first place. — Matt Crypto 11:40, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Proceedural proposal

Clearly there is much interest in this article and all views need to be managed fairly. The sourcing is not going away, i.e.

• the unanimous findings of the bipartisan Moynihan Commission on Government Secrecy Report,
• the National Security Agency Archives, Custodian of documents for the Army Signals Intelligence,
• the Official History of Counterintelligence in the United States of the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive
• the Archivist of the United States
• the Library of Congress Manuscripts Division

Many of the above published findings of the 38 year National Security Agency/Federal Bureau of Investigation into espionage are not paranoid conspiracy theories of yesteryore, they are the published findings of the United States Government.

I would request that everyone step back and look at more of the broader questions, relating to the use of Government Secrecy in a Free Society, as Sen. Moynihan sets out a good discussion. The foreign policy implications of Venona revelations. Historical revisionism. Unelected career bureaucrats & military making inherent political decisions with enormous domestic political consequences, and whether it was the right decision. Was the partisan divide that erupted from this decision really necessary, now that there is a fuller view of the question. What is to be learned from all this, etc. etc. etc. It will take a generation to understand its meaning, as the Senator Moynihan spoke, and I would hope by us Wiki editors working together, we may knock off a decade or two.

Here is the proposal:

• Complete biographical scetches of the 171 identified names and later insert Venona references without a conclusion beginning with
  • (a) government employees
  • (b) employees of government contractors, mostly defense and electronics related
  • (c) journalists and media broadcasters
  • (d) outside persons, i.e. persons outside government, media & government contractors
• Complete examination of the all the Washington D.C. and New York Rezidentura decrypts.
  • Most of the Washington D.C. decrypts actually were transmitted through New York, so as the bio pages on government employees are completed, that would take a big bite out of both D.C. & New York transcripts.
  • Once that is completed, then we can finish the New York transcripts which would deal with most of the Rosenberg matter, media stars, and ordinary people etc.
• Once D.C. and New York are completed, we can deal with the San Francisco and West Coast operations
  • i.e. Los Alamos, etc.
• An Appendix C has not been created yet, to deal with Foreigners. This may be of interest to Trotsky experts, seeing much of it deals with
  • the Altschuler network, Trotsky's murder, and Central & South America. I would ask for volunteers with expertise in those areas.

This can all be completed, without mindless partisan wrangling etc., the idea is to get good, full biographical pictures. And it is an opportunity here, whatever perspective an editor may be coming from, to make a fair presentation of the evidence of their client's case. The questions surrounding NSA/FBI conclusions can all be argued out once we see the full picture. And again, I would remind, there are much larger, and broader historico-political, international revisionist issues here, (moreso to put it rather crudely, than just argueing the case of a dead guy who lost his job).

Mr. Griffen Fariello has expressed an interest here. I would suggest immediately that the biographical pages of Abraham Brothman and Vivian Glassman sorely need immediate attention. Mr. Brothman's FBI file is 6000 pages. My original intent was tie in the Philby case once most Venona materials were completed, and the Philby file is 3000 pages. There are many interesting things there related to how the CIA, from day one of its creation by the National Security Act of 1947, was immediately compromised by the KGB, and it wasn't fully dealt with until about 1963. So there is room for all kinds of controversial arguements ahead, if everyone will just be patient and express some willingness to work together (and I haven't discussed a fraction of the implications Venona materials may have).

So to conclude (tentatively) if we can break up the remaining bio pages to be created among volunteers, and finish the article, rather than incessant warfare over existing articles, then deal with the veracity of this or that specific claim on a case by case basis. I would welcome any further input, comments & suggestions (but the ideological partisan crap, you can hold for now). Thank you. nobs 19:49, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Discuss edits please

The text I edited suffered from vast leaps of conclusion. I edited in good faith. Please do not revert my changes without a serious discussion.--Cberlet 22:42, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

I don't think low credibility sources on VENONA add much to the article, it's an important subject that doesn't need ideological interpretation. Coqsportif 22:47, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

I thought there was an understanding to depoliticize the Venona project article and return it to the cryptograpers so they can further research into their science. Dispute tags and "criticism" can be dealt with elsewhere. However, if the idea is to re-politicize it and engage in an edit war again, then we may have to remerge the names. nobs 22:56, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

I have little affection for Nobs but I agree with him, a neutral Venona article would be great. Is there a reason why the names are excluded? Coqsportif 23:03, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

To depoliticize the subject; interest in the Venona project is not limited to its historico-political aspects. The Significance of Venona and List of Americans in the Venona papers have been spun off to separate the science of cryptography from historical & political disputes. This is only fair to the nuetral cyptographers caught in the middle who would like to get into present day applications of the cryptographers contributions in that technical field. Dispute tags and edit wars can be fought elsewhere. nobs 23:09, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

I would suggest the unresolved disputes be moved here -->Talk:Significance of Venona, where Mr. Griffen Fariello has already expressed an interest in contributing, and has already survived a VfD (Misplaced Pages:Votes for deletion/Significance of Venona). nobs 23:18, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Cberlet: I think you will get a debate about "accuracy, and historic value of the VENONA decrypts and their secondary analysis are hotly debated"; I propose rewritting using language similar to Sen. Moynihan ot the effect that "it took a generation to get the documents out, it may take a generation to understand their meaning", before some wholesale slander on the governments 38 year efforts. Thanks you. nobs 03:03, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Haunted Wood

On the subect of Venona and the spy rings in the US in the 30s/40, there is a recent book out which sheds a lot of light on all the material covered in these signals. It is:

Alexander Vassiliev, Allen Weinstein, The Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America - The Stalin Era (Random House, New York, 1999)

It is one of that series of about 5 books that the SVR co-sponsored during the brief window of opennness in the early 90s (just after the fall of Dzerzhinsky's statue), where retired intelligence people from both sides would collaborate on books about history. E.g. there's one called Battleground Berlin (IIRC) about the Berlin goings-on (including the infamous wiretap tunnel).

It was written by two writers (one of them retired KGB) with basically full access to the archives of the NKVD for the 30's and early 40's, so it's straight from the horse's mouth - totally incontrovertible! It has a footnote every few lines, and almost every last one is to an NKVD file number!

As for Venona, it says:

"These two sets of concordant materials - dispatches read first in Moscow from the KGB archives and later found in deciphered versions in the VENONA materials"

(emphasis mine) thereby providing cast-iron feedback that shows that the cryptanalysts of the SIS (and later the NSA) weren't making this stuff up out of whole cloth.

It also has lots to say about people like White, Bentley, etc (basically confirming that they were real agents), but that's all for the relevant articles, of course.

Anyway, I suggest that everyone interested in working on this topic go get a copy - it will be impossible to do so in an informed way without consulting this book. Noel (talk) 01:16, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

As a preface and qualifier to Haunted Wood, the Moynihan Commission on Government Secrecy Chairman's Forward reports in context to what was known in 1995,

" The secrecy system has systematically denied American historians access to the records of American history. Of late we find ourselves relying on archives of the former Soviet Union in Moscow to resolve questions of what was going on in Washington at mid-century. This is absurd."

nobs 17:44, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Cberlet's references

Cberlet: I would object to reference material like these two citations,

• Frank J. Donner. (1980). The Age of Surveillance: The Aims and Methods of America’s Political Intelligence System. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
• Ellen Schrecker. 1994. The Age Of McCarthyism: A Brief History With Documents, Boston: St. Martin's Press.

Both are pre-Venona release, and if there is to be an arguement regarding relevancy this is not the page. nobs 03:27, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

The cites are directly relevant to the nature of the U.S. government intelligence community and its long documented history of hyperbolic, false, and fraudulent claims; the inflated and hysterical McCarthy Period claims about Soviet espionage; and the nature of intelligence agency files being suspect source material that should not be relied on as factual. Currently, this and several others pages are dominated by an aggressive, right-wing, anti-communist, pro-intelligence agency POV based on highly biased source material. The tone and content is lopsided. All I am trying to do is introduce some skeptical material. That the VENONA documents are an important source of information is certainly true. That there were Soviet spies in the U.S. in the 1940s and 1950s is clearly true. But this all needs to be put in perspective and presented in a fair and NPOV way. There have been many blatant misrepresentation of underlying documents in this chain of VENONA-spawned articles on Misplaced Pages. Some of the claims about people being Soviet spies have put Misplaced Pages at risk for defamation lawsuits. We are actually starting to clean these up. I will continue to make edits that I think are fair and balanced. I am happy to continue talking about proper balance on this and other pages for many years. I look forward to constructive dialog, not reversions that solidify a specific unbalanced POV. --Cberlet 13:27, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Am I to assume you are equally sceptical of material from Soviet government sources, such as Haunted Wood? Or not? What if both the material from both governments agrees? Is that good enough? I'm a bit lost in this 'wilderness of mirrors', here.

And I'm not sure who/what you're referring to with your mention of "highly biased source material" - if you're talking about people like Klehr and Haynes, may I remind you that they are serious scholars working for mainstream institutions like the Library of Congress, whose books are published by major academic presses like Yale University, so any claim that they are not reputable is wholly unfounded. If anything, it's people like Navasky (who is often cited) who are "highly biased".

McCarthy was a scumbag and a loser, but alas for the left, he jumped on bandwagon that happens to have real wheels, one that honest people spent years uncovering before sleazebag opportunistic jerks like McCarthy and Cohn saw a quick path to power. So let's lose the hysterical hyperventilating about "an aggressive, right-wing, anti-communist, pro-intelligence agency POV", and deal with the real history - as amply confirmed by the archives of the US Communist Party (now available in Russia), the Comintern, and the NKVD. Noel (talk) 15:39, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Cberlet: Thank you for your response. I believe we have a constructive tone. I suggest we discuss structural approaches first, before content. Thank you. nobs 16:54, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Answer to above from Noel. I am skeptical of all government intelligence agency files, whether or not they confirm my biases. I actually spent several years as a paralegal document analyst for a series of lawsuits aginst the FBI, CIA, Military Intelligence, and local police "Red Squads." I read over 100,000 pages of unredacted spy files. In many instances I found text in the files that was obviously false or fabricated. I also assisted in many depositions of agents and former agents. They frequently admitted to having hyped their claims for career purposes. In one memorable incident, an agent stated that an entire surveillance report covering a well-known leftist in Chicago had been fabricated from beginning to end, and that he and his partner had actually spent the day at a baseball game. There is copious material from VENONA and other sources about Soviet espionage in the U.S. The evidence is powerful and persuasive. That is why I object to clear biased misrepresentations of the underlying documents and the secondary examinations that flow from them. What is demonstrable is very damning. I object to shameless hyperbole and factual misrepresentations based on "an aggressive, right-wing, anti-communist, pro-intelligence agency POV". On several pages the text has moved in the direction of more careful NPOV language. That is constructive. What is important to me is that people recognize their own bias and the bias of their sources, and seek to present information on Wiki in a way that respects encyclopedic principles. --Cberlet 18:34, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Point of personal priveldge:Off topic, Cberlet, are you familiar with the Red Squad of the City of Milwaukee Police Dept? nobs 19:25, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

I mostly researched Chicago, New York, and Detroit, but knew folks who researched the Milwaukee Red Squad. Also, see this list

Careerism certainly flourished at least as much in the Soviet intelligence agencies as it did in Western ones (actually, in some periods, e.g. during the purges, it reached lethal levels, quite literally); and instances of Soviet intelligence officers inflating their accomplishments, the importance of the sources they had recruited, etc, etc, are noted in many places in the sources I have. (Spies, after all, generally have to be accomplished liars.) Also, spying is no less subject to the Rashomon effect than any other area of human endeavour. However, when one of them says things in a contemporary memo like "I got document X from person Y", I think that's somewhat more trustworthy: it's a fact they are talking of, not an opinion or an interpretation; and they had to have the document to show their supriors, etc. However, not everyone who worked in the area (or has written about it subsequently) is intellectually non-rigorous to the same degree, but not everyone on the left seems to understand that, or to make any effort to try and sort them out; it's quite common to tar them all equally as "inflated and hysterical McCarthy Period claims". And a final note: careerism and other intellectual ills have flourished on the left too, including among the defenders of the leftists of the 30s and 40s, so y'all need to take their stuff equally skeptically. Noel (talk) 19:31, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Actually, I agree.  :-) --Cberlet 22:27, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Libel issues

Cberlet, please see No legal threats. --TJive 23:13, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

What are you talking about???--Cberlet 23:20, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

I am talking about:

Some of the claims about people being Soviet spies have put Misplaced Pages at risk for defamation lawsuits. We are actually starting to clean these up.

Which is basically an attempt to state that without personal characterizations of material of yourself or others that there will be legal problems. Please refrain from this. --TJive 23:37, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

Absurd claim. The Wiki guideline specifically mentions defamation as requiring a notice. The accusation of treason is "libel per se." Ignorance of defamation law puts Wiki at risk. Google "libel per se" and "treason" and learn about the risks. I was not threatening legal action against anyone. I was noting that calling people Soviet Spies without firm evidence created the potential of a defamation lawsuit against Wiki.--Cberlet 00:11, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

The guideline reads as follows:

Similarly, slander, libel, or defamation of character is not to be tolerated on Misplaced Pages; true instances of such writing, that might legitimately expose Misplaced Pages to legal sanction, should immediately be called to the attention of an administrator and/or the community at large. Disagreements as to the identity of a person, their motivations for a given action, opinions of third parties about them, etc. do not fall under slander, however, and you should not use legal threats as a bludgeon to get your POV enshrined in an article.

Correlating published information about a living person is not "calling" somebody something "without firm evidence" and your own view of the veracity of any such material on these pages does not itself carry the weight of any law or statute. I would also inquire as to whether we are viewing the solicited or unsolicited legal counsel of Mr. Magdoff in this specific instance. --TJive 00:20, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

Also:

The accusation of treason is "libel per se."

Kindly refer me to an instance of this article either making reference to or staking a position on Magdoff's "treason", as I am unable to find one. --TJive 00:23, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

Look harder.--Cberlet 02:02, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

I have found nothing here or in the few articles pertaining to him, even past versions reverted to from your material. I am perplexed as to what instance (or other individual) you could possibly be referring. --TJive 02:30, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

See link on this article page to: in which Magdoff is included. This page is an invitation for a defamation lawsuit against Misplaced Pages.--Cberlet 02:38, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Then "treason" is rather your own inference. --TJive 02:47, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

Really. Do some research. Calling someone a foreign spy means you are saying they are engaged in treason. Treason is on the list of charges qualified as "libel per se" which diminishes the ability to resist a defamation lawsuit. --Cberlet 03:07, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Please Mr. Berlet, no personal attacks. Casually changing the general label of "spies" to substantiation of "treason" is to say the least a synthetic and interpretative claim, and is but your own inference in this instance and not the claim of any particular or relevant editor here. Surely if this logic comes easy for you then there is no serious objection to what might otherwise be construed as bombastic language (e.g. "America's Traitors") in references given yet not even directly cited for these topics, yes? As of now the information is sourced quite strictly, and any litigious move would more properly be regarded towards those sources of information. But I must repeat myself--is this legal counsel solicited or no? --TJive 03:26, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

To interject an question that has no baring on the subject, Do you think Mr. Magdoff could win the case? nobs 03:38, 19 August 2005 (UTC) A civil suit is not like a criminal case nor a Congressional Hearing; there is no 5th Amendment plea. The plaintiff would be put under oath and have to answer point blank various questions, or perjure himself. Slander, libel & defamation don't apply if what is said is true. nobs 03:42, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Please take this as constructive advice. I have been sued several times for defamation. It never worked. They lost. But it cost me or my employers tens of thousands of dollars. Your view about how libel and defamation work in the real world is just plain ignorance. The statements made here about defense tactics are flawed. I have no idea what "legal counsel solicited or no?" means. I can only interpret this as an attack on my motives. I have not spoken with Magdoff or any attorney about this. If someone put Magdoff on a list of "Soviet spies" where I work, they probably would be terminated for incompetance and failure to follow our rules about protecting against defamation. --Cberlet 16:24, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Cberlet: Please note, in various discusssions on various Talk pages it is a matter of record regarding the problems of the Hollywood & fictional term "spy" being applied in the real world. Unfortuneatelly, the CfD survived deletion. Other remedies have been applied since. Perhaps we can use this as a basis to work together. I propose we define common objectives, and identify areas of separation from those objectives. nobs 16:53, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

I do not see a threat of legal procedings here. Nobody is saying 'if you do X I will sue'. There is a big difference between saying 'if you stand there you risk falling over the cliff and being killed' and 'if you stand there i will push you over the cliff and you will be killed'.

Pointing out that an unsupported statement may create grounds for a libel suit seems reasonable to me. And as a point of fact no policy of Misplaced Pages could prevent Magdoff instructing a lawyer to serve process.

Mention in VENONA does not mean that a person was a Societ spy. The embassies were under pressure from Stalin to demonstrate that they were successfully penetrating the Western powers. When people are given a demand on pain of death to produce information that cannot be verified they inevitably end up making stuff up. --Gorgonzilla 16:19, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Dispute tag

Alright, is the main page tidy now? Can we remove dispute tags & move over to Significance of Venona? nobs 03:44, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

When I went to look at it, it was anything but tidy - in fact, it was a nightmare - poorly organized, many errors, etc. I have cleaned it up significantly, but it could still use a lot of work. Noel (talk) 16:37, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

No, it is not balanced. If there is any mention of significance, it should include quotes or summaries from both supporters and critics. Why is it considered acceptable to bias an article by excluding critics and then claiming it is NPOV? I simply do not understand this. It violates basic Wiki policy.--Cberlet 16:27, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

So, what would you like to see that section say? (Keep it brief - there's only a para or two there now - extended dicussion ought to be at Significance of Venona.) Noel (talk) 16:37, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Cberlet: The primary question of significance relates to the uses of Government secrecy in an open society, and the "culture of openness". Historical interpretations of decryptions, etc., is of secondary significance. Perhaps we can agree to guide Venona project, and Significance of Venona in that direction. I believe the "Significance" section in this article, as now written genuflects in that direction. Proposal: Remove the VENONA_project#List_of_Americans_in_the_Venona_Papers completely, and place a List of Americans in the Venona papers under ==See also==. Depolitize this article, remove tag, & give it back to the cryptographers. Then pursue the discussion over on the other page. nobs 17:57, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

I concur with Nobs. The issues that were the reason for the dispute tag have either been moved or shortened extensivly. --Ebralph 00:54, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Hope I did not step on anyone's toes...

After reading the talk page here, I took the liberty of adding a parentheses to the phrase about the 349 names, thus:

(or at any rate were of sufficient interest to the Soviets to have code names generated for them)

Although I don't personally share cberlet's views on the article, it seems to me that some sort of caveat was warranted. JR Richardson — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.128.167.68 (talk • contribs) 01, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

This does not gibe with the description in Haynes/Klehr Apprendix A, from whence that description (and the numbers) are taken, where they explicitly say "a covert relationship with Soviet intelligence". There were quite a few other people who had cover-names assigned (e.g. Churchill, who was BOAR), which is I assume the kind of thing you are talking about, but they aren't in those appendixes. I don't recall offhand their definition of covert relationship, and the term is not in the appendix, but it's a "term of art" in the intelligence world (see, e.g. Gordievsky's autobiograph), and it generally means "someone who has a knowing and hidden relationship with an intelligence officer". Noel (talk) 14:48, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

I have been asking for weeks for a quote and definition regarding this list. I think the underlying material has been misrepresented. I think the phrase "a covert relationship with Soviet intelligence" was carefully crafted to imply "a knowing and hidden relationship" without actually making that claim. I strongly support some type of caveat.--Cberlet 15:39, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

The text that's there now basically is a quote. Here's the original:

"This annotated list of 349 names includes U.S. citizens, noncitizen immigrants, and permanent residents of the United States are had a covert relationship with Soviet intelligence that is confirmed in the Venona traffic. ... Of these 349 persons, 171 are identified by true names and 178 are known only by a cover name found in the Venona cables." (pp. 339)

The phrase "covert relationship" is not something Klehr+Haynes worked up; as I said above, it's a "term of art" (as the legal term - itself a ToA, a nice piece of recursiveness - goes) in the intelligence field. See, e.g. Gordievsky's bio, pp. 275-276 and 284; he mostly uses the term "confidential", but uses "covert" as well. (BTW, if you haven't read that book, you should - WRT your point of a few days back, it's shot through with examples of KGB agents inflating the importance of their work, and simply making it up entirely in others.) Noel (talk) 18:18, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Balance

I added a small change to balance the Moynihan quote. It simply is not fair to relentlessly eradicate all criticisms from this page. --Cberlet 14:33, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Hi, is there a quote you could dig up to this effect, rather than a general statement? (From a mainstream scholar would be optimal; if you describe The Nation as a reputable source, I'm afraid you're going to have to include the Regnery Press - whom I personally treat with considerable caution - into the same category!)

Are there any other sections you are unhappy with? I believe most sections are now fairly flat historical descriptions. Noel (talk) 15:15, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

I put quotes in, Nobs takes them out. It is very frustrating. The Nation is closer to National Review than anything from Regnery. I have a few more minor complaints, but have no objection to the flags being removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cberlet (talk • contribs) 15:36, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Moynihan is primary source in two capacities (a) as Chairman of the Secrecy in Government Commission, and (b) as an eyewitness to preoceedings and deliberations into the Commission Final Report. nobs 17:40, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Well, the latest thing you put in (which I see Nobs has removed) wasn't a sourced quote, just a statement. I'd be happy to see a sourced quote from someone who is the rough equivalent of Moynihan (who is hardly a right-wing stooge), but on the other side of this issue; also, it should be post-95 - i.e. some generic "anti-McCarthy" flame from the 60s/70s (as some of the "Further readings" are) is simply inapplicable, it needs to be specifically about Venona. (Also, taking Moynihan out is not kosher; he's not a far-right kook, it's a direct quote, and it's sourced.)

The fine details of exactly which far-conservative organ is the exact equivalant of the far-progressive Nation is not important; I trust you see my generic point. Noel (talk) 19:37, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Cberlet: Here's the problem: If you wish to include Schrecker, or any reference to any "skeptics", "historians", "reseachers", etc, then we would have to bring back counterbalancing information. No one wants to do this. Those arguements belong elsewhere. nobs 15:54, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

What nonsense. The whole page implies that the Venona material is important. If you want balance, I will take out all the quote in the Significance section.--Cberlet 16:03, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Can we take the arguement to --> Significance of Venona now? nobs 16:07, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

It's never that easy.  :-) --Cberlet 16:15, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

I am not sure if you have read all the discussion above "with whom the Soviets sought" is Appendix D, those whom are marked with an asterisk (*). I believe the language is clear, and plain. The 171 persons refered to are those in Appendix A. This new insertion changes the definition. Do you wish to review the definitions of again? nobs 16:19, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Talk:VENONA project/Archive1#Discussion nobs 16:22, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

I do not believe the language is clear, the use of spy jargon is your opinion of reality, the meaning of the identifications are disputed in some (though not all), cases; and yet you refuse to do anything but claim it is all obvious and clear, and all I have to do is reread your redundant posts and I will see the light. This is not the case. I disagree with you. We are trying to find a compromise, not test how long it takes for you to beat me into submission.--Cberlet 20:43, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

There is no basis for "Skeptical analysts and historians claim". The intent appears to politicize this article, in spite of the efforts of no fewer than eight other editors not to, and a concensus to move interpretative agruements to another page. Moynihan is a primary source. Schrecker is not a primary source. For now, a compromise could be to limit Schrekers comments to Schreker, and remove the vague "others", "researchers", "analysts", "writers", "skeptics", "critics", or whatever other vailed, unnamed, unspoken innuendoes employed. And Schrecker should not be allowed to second guess a primary source, seeing her citation itself is distinctly non-specific. If it is to go in this article, it should not be alongside Moynihan, and it should be limited strictly to Shcrecker, as Moynihan comments do not cite a mysterious group of "others". nobs 21:41, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

If The Nation:National Review, then Regnery publications:Schrecker, et al. I would also presume this means you don't mind an in-kind deluge of partisan observations from NR or elsewhere, including ones very much involved and very much alive? --TJive 21:49, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

Mention of cases in the header

Nobs, why did you delete metion of Bentley and the Rosenbergs from the intro paras? Misplaced Pages articles should give a brief overview of the subject in the intro paras, and the intro therefore needs to give some of idea of the importance of the program, not just what it was. It's a historical fact that the decrypts were very important in the US Govt's actions in a whole slew of cases just after WWII (see, e.g., Lamphere), and an article on Venona needs to say that. Some concrete examples, to convey to people what the role of Venona was, is a good way to do that.

I mentioned the Rosenberg and Bentley cases because i) those seemed likely to be the two most likely to be known to non-specialist readers, and ii) those are cases in which Venona's role is now well-documented. It's simply impossible to fully understand the US Govt's actions in the Rosenberg case without understanding the role Venona played behind the scenes. Ditto for Bentley; when she first went to the FBI in '45, Venona of course didn't exist, but as it came on-stream in '48, it was imporant in considering what she had said (again, see Lamphere on this). Noel (talk) 15:21, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

OK, reinclusions fine; I was just trying to prove I was serious about not mentioning anybody in this article since we haven't had a response in several days to several proposals. nobs 15:32, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

OK. Before I put anything back, Chris, can I ask you if you have a problem with the text:

In the early years of the Cold War, it was one of the West's most important sources on Soviet intelligence activity, and although unknown to the public, it was important in many famous events of the early Cold War, such as the case of Elizabeth Bentley, and the Rosenberg case.

Also, do we need to provide individual citations for the notion that Venona was important in those two cases, or is the bibliography good enough? Noel (talk) 19:47, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Chis (identified as Cberlet in Wiki decrypts) has no objection whatsoever.  :-) --Cberlet 20:37, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Collective Editing

I do not believe that Nobs has been made moderator of this article. Perhaps someone can point to this event. Otherwise, I will continue to make good faith edits that offer a tiny balance of skepticism.--Cberlet 17:12, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

I keep getting a feeling not only of circular reasoning in these talk pages but as if there are gaping holes that many are missing. It seems as if Cberlet intends to plaster copious amounts of Navasky and Schrecker onto every page that barely mentions VENONA without specific relevance or even a regard to article flow. So partisan arguments continue rather than a collaborative encyclopedic effort. Navasky does not carry much weight and if the VENONA-relevant Schrecker material is insisted upon, then certainly we may also utilize partisan material on her and, in fact, Klehr's and Haynes's response in In Denial. --TJive 22:36, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

I don't know about y'all, but the last thing I am interested in is "partisan material". If you can find some quote about Schrecker's opinion of Venona, or about her specific book that was cited, I would find that appropriate to add in. Noel (talk) 23:01, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

I do not mean to imply an inclusion of partisan attacks on her views but partisan criticism of her works; for very specific and relevant criticism, again, see In Denial. --TJive 23:05, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

This is the text I added:

"Skeptical analysts and historians claim that some writers have overbroadly interpreted the evidence provided in the Venona materials. as Ellen Schrecker argues:"Because they offer insights into the world of the secret police on both sides of the Iron Curtain, it is tempting to treat the FBI and Venona materials less critically than documents from more accessible sources. But there are too many gaps in the record to use these materials with complete confidence" (1998, pp. xvii-xviii)."

This is a "specific and relevant criticism."--Cberlet 00:24, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Text reads: "Skeptical analysts and historians claim that some writers have overbroadly interpreted the evidence provided in the Venona materials. as Ellen Schrecker argues"; who said ""Skeptical analysts....etc", since it obviously is not Schrecker. nobs 00:47, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Don't be obstructionist. I am asking for balance. Would you like the Schrecker quote just to float in limbo? Try to be fair.--Cberlet 01:02, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

I may be able to access the book quickly to check the veracity as to if Schrecker's is in fact discusssing the Venona project. However, as presented, this is an anonymous gang-bang on Venona primary sources. This will not fly. If Schrecker has criticism of how the NSA & FBI did thier job, Schrecker can speak for herself, unless she cites other "skeptical analysts and historians" by name. nobs 01:12, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

What absurd claims. Nothing in the Misplaced Pages guidelines says that Schrecker has to cite other skeptics for the sentence I added to be acceptable. You cut every other skeptical person I cite. I am trying to save space by quoting Schrecker and then the paragraph points to the Significance page. Why are you having a fit simply becuuse one skeptical line is inserted into the precious article? You are well aware that I have cited several people skeptical of claims made by mainstream and right-wing analysts who have portrayed the Venonoa material in a POV way. I have even cited a CIA analyst who raises a cautious skepticism. I am not onjecting to their material being the main body of these and related pages. All I am asking for is that there be a mention that skeptics exist. Yet even this is too much for you to accept as a compromise. This is not constructive.--Cberlet 02:38, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

I've offered a compromised, and we have not addressed (1) that such a political arguement does not belong on this page, (2) Schrecker is not qualified to stand next to Senator Moynihan; (3) mythmaking is not the subject of this article. nobs 02:51, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

You have not proposed a compromise. You have designed a way to get only your point of view displayed on the main page. Thus I disagree with your framing of 1. I simply disagree with 2, but am willing to make the mention of skeptics smaller than Moynihan. And for 3, I agree that moving material off this page to mask any criticism is a form of mythmaking, and I agree that should be stopped. --Cberlet 03:03, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

What if we were to poll if this article should be used for political arguements regarding the interpretive significance of Venona materials? Would you agree then to move the discussion over to Significance of Venona? nobs 03:15, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Cberlet's objections

Cberlet's main objection has been naming persons conclusively as "spies". To accomodate this objection,

• The List of names has been removed.
• All names of persons derived from Venona transcripts have been expunged.
• The "Significance" sections has been pared down to two paragraphs outlining the overall question regarding the use of Government secrecy in a free and open society.
• All non-primary source reference citations have been removed.
• Link to Category:Soviet spies has been removed.
• Links to five qualified Appendix's have been removed.
• A concensus among contributing editors (I count eight) has emerged to move interpretive analysis to other pages, and leave this page for the technical art of cryptography.

I postulate this has gone a long way toward compromise. Yet Cberlet insists on inserting a political arguement, that is directed solely at interpretive analysis, based on secondary sources (who may not even be qualified to criticize, as they may never have even examined any of the evidence). If this exception to a general concensus that now exists is allowed to prevail, there is a licence then for anyone with a political POV, apart from the (1) the cryptographic & technical nature of the Venona project (2) the overriding questions regarding Government secrecy (3) the historical interpretaive analysis, to make reinsertions.

The original concern was naming names. Several proposals remain on the table how to deal with all the interested contributors, in a structured way. Yet now we have a vailed political attack upon the United States Governments' counterintelligence programs. There may be valid questions; however, this is not the page where they should be addressed. All parties (except for a few sockpuppets who for the time being have been blocked) have shown good faith. I suggest for now, we simply leave this page the way it is, and begin the discussion afresh at Significance of Venona. nobs 05:16, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Yes, quite right, lots of changes, and the article is better for it. That's the idea. Your idea that the people you are citing are not political while the people I am citing are political is precisely the problem. I am arguing that one small sentence say there are skeptics, and then the paragraph--dominated by your point of view--points to the Significance page. Yet when I make it a small sentence, you complain that there are no names and no cites; and when I add the names and/or cites, you complain it is too long. You have arranged the pages so that any mention of skepticism or criticism is banished to the back of the Wikibus. That is as transparent as it is improper. I never asked that the discussion of significance be moved to a new page. The result was that you buried all the criticisms. Please, if it bothers you, move that section back. Actually, I think that would be a bad idea. This page is now largely accurate and fair--which it was not before these editing discussions took place. So there are only a few remaining matters to discuss. And we can discuss them. And we will discuss them. But you are not the page moderator. I am sorry you feel frustrated. We all get that way. But my concerns are valid, as are my edits. The main page needs some token statement that there are skeptics. --Cberlet 14:39, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

My friend, you still may be missing the point: the objective of guilt/innocence or KGB associations of individuals is about #3 on the list of what the Venona project and the Significance of the Venona project is all about. I invite you to participate in a full discussion of understanding, if you'd be interested. But to attempt to make this the overriding central issue is a distortion. There are valid arguements to be made, in their proper place. I am proposing, momentarily, to put those issues aside, step back, and try to discern the forest from the trees. Actually, I found Mr. Schreiner's article quite interesting; that may be a starting point. Let's take that discussion to "Significance" page. If you're not happy, we can come back here. nobs 15:09, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

No thanks, I don't like to be sent to the back of the Wikibus. I am talking about one sentence to make the page NPOV.

A full discussion of understanding? I was a professional document analyst and paralegal investigator for several years; reading unredated CIA, FBI, Military Intelligence, and local police surveillance files. I have read more than 100,000 pages of such files. I prepared numerous document summaries for depositions of government agents and informers, and prepared an analysis for a trial in federal court. I have published a number of articles and essays on intelligence abuse, including writing and co-writing op-eds in the New York Times, Boston Globe, Chicago Sun-Times, and Des Moines Register. I have co-written a long article for attorneys litigating cases of government surveillance abuse in Police Misconduct and Civil Rights Law Report. I wrote the entry on "Surveillance Abuse" in the Encyclopedia of Crime and Punishment. I have been writing about government intelligence abuse for over 30 years.

And we are talking about one sentence. I have never sought to "make this the overriding central issue," for this page and to so claim is a clear "distortion."--Cberlet 15:22, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Let's not talk past one another; whole sections, paragraphs, links & citations have been removed. What is this "one sentence" you are refering to? I thought it was already in the article. Also, thanks for the resume material, can we move forward now. Thank you. nobs 15:48, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

We are moving forward. I propose that the following be reduced to one short sentence, with the details on the Significance page:

"Ellen Schrecker, however, echoes the concerns of other skeptics (including Victor Navasky, Walter Schneir, and Miriam Schneir) when she writes: "Because they offer insights into the world of the secret police on both sides of the Iron Curtain, it is tempting to treat the FBI and Venona materials less critically than documents from more accessible sources. But there are too many gaps in the record to use these materials with complete confidence."

When I make it a short sentence, you delete it and demand to know who the critics are and ask for cites. I do not see why we can't just summarize the views of the various skeptics, and then cite them in full on the Significance page.--Cberlet 17:38, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

There's an obvious answer, but it may be misconstrued as partisan to utter it; facts are, your sources (or lack thereof) are coming to this discussion 10 years too late, and again, can't see the forest from the trees. nobs 18:35, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

I have no idea what the above means. It is incomprehensible to me. What is your point? All I am asking for is a sentence that summarizes that fact that post-Venona authors have raised some skepticism about how the decrypts are being interpreted by mainstream analysts and professional anti-communist historians with an axe to grind. One sentence. What's the big deal?--Cberlet 18:47, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Let's assume momentarily that the Venona project is a partisan issue; facts are, Mr. Cberlet has no primary sources to work from other than (1) a vague reference in Schrecker's 1998 intro; and (2) The Nation magazine.

Now, assuming this is a partisan arguement, it is not the so-called "ring-wing's" fault alleged "critics" did not deem the release of Venona project materials in 1995 as very important. It is not alleged "proponents" of various theories actions that cause the "perpetually combated" to feel (a) combated, or (b) the necessity to update cut-and-pasted arguements from the Nation magazine, only with the insertion of the word "Venona" here and there; (c) the fact that so-called "left-wing" appologetics are caught unawares, and for the most part, have never read the Moynihan Commission on Government Secrecy Report.

This truelly is a crisis among those who deem themselves "leftists", because (as the theory states), all the lies they have (1) committted themselves to, and (2) many actually continue to believe, are now being challenged. The bogeyman is obvious, it's the big bad gubmint now in a conspiracy to smear the reputations of dead people. Truelly, those "in the forefront of leftist thought" are at a crossroads.

So what has been the reaction? Turn it into a typical partisan left-right arguement, we're right, thier a bunch of devious minded selfish evil-doers with no respect for the human race, etc. Meanwhile, we can buy time to respond to this resurgance of "McCarthyism".

I stand with Senator Moynihan on this point: Venona may offer hope for national healing & reconciliation, if we can grasp it's meaning & significance (and I do believe, Moynihan went to his grave not fully understanding it's meaning and significance, yet recognized hope was within those mysterious transcriptions). The real question we should attack first is, was Gen. Omar Bradley's decision the right decision, not this putting the cart before the horse bizness regarding can the NSA and FBI be relied upon, etc.

Simple question, Mr. Cberlet, have you read the relevent portions of the Moynihan Commisssion Report yet? nobs 19:23, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Totally misses the point. There are reputable published critics who are skeptical of some analytical conclusions of persons who have studied the Venona decrypts: Yes___________ No__________. If YES, the rules of the road for Wiki are that they deserve some mention in context and in proportion. The answer is YES. I am asking for one sentence which is in context and in proportion. None of the rest of the mountain of objections you have raised for weeks matter.--Cberlet 20:48, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

(1) "analytical conclusions" --> discussion belongs at Significance of Venona (2) "context"; there is no context regarding "analytical conclusions" on this page (3) "proportion"; out of context secondary sources refuting a primary source (i.e. Senator Moynihan, discolors the article, discussion, and understanding. (4) "reputable published critics", I assume this refers to secondary sources, always room for debate & would be happy to do so at Significance of Venona. nobs 21:43, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

The page was redesigned by you to shove all possible criticism off the main page. That is what I challenge. That is what I find not acceptable. It is ludicrous. I reject your claim that this is a done deal. It is not. As long as there is a pointer to the Significance page (and there must be), there should be a short sentence explaining that there are some skeptical comments there. It is a perfectly reasonable request. It ensures NPOV. I am willing to make the sentence short. You cannot arbitrarily control the page so that your POV rules to the total exclusion of all other views. It is just plain unfair. It violates basic Misplaced Pages standards.--Cberlet 22:16, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Actually the history shows the List of names was moved by Ruy Lopez which I opposed; but when the Mattcrypto and some other cryptographers told me they'd like to see the arguements moved elsewhere, I went along. nobs 01:26, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

I really think that you are unable to disuss this matter in a constructive manner. I am tired of this relentless refusal to discuss this matter in a serious way. I propose we seek a third party review or request comments --Cberlet 01:58, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

The disagreement appears to be over the word "others" ("other skeptics" & other "more accessible material"). Who are these others? Well, they do not exist apart from The Nation magazine. So the arguement is, in lapse of hard data & research material, we will invent a myth that "scholars" have steadfastly refuted the NSA & researchers claims as to meanings of decryts for the past ten years. And this invented myth we'll call "balance" or NPOV.

Shcrecker is indeed a qualified critic of Haynes & Klehr. Problem is, Haynes & Klehr don't speak on this page, so Schrecker appears as a critic of Moynihan and the NSA. This is false, and you sir, know it. Schrecker states "Haynes overlooks other sources ... FBI files, in particular...."; Haynes responded in the Journal of Cold War Studies that Haynes & Klehr's book is based on FBI files, decrypted Venona messages, and Comintern and CPUSA documents from the Russian State Archive of Social and Political History (RGASPI). So this is the wrong arguement, in the wrong place, directed at the wrong subject. Further, this needs to be clarified in the article, that Shcreker is not criticizing Moynihan or the NSA. nobs 02:27, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

P.S. Above I wrote before reading your comments; meanwhile I got an idea for a solution. Should be done tonite or tomorrow AM. nobs 02:27, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm afraid this debate is beyond me, but I'd like to point out that I only advocated moving the very long list of names to a separate article (because it's good style to split out long lists into list articles). As to how much "interpretive/significance/criticism" bits we include in this article, I didn't express an opinion. Let me make just one comment at present: in this article, I wouldn't think it entirely inappropriate to summarise the significance of Venona decrypts, the conclusions drawn, as well as any notable criticism of the conclusions drawn. — Matt Crypto 02:31, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Cberlet:I hope all concerns are dealt with now; I would suggest some qualifier added to Ellen Schrecker to introduce her. Perhaps we close to moving on? nobs 19:07, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Varying opinions

Proposal: remove Schrecker from "Significance" subhead so as not to confuse her criticism of Haynes & Klehr as criticism of Moynihan, the Moynihan Commission, or NSA cryptographers; place a head-to-head arguement between Schrecker & Haynes under a subhead ==Varying opinions ==. Rough draft as follows:

Ellen Schrecker has criticized John Earl Haynes and Harvy Klehr, two of the recognized leading researchers on Venona project decrypted materials, saying "Because they offer insights into the world of the secret police on both sides of the Iron Curtain, it is tempting to treat the FBI and Venona materials less critically than documents from more accessible sources. But there are too many gaps in the record to use these materials with complete confidence" (1998, pp. xvii-xviii).

Haynes, in the Journal of Cold War Studies responded Haynes & Klehr's research uses FBI files, decrypted Venona messages, and Comintern and CPUSA documents from the Russian State Archive of Social and Political History (RGASPI).

nobs 02:44, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

What, then, is the point of having a Significance page? Just a question. I really do not see why we don't just have a sentence on this page that says there are a few critics that disagree with the significance and meaning as outlined by Moynihan and others. Otherwise we should just move the entire significance section back in. And note that there are several writers who have been skeptical about how the Venona material is being interpreted, including a CIA historian.--Cberlet 13:00, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

If you could give the name of the CIA historian, and locate a quote from them, that would be really good. There are certainly questions on how the fine details of some messages are interpreted (what with the gaps, and the wide-spread use of code names - which was the subject of the disagreement between Vassiliev and Weinstein, IIRC), or is the problem that person has more significant?

FWIW, on the general subject of how useful/trustworth VENONA is, I tend to agree with this quote from West:

"VENONA remain an irrefutable resouce, far more reliable than the mercurial recollections of KGB defectors and the dubious conclusions drawn by paranoid analysts mesmerized by Machiavellian plots." (Venona, pp. 330)

To "mercurial recollections", I would add many (most?) books by agents and ex-agents; those that came out during the Cold War (such as Philby's book) are known to be full of deliberate distortions for ideological and/or cover purposes (e.g. hide information from the other side), and later ones (such as Sudoplatov's) also have problems. Venona messages have their own issues (such as the careerism ones you pointed out), but the fact that remains that as internal contemporary written records (always the kind most valued by historians), they remain perhaps the best evidence we have from that side. (Also, a number have been cross-checked with originals in the KGB archives gives us validation that the cryptanalysts did the reconstructions properly.)

As to why have a separate page, I think the concept was to move the argument elsewhere, so that the main page wouldn't be subject to edit wars. At some level, I agree with you (and Matt) that it belongs here - but as long as some people on the left remain as skeptical as some are of what they mean in terms of the activities of such people as Coplon, White, Duggan, Currie, Halperin, etc, that may be the only solution.

From my perspective, Moynihan represents a pretty mainstream view, and people who think Venona (when tied in to other data) is not fairly definitive represent the kind of tiny minority viewpoint Misplaced Pages would normally ignore - the same way we ignore physicists who think General Relativity is wrong.

Perhaps a way of cutting this particular knot on "significance" - at least on this page - is to focus, not on what Venona can definitively tell the world in general now about these still-argued cases, but on how important they were then, i.e. to the US Government at the time they were decrypted - which was, from their perspective, one of their main CI assets. As such, in many cases (I went through yesterday and tried to list some of the best-known ones in the "See also" section), they were a main force in how those cases played out. That certainly is a matter of historical record, and well documented. We could then move the still-debated points to another page(s), either one about "Debate about what Venona means about Cold War spy cases", or to each individual's page. Noel (talk) 14:13, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Very well stated. nobs 18:04, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Lock for archiving

This page had gotten big, and needs to be archived: I'm going to lock this page for just a few minutes so I can do that without getting conflicting edits. Back in 'arf a mo'. Noel (talk) 14:17, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

OK, all done. Also, I did a bit of formatting to make it readable (y'all seem to love indenting so far the text turns into a vertical column in the right-hand margin, making it unreadable outside an edit window - please try and reset the left margin every so often). Noel (talk) 15:28, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Significance & Meaning

Look, I am not disputing that Venona was and is significant. And I have no desire to be an apologist for Soviet espionage. All I am asking for is that there be a short sentence on the main page in the section where the pointer to the Significance page resides that says something like "A few writers are skeptical of some claims made by certain analysts of the Venona documents, and urge a more cautious interpretive approach." I fail to see why this is causing such a negative reaction by Nobs. I do not see a need for a new section or a lengthy tit for tat.--Cberlet 16:41, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Two points of clarification & a question: (1) the "Varying opinions" section (a) lowers Haynes & Klehrs primary research data to an "opinion" regarding conclusions (b) raises alleged "skeptics" to the status of having "opinions", though there is scant evidence any of these skeptics have examined Venona materials impartially. This I would suggest, adaquately fits the definition of compromise.

Question: (2) reference is made to "disagree with the significance and meaning as outlined by Moynihan". Please cite a critic to support this claim, if available. nobs 18:13, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Cberlet: looks good. I move we adjourn to Significance of Venona now. nobs 20:37, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

RFC: references to Venona in other articles

I've put this page back on RFC not so much to address any of the previous exchanges between Nobs, Cberlet, Noel, Ruy Lopez et al., but to try to consolidate the similar arguments that are currently occurring in all the other articles that mention Soviet espionage and VENONA. Examples:

1. Joseph McCarthy#McCarthy and Truman includes a contested statement that Elizabeth Bentley's naming of other spies was "corroborated" by VENONA.
2. There's been an edit war at Elizabeth Bentley on the same subject.
3. LaFollette Committee also claims that various people are "known" to have been spies based on VENONA.

To me, apart from any other questions of proper wording and editing behavior, there's a single question that needs consensus: what is a NPOV way of saying that various people accused of espionage in the 1950s were later mentioned in an incriminating light in the VENONA documents? I have not read the sources, but even among those here who have, there seems to be no agreement on whether VENONA unambiguously "confirmed" anyone to be a spy. As evidenced by the disputes above and elsewhere, feelings are very strong about this on both sides; some have stated that their favored sources are so authoritative that they should not be considered "claims" but facts. Though the wording of several passages may have reached consensus, I see no sign that these edit wars and voluminous debates will slow down any time soon.

I think it's unproductive to be repeating this argument from scratch on the talk pages of a half-dozen different articles. And although some of the editors involved may still want to do some talking about each other's editing habits, I think there's an equally important factual dispute here, and consensus on it might make some of the other disputes less muddy. ←Hob 01:26, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

I very much appreciate this suggestion and will be happy to discuss the matter here.--Cberlet 01:34, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

The depth of the evidence varies from person to person.

As far as identification goes, as I mentioned elsewhere (and also previously), many names are given 'in the clear' in Venona. Others occur in the clear in Comintern archives, and in the limited examination of NKVD archives allowed for Haunted Wood. Others can be identified pretty unambiguously from references that only fit one person. Others were confirmed from confessions/debriefings. Others are more detective work (some by the governments, some by private researchers), and there's a long list which are still completely unknown.

As far as what they did goes, again, it varies from person to person. Again, some are described pretty clearly in various archives and/or decrypts, e.g. Judith Coplon. Others described their work in detail in confessions/debriefings, e.g. Klaus Fuchs. And there are plenty whose activities are known only in very imprecise terms (e.g. Magdoff, who seems to have supplied some documents, but of what is not known).

So there is no single answer. Each individual person has to be considered as a separate case, alas. Noel (talk) 11:54, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Indeed, there is no single answer, I think there is evidence against Magdoff, but published authors (and I) don't think it is conclusive. It certainly needs to be accurately summarized and the pro and con opinions spelled out with cites. The problem is that Nobs goes from page to page making POV assertions, exaggerating the evidence, misrepresenting the underlying documents and source cites, and causing endless revert wars by only being willing to actually consider compromise wording after spending days and week burying the talk page in reams of elliptical text that seldom answers the questions being asked. After spending weeks hammering out compromise text on the Magdoff page, I now learn Nobs continues to use the same exaggerated, misrepresented, faultily cited, and POV text on other pages. This is the heart of the problem. I have had editing controversies with other editors over Venona materials on several pages, and after an opening round of testy comments, I have been able to work out compromise language. Work out compromise language with Nobs, and a few days or weeks later check back and see that in many cases he has simply relentlessly revised the text day by day, line by line, to restore his original POV claims. Sometimes Nobs simply deletes the fact that some of these people denied the charges , .

Until we deal with this issue, there is no solution. Nobs will characterize this as a personal attack, but it is a legitimate criticism that should have been addressed weeks ago. Any editor who doubts this, can merely check the history pages for any of the entries mentioned in this discussion...and many more; because Nobs and several other editors are also systematically moving throughout Misplaced Pages inserting material about Venona on scores of pages in order to suggest that 234 people are "Soviet Spies" without any differentiation or clarification. To verify this claim, simply visit "Category:Soviet spies" , a page title that puts Misplaced Pages at risk for a defamation lawsuit. See also where the master list of names is stored: "Category:Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America" ; and List of Americans in the Venona papers.

As for what NPOV language would look like, the pages Significance of Venona on this date: ; Harry Magdoff on this date: ; and Harry Magdoff and espionage on this date: . Also see the editing battles at I._F._Stone; Harry Dexter White; and many more.

In many cases, Nobs created pages simply in order to accuse the person of espionage. See for example Helen Tenney, Jones Orin York. For some of these persons, the evidence is strong that they wittingly participated in espionage. In others cases it is less clear, or even dubious. Nobs makes little or no differention. Yet if you read the underlying sources cited by Nobs, you will frequently discover that the claim is that a person was linked to a code name in Venona documents that government analysts concluded was a particular person. Often the Venona documents do not indicate that the person was aware they were being used by Soviet intelligence. Or that Elizabeth Bentley accused them of spying, but that was never conclusively verified. Nobs repeatedly cites the Bentley claims as confirmed charges issued by the U.S. government or an agency. For evidence of this, see here: .

Let's look at how this citation creep works: on the page is the caption: "Source Venona: Americans and U.S. Residents Who Had Witting Covert Relationships with Soviet Intelligence Agencies." But if you check the book that published the list, (John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America, Yale University Press (1999) ), the caption reads: "Source Venona: Americans and U.S. Residents Who Had Covert Relationships with Soviet Intelligence Agencies," p. 339. (note that Nobs then edited this page to correct it). In the page text that precedes the list the authors state it represents "Americans and others who provided assistance to Soviet espionage in the Stalin Era," p. 339. In the body of the book the authors Haynes and Klehr (1999) have no problem calling some of these people witting Soviet agents or informants. They chose not to use that language for the list. Any citation to this list should not assume that these people have been identified as witting agents of Soviet espionage. What can be stated is that information from them ended up in the hands of Soviet espionage. For another example of citation creep, see here: .

It is the nature of espionage that not everyone used as an information source is aware that they are supplying information to an espionage agency. In the case of the list in Haynes and Klehr (1999) it is clear that some, perhaps even many, of the persons in the list were aware they were assisting Soviet espionage, but they were not all "Soviet Spies." That is what needs to be addressed on a case-by-case basis for language that is accurate and fair, and NPOV. The real problem here is a POV warrior crusade.--Cberlet 14:09, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Response to Cberlet's misrepresentation: Cberlet opens the discussion with reams of sentences, each directly personally against myself, then cites Harry Dexter White as an example; here is the fundemental flaw to his entire attempt to paint me as editing with a POV: Harry Dexter White never denied allegations of espionage based upon Venona project decryptions. Anyone familiar with the Talk:Harry Dexter White can see I raised this issue, how is it possible for Harry Dexter White to deny charges from the grave, yet Cberlet just presented that once again in an effort to accuse me of "misrepresentation".

A second misrepresentation Cberlet makes in an effort to discredit me: I have made exactly 11 edits at I. F. Stone, 5 of those on June 5 2005, and only 5 edits since June 5 (more than 100 days ago). Cberlet's complete failure to establish any facts before posting the language employed above walks dangerously close to a personal attack.

Third example: The histories will reveal that I have repeatedly requested sourcing for Cberlet's original research, and he has not provided any.

Fourthly: Cberlet assigns motives to my work: "Nobs created pages simply in order to accuse the person of espionage"; unsourced, unverified. The record is clear on the historic interest in this subject.

Conclusion: Underneath Cberlet's carefully crafted personal attack above, Cberlet does make an effort to address the issues I have begged, and pleaded with him to address, at least since July 23 when this dialogue began. Nevertheless, he has persistently not addressed the issues and subjects, or substance of discussions, yet has littered discussions with words like "nasty", "outrageous", "outlandish", "unfair", but has made no attempt to bring forward any citations to support his POV, other than The Nation magazine.nobs 17:23, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Another example: Cberlet cites my restoring , the language of Prof. Roger Sandilands (bio), original creator of the Harry Dexter White article, over a user who (a) inserted material from a neo-nazi cite (b) was banned for persistent vandelism (and a suspected sockpuppet to an active user). nobs 17:47, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

See for indefinite block on troll Cberlet cites to attack my editing practices. Also, this sockpuppet may be indentifiable. nobs 21:40, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

(Moving indent) See also Talk:VENONA_project#Proceedural_proposal, above; extract states,

• "Complete biographical scetches of the 171 identified names and later insert Venona references without a conclusion"
• "This can all be completed, without mindless partisan wrangling etc., the idea is to get good, full biographical pictures. And it is an opportunity here, whatever perspective an editor may be coming from, to make a fair presentation of the evidence of their client's case. The questions surrounding NSA/FBI conclusions can all be argued out once we see the full picture."
• "So to conclude (tentatively) if we can break up the remaining bio pages to be created among volunteers, and finish the article, rather than incessant warfare over existing articles, then deal with the veracity of this or that specific claim on a case by case basis. " (Proceedural proposal dated 11 August 2005 (UTC)

hmmm, sounds like what we are talking about now. nobs 18:05, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Nobs, not even two hours went by before you launched another harassment campaign against me on my entry Talk:Chip_Berlet. You have attacked me on my user page. You have attacked me on other pages after a dispute over Venona. Please stop it.--Cberlet 20:45, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Cberlet:Please limit discussion on Talk pages to substantive issues regarding that pages article contents and use User Talk pages for personal comments. nobs 20:58, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Nobs, please do not edit my text so that it has an incorrect link.--Cberlet 22:21, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Cberlet: cute move, deleting my posting . Also, when you link to a Category as you did, you need to de-activate the Category with a full colon before like this -->:Catgegory; otherwise the Talk page shows up in the Category, and I think the history will reflect that is exactly what I did. Thank you. nobs 00:49, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Why do I even bother? Nobs: the link you inserted into my text produced a page with the the text: "Source Venona: Americans and U.S. Residents Who Had Covert Relationships with Soviet Intelligence Agencies" which is what it looked like after you edited it--an edit that you did after my criticism on this page. The link I wanted to display revealed the text: "Source Venona: Americans and U.S. Residents Who Had Witting Covert Relationships with Soviet Intelligence Agencies," which is what it looked like BEFORE you edited it today, and which was an example of a misrepresentation; which is what I wanted to illustrate.--Cberlet 01:14, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

(Moving indent) Excuse me, format should look like this --> :Category:Venona Appendix A, with a colon prefixed,elsewise this Talk page is listed alphabetically under "T" within the Category. You are correct, I made the edit to reflect Mr. Haynes & Klehrs exact language, as previoulsy discussed in these three discussions,

• Talk:VENONA_project/Archive1#Sources_for_.22349.22
• Talk:Harry_Magdoff#Shooting_down_Navasky
• Talk:Harry_Magdoff_and_espionage#Other_views

nevertheless vandalized by various trolls & sockpuppets. nobs 01:51, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

OK, so the point is that claims tend to drift, and cites creep, and what starts out as cautious and ambiguous ends up a claim that someone is a "Soviet Spy." Can we agree that:

• The list in Haynes and Klehr (1999) is not a list of "Soviet Spies."
• The cites that reprint the claims of Bentley should be attributed to Bentley.
• The Venona documents do not "corroborate" every claim made by Bentley.
• There are reputable critics who dispute the interpretation of the Venona documents made by Haynes and Klehr (1999).

These seem simple enough to discuss.--Cberlet 02:24, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

It is a starting point, and they are valid questions. I don't suspect we can cover or complete them all tonite. But it does comport with a structured approach, which is constructive. Can it be done in good faith, without rancor, and remain focused. And I have some issues to raise as well. nobs 03:15, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Citation

Dartmouth College says What do you do if your source doesn't list an author?

• "you must first determine whether the author is anonymous, or whether the document was written by a corporation or committee. "
• "When making a reference to a corporate author within your own text, you are advised by the MLA Handbook to refer to the corporation in the body of your paragraphs and to avoid citing them in your parenthetical references. For example: "According to a study sponsored by the United Nations, the world's resources have been decreased in 1998 by 20% (22)."

History Department, University of Natal at Durban, South Africa
A BRIEF CITATION GUIDE FOR INTERNET SOURCES IN HISTORY AND THE HUMANITIES

• "historians and their brethern have scholarly inclinations that lead them in two directions: one toward the need for precision in identifying a source and its provenance; the other focusing on a desire to provide a guide to a source's location for subsequent researchers. "
• "Such sources are seen as undependable by information technologists unless they exist in some electronic archive; the archive then becomes the primary source citation."

I hope these ideas help; I have yet to make my own arguements (for example, research does not find Elizabeth Bentley anywhere deposing or testifying to Magdoff working in the "Tools Division", as the cited text states. This is FBI source information, and once again ONCIX does not cite its source. Hence ONCIX, Vol.3, chap.1, pg.31 becomes that actual source citation. And as per the MLA style referenced in the Dartmouth site, refer to the corporation in the body of your paragraphs. Comment welcome. nobs 21:39, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

So Cberlet my friend, nothing personal. As a compromise we can lighten it to Counterintelligence Reader instead of the heavy hammer ONCIX. I was gonna wait 24 or 72 hours for a response, but so there's no confusion regarding "edit creep", I'm gonna be bold; if there's a different reading of MLA style or another manual guideline we can discuss it. nobs 22:35, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

The accusation that Magdoff was in the Perlo network is introduced with this paragraph about Bentley:

• "She provided testimony on two Soviet networks of government employees who had worked on behalf of the Soviets in the late 1930s and early 1940s. She identified over 30 high-level US Government officials that had worked for the two networks run by Nathan Silverman and Victor Perlo."

Then there is a list of names with identifications. There is no question that the accusation that Magdoff was in the Perlo network is being attributed to Bentley. The cite in the text should be to "Bentley" and any inline citation to (Rafalko, 1999) The form of the Works Cited should be Frank J. Rafalko, ed., A Counterintelligence Reader, Volume 3: Post-World War II to Closing the 20th Century (Washington, D.C.: National Counterintelligence Center, no date) online at http://www.nacic.gov/history/CIReaderPlain/Vol3Chap1.pdf, p. 31.--Cberlet 03:09, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Not what the source citation , nor the style manual says. nobs 03:55, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

This citation advice from Nobs does not apply because we know who is making the claim, and we know who wrote the Counterintellignce Reader, and we know who the editor is citing: Bentley.

Let's note that at one point, Nobs started a revert war when I suggested that this concoction of his was not an accurate cite: "According to United States Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive (ONCIX) Official History." In this case Nobs was elevating the source of the charge to an entire U.S. agency. In fact, ONCIX is not even the publisher of the book being cited. It is a complete fiction. ONCIX merely has republished the book on its website.

What do we know? Rafalko is the editor of A Counterintellignce Reader, a 4 volume series. The cite is from Vol. 3, p. 31. The book was published by the now defunct National Counterintelligence Center. The text of the previously published (though previously secret) set of books published by NCC was put on the website of the United States Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive (ONCIX), which replaced the NCC.

We know Bentley originated the charge about Magdoff being in the Perlo Group. We know the list of names that Rafalko is using comes from Bentley, because that's what Rafalko writes in the text. The footnote refers to testimony from Bentley. Therefore the proper cite is constructed as a claim attributed to Bentley that appears in a book edited by Rafalko, which was republished online by ONCIX.

According to the Chicago Manual of Style, this is a "Secondary Cite." The format of a secondary cite is as follows:

• "19. Louis Zukofsky, "Sincerity and Objectification," Poetry 37 (February 1931): 269, quoted in Bonnie Costello, Marianne Moore: Imaginary Possessions (Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 1981), 78.

This example is from the University of Wisconsin Writing Center website providing examples from the Chicago Manual of Style..

It is not clear what the actual date of publication is. Some places cite it as 1999, but the only date I can find in a scholarly paper is citing Vol. 2 not Vol. 3, and we know the volumes were published over several years. So 1999 or "no tate" or "c. 1999."

The cite in the text should be to "Bentley" and any inline citation to (Rafalko, c. 1999) The form of the Works Cited should be Frank J. Rafalko, ed., A Counterintelligence Reader, Volume 3: Post-World War II to Closing the 20th Century (Washington, D.C.: National Counterintelligence Center, c. 1999) online at http://www.nacic.gov/history/CIReaderPlain/Vol3Chap1.pdf, p. 31.

I have temporarily edited the Henry Magdoff page to be neutral on this matter until the discussion is resolved. In the meantime, I would ask Nobs that he stop the revert war on the Henry Magdoff page and actually negotiate in good faith on this page, rather than carrying on skirmishes on all the other pages being discussed here.--Cberlet 12:44, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Misrepresented sources and claims

Cberlet states, "The footnote refers to testimony from Bentley." It in fact does not. Footnote 59 is annoted in the text, however nowhere within the ONCIX site , or the companion FAS site do the endnotes for the Chapter 1, Cold War Counterintelligence of Vol. 3, Post-World War II to Closing the 20th Century, appear. Secondly, prima facia the textual material in CI Reader vol.3 chap.1 pg.31, cannot be attributed to Bentley. This is (A) the statement "The following were members of the Victor Perlo Network"; (B) the ensuing list of full names, job titles, and discriptions. It is coincident, that the names were testified to by Bentley, but the full text includes material provided by FBI investigators. In the absence of Footnote 59, the National Counterintelligence Center (NACIC) successor, the National Counterintelligence Executive (ONCIX), becomes the citation, or FAS. nobs 17:37, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

The accusation that Magdoff was in the Perlo network is introduced with this paragraph about Bentley:

"She provided testimony on two Soviet networks of government employees who had worked on behalf of the Soviets in the late 1930s and early 1940s. She identified over 30 high-level US Government officials that had worked for the two networks run by Nathan Silverman and Victor Perlo."

Then there is a list of names with identifications. There is no question that the accusation that Magdoff was in the Perlo network is being attributed to Bentley.

Now Nobs argues: "In the absence of Footnote 59, the National Counterintelligence Center (NACIC) successor, the National Counterintelligence Executive (ONCIX), becomes the citation." This is simply absurd. The publisher of the series is the National Counterintelligence Center. The National Counterintelligence Executive (ONCIX) has merely posted online the books published by the National Counterintelligence Center. There is no such thing as a cite to the ONCIX version of the books, this is a fantasy invented by Nobs who has confused a website with the publisher of the original books. Even if we accept that the cite should be to the book itself, it should be cited to Rafalko, the editor, not the publisher. And certainly not ONCIX.--Cberlet 01:14, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Cberlet: See my posting regarding Rafalko at Talk:Harry_Magdoff#Moving_discussion_on_citation_to_Talk:VENONA_project. He was not cited at either site as the editor til only 3 or 4 weeks ago, and I do not believe ONCIX yet cites Rafalko as the editor. Hence, the original attribution to ONCIX back in July, ONCIX being an U.S. governmental agency, whereas FAS is purportedly "non-profit". nobs 02:00, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Cberlet:Please note: http://www.nacic.gov/history/index.html NACIC web address redirects to ONCIX. nobs 05:34, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Rafalko: Accurate cites all over web

ONCIX is not the publisher. It is a website. Here are just a handful of ACCURATE cites:

• Rafalko, F.J., (Ed.). (n.d.). A counterintelligence reader, 3 volumes. Post-World War II to closing the 20th century, vol. 3. Washington D.C.: National Counterintelligence Center. .

• Rafalko, Frank J. (editor). A Counterintelligence Reader: American Revolution to World War II, Volume I. NACIC.

• Rafalko, Frank J., ed. A Counterintelligence Reader: American Revolution to World War II, Volume One. Washington, DC: NACIC, 1998; Rafalko, Frank J., ed. A Counterintelligence Reader: World War II, Volume Two. Washington, DC: NACIC, 1998; Rafalko, Frank J., ed. A Counterintelligence Reader: Post-World War II to Closing the 20th Century, Volume Three. Washington, DC: NACIC, 1998; Rafalko, Frank J., ed. A Counterintelligence Reader: American Revolution into the New Millenium, Volume Four.Washington, DC: NACIC, . .

• Frank J. Rafalko, ed., A Counterintelligence Reader, Volume II: Counterintelligence in World War II. (Washington D.C.: National Counterintelligence Center, 1999), Chapter 1. .

• (Rafalko, 2002; Chap3 online .

• The encyclopedic four-volume “A Counterintelligence Reader,” edited by Frank J. Rafalko, and prepared for the now-defunct National Counterintelligence Center,

• Rafalko, Frank J. (editor). A Counterintelligence Reader: American Revolution to World War II, Volume I. NACIC. .

How long does this charade go on before Nobs admits he just made a mistake?--Cberlet 03:20, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

That's all correct; now go to this site http://www.nacic.gov/history/index.html and tell me if you find his name anywhere. nobs 03:50, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

This specifically is the problem: Table of Contents to Vol. 3 pg.2 says "Cold War Counterintelligence Endnotes", pg. 425. They should be here Chap. 4 but the pdf file only goes up to pg. 423 (last page in the entire Volume). Maybe the gubmint really is conspiring to smear Harry Magdoff, since by default the citation goes to the source document.

Did you catch this when you extracted Talk:Harry_Magdoff#Start_Quoted_Text:

"two networks run by Nathan Silverman and Victor Perlo.

"The Nathan Silverman Network consisted of the following members:

"Nathan Silverman

three times Silverman instead of Silvermaster. (Looks like us taxpayers aren't getting what we pay for).

But facts are, FAS did not have Rafalko's name here in July, as they do now. nobs 04:30, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

OK, fine. But now we know the accurate cite is "Rafalko, Frank J., ed. A Counterintelligence Reader: Post-World War II to Closing the 20th Century, Volume Three. (Washington, DC: NACIC, 1998)." We can spell out NACIC if that makes folks happier.--Cberlet 12:43, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Thank you (you genuinely spared me from a lengthy presentation on the oxymoronic "Secrecy News" site hosted by a group said to be a front organization).

So we agree. Now, question is, does such a citation go within the body of the text in the absence of unpublished Footnote 59. I say yes. nobs 16:53, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Also, as a favour can you let me know where you got 1998 from, I'm not challenging, it's just a detail I been looking for, in the truelly cooperative/collaborative spirit. Kindest regards. nobs 18:09, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Language

Proposed language: "The National Counterintelligence Center's, "Counterintelligence Reader", cites Magdoff as a member of the Perlo group."(See pg. 31). nobs 19:29, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Significance

Cberlet asked me to come over and have a look at this article. I'm actually about to take about a 5-day break from Misplaced Pages (starting in about 36 hours), but I do find myself with one immediate question: why is significance of Venona a separate article? -- Jmabel | Talk 16:07, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Footnote 59

Example 1: Doanld Nivan Wheeler Bentley deposition identifies Donald Wheeler (Donald Nivan Wheeler, pgs. 35-42), nowhere does she identify Donald Nivan Wheeler. The FBI parenthetically inserts "Donald Nivan Wheeler" in paragraph 4 in a narrative context specifically after a reference to "Wheeler".

FBI Venona file, pgs. 52-54, Belmont to Ladd memo reads in part,

"The penetration of OSS by the MGB will involve cases where we have information which involves individuals who were also named by Elizabeth Bentley." (pg.51)

"The bulk of the cases stemming from regarding the penetration of OSS deal with the same group of individulas who were named by Elizabeth Bentley in November, 1945." (pg.53)

Donald Nivan Wheeler

Wheeler was employed by OSS from 1941 to 1946. Bentley named him as having been a Soviet agent who furnished her information obtained from OSS files. The information reflects his cover name was Izra. We have previously requested investigation of CIA in the Wheeler case which actually stems from the information, but we did not, of course advise CIA what the basis of our information was. CIA is aware of Bentley's allegations. (pg.54) {Emphasis mine}

Conclusion: Bentley corroborates "Donald Nivan Wheeler" was a member of the Perlo group in footnote 59. "he Wheeler case which actually stems from the information", not Elizabeth Bentley, is what's missing in the unpublished endnotes to CI Reader vol. 3 chap. 1. The FBI names Donald Nivan Wheeler as a member of the Perlo group, not just Bentley, in footnote 59. Hence, Bentley alone cannot be cited, and Counterintelligence Reader itself becomes the in text citation, as per What do you do if your source doesn't list an author?. More examples to follow. nobs 01:53, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Example 2: Silvermaster Network. FBI Venona file, pgs. 34, Ladd to the Director memo reads in part,

Silvermaster Network

"Individuals positively or tentatively identified from information and who were employed in Government agencies, included Nathan Gregory Silvermaster, Ludgwig Ullman, Bela and Sonia Gold, Victor Perlo, Harry Magdoff, Peter Rhodes, Allen Rosenberg, Harold Glasser, Duncan Lee, and Harry Dexter White. All of the above individuals were implicated in the Silvermaster network according to the information provided to us by Elizabeth Bentley." (pg.34)

Relevence: "All of the above individuals were implicated in the Silvermaster network according to the information provided to us by Elizabeth Bentley." This document places Perlo, Magdoff, A. Rosenberg & Glasser in the Silvermaster Network, according to Elizabeth Bentley. The later division into two groups, Perlo & Silvermaster groups, is the work of the FBI, not the testimony of Elizabeth Bentley.

Conclusion: Bentley did not testify that "the following were members of the Perlo group"; Perlo group, is an extrapolation of counterintelligence investigators to simplify thier work. Also, this proves this quote from the CI Reader text, "She provided testimony on two Soviet networks", is likewise not the testimony of Bentley, it is the view of FBI investigators and CI Reader editors ex post facto. Hence the reading of the text, "According to Elizabeth Bentley the following were members of the Perlo group" is mixing and matching odd socks. Without footnote 59, the CI Reader itself becomes the source. More later. nobs 02:47, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

All of this lengthy and convoluted argument is totally irrelevant. We have access to a primary document, dated 1946, in which the FBI reports "allegations" from "informant" Elizabeth Bentley that Magdoff is working with Perlo and Silvermaster, and the FBI puts Bentley's claims under the heading "The Perlo Group." In citation the rule is to always go to the most primary underlying document available, which in this case is the 1946 FBI report containing Bentley's claims from which all subsequent allegations flow.. All of this fancy footwork is an attempt by Nobs, over several months, to avoid noting in the text that the original claim about Magdoff came from defector Elizabeth Bentley at the start of what became known as the McCarthy Era, an important historic fact which Nobs relentlessly deletes.--Cberlet 17:00, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Cberlet says (a) "the FBI puts Bentley's claims under the heading 'The Perlo Group.' ", i.e. not Elizabeth Bentley; here he is correct. (b) Cberlet says, "Bentley's claims from which all subsequent allegations flow"; here he is incorrect, as demonstrated in Example 1, "he Wheeler case which actually stems from the information". Hence, the contents of unpublished Footnote 59 are crucial to clarity, the textural material cannot be attributed to Bentley alone, and the source document itself becomes the citation, until Footnote 59 is declassified & released. nobs 17:16, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Example 3: It could be fully documented if necessary in Bentley's deposition, several direct quotes where she was uncertain or could not recall specifically what Division within a Department or Agency an individual worked. All she could remember was that she recieved information to be transmitted to the Soviet Union from a certain individual. In many cases individuals changed jobs within a Department or Agency, and she could not recall specifically what their job task was in government. And the overwhelming volume of information she recieved likewise prohibited details like this. Hence, I could if necessary cite specifically where the text of the CI Reader material is FBI investigators and not Bentley as per job titles & descriptions. nobs 18:03, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

All of this is a waste of time. It has nothing to do with the dispute over the actual text. See next section --Cberlet 19:27, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

What are the remaining issues in dispute regarding the Magdoff text?

Here is a selection of disputed sentences from the page Harry Magdoff and espionage.

• The public accusation that Magdoff was working for Soviet intelligence was itself not new; it had originated with defector Elizabeth Bentley who testified to that same effect.

• "The Official History of Soviet Espionage in America published by the United States Governemnt says the Venona project confirms the accurracy of Bentley's testimony."

I edited the page and tried for some NPOV balance:

• The Official History of Soviet Espionage in America published by one government agency says the Venona project confirms the accuracy of much of Bentley's testimony. However critics of Bentley point out that some of her claims were disputed at the time (she lost one defamation case based on her allegations), and that the testimony of Bentley and others before various Congressional committees during the McCarthy period was sometimes exagerated or involved guilt by associations assertions.

Nobs deleted the balance and exagerated his claim by further hyping the cite:

• The Official History of Soviet Espionage in America published by the United States Governemnt says the Venona project confirms the accurracy of Bentley's testimony.

There is no such thing as "The Official History of Soviet Espionage in America published by the United States Governemnt " It is a fiction created by Nobs. See the deletions here:

On top of that, Magdoff then suddenly became a U.S. goverment certified spy: "According to United States Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive (ONCIX) Official History, Magdoff was a member of the Perlo group of Soviet spies.".

Now we know the proper cite is:

• Rafalko, Frank J., ed. A Counterintelligence Reader: Post-World War II to Closing the 20th Century, Volume Three. (Washington, DC: NACIC, 1998).

What cite should we actually be using? The primary document.

Here is the actual text from the original FBI document in which Bentley identifies Magdoff:

• Re: Harry S. Magdoff
• alias Henry Magdoff
• ALLEGATIONS OF INFORMANT

• Elizabeth Terrill Bentley advised that...
• ...Bentley stated, "On the date specified..." p. 182.

The work history of Magdoff is spelled out by the FBI in a section running from page 183-186; and his "Communist Activity" is chronicled on pages 186-187. Read the text of the FBI document here:

This meeting took place in 1944. The FBI document cited is a summary dated February 21, 1946. Read the document here:

This FBI document uses the term "The Perlo Group," and puts Bentley's identification of Magdoff under that heading, cited to page 95, but for some reason appearing online as page 182 .

Let's see how the FBI characterises this information at the beginning of their document: "In a major espionage investigation spanning the years 1945 through 1959, Silvermaster was alleged to be the leader of Soviet spy ring which supposedly had 27 individuals gathering information from at least six Federal agencies. However, none of the subjects were indicted by the Grand Jury." .

Even by FBI standards, Nobs editing of these pages is biased. Let's use the language from the FBI. How's that for a compromise?

So what is fair, accurate, and NPOV text?

• Several historians and researchers have come to the conclusion that Harry Magdoff was among a number of persons inside the U.S. government used as an information source by Soviet intelligence. What is disputed about this is the extent to which the available evidence indicates that Magdoff (and scores of other people so named) were aware of or complicit in espionage activities.

• The FBI reports that Magdoff and others were probed as part of "a major espionage investigation spanning the years 1945 through 1959" into an alleged "Soviet spy ring which supposedly had 27 individuals gathering information from at least six Federal agencies. However, none of the subjects were indicted by the Grand Jury.".

• Several sources indicate Magdoff was investigated as a member of what was called the Perlo group.

• The public accusation that Magdoff was working for Soviet intelligence was itself not new; it had originated with defector Elizabeth Bentley who provided this information to the FBI and later testified to that same effect during McCarthy era hearings:

• According to Rafalko, the Venona project confirms the accuracy of much of Bentley's testimony. Critics of Bentley point out that some of her claims were disputed at the time, and that the testimony of Bentley and others before various Congressional committees during the McCarthy period was sometimes exagerated or involved guilt by associations assertions.

Once we have discussed these paragraphs, which I have inserted into the Harry Magdoff and espionage page, we can move on to the many other disputes, such as what portions of the Harry Magdoff and espionage page should be summarized or merged into the Harry Magdoff page. In addition, all the exagerations, misrepresentations, and flawed cites on several others pages need to be corrected.--Cberlet 19:27, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Response:

• "Official History" was adapted from the FAS site. It was not a fiction created by nobs.
• "(she lost one defamation case based on her allegations)", see
  • Talk:Harry_Magdoff_and_espionage#Evidence.2Fprosecution,
  • Talk:Elizabeth_Bentley#Remington_libel_suit, and
  • Talk:Joseph_McCarthy#Venona, which User:Noel has disposed of with documentation three times now.
• As to use of citations from the FBI Silvermaster file, the above references are nowhere near complete. The CI Reader, vol.3 chap.1 fn.59 is the appropriate reference which summarizes information from all U.S. Government sources, i.e. Bentley Deposition, FBI investigations of all subjects listed, Army Signals Intelligence Agency decryptions, and further research on decryptions by ASA's successor agency, the National Security Agency. Cberlet alleges, the section being referenced at Talk:Harry_Magdoff#Start_Quoted_Text is a contemporaneous narrative. It is not. It is a sum total compilation of an investigation which ended in 1980.
• As per Rafalko, it may be necessary for me to bring forward the complete documentation which attaches his name to the Counterintelligence Reader, which certainly looks curious. I thought there was an understanding above to use such a citation, as Cberlet proposes. I will ask Cberlet once again, please narrow the issues to specific proposals on language, edit in good faith, and stop incessant innuendo directed at me. Please restate your specific proposals on language, in which articles. Thank you. nobs 21:05, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

I just proposed specific language in my last post. I guess I will have to propose it again:

• Several historians and researchers have come to the conclusion that Harry Magdoff was among a number of persons inside the U.S. government used as an information source by Soviet intelligence. What is disputed about this is the extent to which the available evidence indicates that Magdoff (and scores of other people so named) were aware of or complicit in espionage activities.

• The FBI reports that Magdoff and others were probed as part of "a major espionage investigation spanning the years 1945 through 1959" into an alleged "Soviet spy ring which supposedly had 27 individuals gathering information from at least six Federal agencies. However, none of the subjects were indicted by the Grand Jury.".

• Several sources indicate Magdoff was investigated as a member of what was called the Perlo group.

• The public accusation that Magdoff was working for Soviet intelligence was itself not new; it had originated with defector Elizabeth Bentley who provided this information to the FBI and later testified to that same effect during McCarthy era hearings:

• According to Rafalko, the Venona project confirms the accuracy of much of Bentley's testimony. Critics of Bentley point out that some of her claims were disputed at the time, and that the testimony of Bentley and others before various Congressional committees during the McCarthy era was sometimes exagerated or involved guilt by associations assertions.

If we can agree on these paragraphs, then we can begin to establish some general consensus on what the Venona documents actually "corroborate," and what is the proper way to identify the list in Klehr and Haynes, which we all can agree is not a list of "Soviet Spies." Then we can move back to the various other pages with text that at least has been verified and burnished.--Cberlet 21:20, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Thank you. That appears very structured. Please be advised, you may not want to get too carried away inserting "Rafalko" in place of what may have to be "NACIC" references everywhere, as (1) nowhere does Rafalko's name appear on the primary source document in question (one instance, attributing him to have written the Revolutionary War section); (2) his name is derived from 1 specific secondary source. Perhaps we should discuss this next, but I hear the dinner bell ringing right now. Thank you. nobs 21:49, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Please be advised that the proper citations to Rafalko are all over the Internet, including several very reputable places. Please see above where I posted numerous examples of these proper cites with links. The only dispute seems to be over the proper date (1998, 1999, or n.d.) Please note that among these links is the following:

J. Ransom Clark, Emeritus Professor of Political Science, Muskingum College, New Concord, Ohio

Rafalko, Frank J., ed. A Counterintelligence Reader: American Revolution to World War II, Volume One. Washington, DC: NACIC, 1998;

Rafalko, Frank J., ed. A Counterintelligence Reader: World War II, Volume Two. Washington, DC: NACIC, 1998;

Rafalko, Frank J., ed. A Counterintelligence Reader: Post-World War II to Closing the 20th Century, Volume Three. Washington, DC: NACIC, 1998;

Rafalko, Frank J., ed. A Counterintelligence Reader: American Revolution into the New Millenium, Volume Four.Washington, DC: NACIC, .

If you would like, we can cite it as:

Rafalko, Frank J., ed. A Counterintelligence Reader: Post-World War II to Closing the 20th Century, Volume Three. Washington, DC: NACIC, n.d.

The FAS website is not affiliated with the government. It's just a website, not the publisher. The proper website to link to for the text is the U.S. Government website: . Alas, even they have the title and cite wrong. Continuing to debate this is a waste of time. --Cberlet 22:16, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Rafalko: 54 Google hits

• NACIC does not cite Rafalko as editor in any Introduction, Preface, or Acknowldgement.
• ONCIX does not cite Rafalko as editor in any Introduction, Preface, or Acknowldgement.
• FAS as of mid August 2005, on a cover page only, cited Rafalko as editor.
• The origin of all citations to Rafalko as editor are from the secondary source, Secrecy News here , maintained by the FAS, dated October 5, 2004.
• The only place Frank J. Rafalko appears in the Counterintelligence Reader is "American Revolution End Notes", fn 1, "This article was written by Frank J. Rafalko, Chief Community Training Branch, National Counterintelligence Center." ( 2 page pdf file)
• There is an Eric Rafalko cited in the Acknowledgements. (1 page pdf)
• NACIC+Rafalko brings up 54 Google hits.

Now, this raises several questions. (1) Primary source does not cite an editor. (2) Secondary source cited an editor only 3 weeks ago. (3) All subsequent references on the internet are based on a secondary source. (4) The primary source document contains no less than three problems that concern us, (4a) no editor listed, (4b) end notes withheld, (4c) gross misspelling of a key figure's name that directly concerns us, i.e. "Silverman" and not "Silvermaster". (5) FAS was the source of "Official History", however it as since substituted "Frank J. Rafalko, ed." in place of its former "Official History".

So what are we to gleen from all this. (A) The CI Reader may be subject to further editing. And (B) FAS possibly cannot be relied upon based on (i) it is not the original primary source, and (ii) its redaction of "Official History".

Cberlet has stated, "The FAS website is not affiliated with the government. It's just a website, not the publisher." By this reasoning, FAS's sourcing as "Frank Rafalko, ed." should be carefully considered. What appears proper for the intext citations for now would be "NACIC", until such a time as NACIC's successor, ONCIX, places the name of an editor upon the primary source document. nobs 01:34, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

This is absurd. We know Rafalko is the editor, and it is never proper to cite the publisher. Please move on.--Cberlet 04:49, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

No we don't know, as I didn't know in July when I prepared the edits. All I had then was a document, CI Reader, with errors, a defunct publishers, a U.S. Government website, and a secondary source telling me it was the "Official History".

We may have a difference of opinion as to who or what the FAS is. But I don't see the need to debate or discuss it. But I will not be fooled a second time by them. I insist on primary source data, as you have stated twice now in this page, in this discussion. nobs 04:56, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Here's the facts: you've implied twice now on this page I'm some sort of a deceptive idiot regarding Refalko; facts are it took me more than 4 months to find Refalko's name (and I'm still not satisfied), I gave Rafalko's name to you, you did a Google search with his name and posted the results with the implication I didn't do the work properly. You never would have heard of Refalko if I didn't do all the work first. nobs 05:05, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Actually, I used software called Reference Manager, used by people who write journal articles, to search 50 academic libraries using the phrase "Counterintelligence Reader." It turned up several hits to library catalogs that listed Rafalko as editor. Here is one library abstract of the series:

A four-volume account of the history and evolution of U.S. Counterintelligence that was prepared for the now-defunct National Counterintelligence Center (NACIC). The encyclopedic 1500 page work begins with an account of counterintelligence (CI) from the American Revolution to World War II (volume 1), proceeds with a study of CI in World War II (volume 2), continues with a survey of the post-WWII atom bomb spies up to the latest espionage cases (volume 3), and concludes with a look at current counterintelligence challenges from China, Russia and elsewhere (volume 4). The study, prepared over several years by multiple authors, deals in part with well-trodden ground such as the Venona intercepts. But it also includes extended treatments of much more obscure topics, such as counterintelligence in the Civil War, and official accounts of numerous individual espionage cases that never made headlines, as well as a U.S. government perspective on "counterintelligence in the turbulent 1960s and 1970s."

I also posted a number of cites by scholars who used the proper citation to Rafalko, which you simply ignore. One of these is located on the FAS website . It was prepared by the "Defense Personnel Security Research Center." I have no idea why you are obsessing over this. We have multiple examples of the proper citation to Rafalko. Please stop this. It is a complete waste of time. There is much ground to cover. Please direct your attention to the text below, which I am proposing be adopted as NPOV and accurate.--Cberlet 14:06, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Source for the above posting, FAS, Secrecy News maintained by Steven Aftergood, already referenced by me above, dated 5 October 2004. (FAS Project on Government Secrecy Volume 2004, Issue No. 87). nobs 20:15, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Cberlet states above: "What cite should we actually be using? The primary document.", and

"The FAS website is not affiliated with the government. It's just a website, not the publisher. The proper website to link to for the text is the U.S. Government website: . Alas, even they have the title and cite wrong."

At length Cberlet then criticize me for using information gathered from a secondary source, the FAS, to fully qualify what was missing from the primary source. How does Cberlet wish to fix this problem? by using information from the same secondary source to fully qualify what is missing from the primary source. Not fair criticism, and we've been burned once already by the secondary citation.

What is the issue? The problem is we have a primary source document, it is the most recent publication issued by a US government agency studying all the evidence regarding Soviet espionage in the United States. It uses testimony of individuals, FBI investigations, Venona project decrypts, and further NSA research and investigation into the facts. The compendium is written as an historical narrative to put full picture of the US governments understanding of all the evidence into a perspective. Problems: (1) the primary source document does not list an editor (2) the primary source document is missing certain key footnotes (3) misspelling of a key figures name.

How does this relate the Wiki article? Primarily through the proper sourcing attribute.

What is the information in question? The phrase, "The following were members of the Victor Perlo Network"; it has been documented now, that the sourcing citation cannot be attributed to a single person intext. That the attributed material comes from other sources as well (FBI, Venona). As a primary source, the document speaks for itself. Hence, the proper attribution is to the source document.

Who is the source document? The Counterintelligence Reader.

Who issued the Counterintelligence Reader? It is a collaborative effort, issued by the now defunct National Counterintelligence Center (NACIC). The source document lists no editor.

Comment: An editor's name has been retrieved from various secondary sources, however, the US government's successor agency, the ONCIX, still does not list any editor.

What is the reliability of the secondary source? The secondary source billed the Counterintelligence Reader as the "Official History of Counterintelligence Operations in the United States". The same secondary source now has recanted its citation as that, and in place has listed "Frank J. Rafalko, ed."

How does this relate to an intext citation? The missing footnotes, which the editor left out (for whatever reason), and to which the primary source still as of yet has not listed a name as an editor, require an intext citation as to who is speaking in the phrase, "The following were members of the Victor Perlo Network". The secondary source has recanted and retracted its representation regarding what the document is. The voices speaking, have been documented to be a compendium of Elizabeth Bentley, FBI investigators, Venona project decrypts, NSA analysts, and unnamed Counterintelligence Reader authors & editors. Hence, as we say in the business, "the document speaks for itself".

Who is the document? The document in the "National Counterintelligence Center's, Counterintelligence Reader".

This analysis comports with Cberlet's references stated above. nobs 21:26, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

This response is totally surreal. A cite from a library catalog is a solid cite. I have asked for a clarification of the proper cite through the Government Printing Office. I will let folks know what they report.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Cberlet (talk • contribs)

Good Faith

From Talk:Harry Magdoff

What part of moving this discussion to the group discussion at Talk:VENONA project page do you not understand, Nobs? Are you totally unable to work collectively to reach consensus?--Cberlet 03:22, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Of coarse, you can't have a gangbang without the girl. nobs 16:45, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

nobs continues to insist on running the same discussion on the same matters and same language on Talk:Harry Magdoff and espionage and Talk:Harry Magdoff instead of hammering out a consensus on this page. What is the point? Does anyone else have an apionion or comment? Unless there is more input from other editors about temporarily moving the multiple debates to this page, I will ask for Page Protection on the appropriate other pages until we all agree to follow a group process and edit here collectively and in Good Faith.--Cberlet 17:48, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Magdoff text discussion

Let's take these out of order but in a sequence that flows from one to the next. And let's finish one before starting another.--Cberlet 22:22, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Paragraph One

• The FBI reports that Magdoff and others were probed as part of "a major espionage investigation spanning the years 1945 through 1959" into an alleged "Soviet spy ring which supposedly had 27 individuals gathering information from at least six Federal agencies. However, none of the subjects were indicted by the Grand Jury.".

I think we can agree that if the FBI has a cautious wording, so should we. Comments??? --Cberlet 22:22, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

NPOV

This edit , reveals Cberlet is so anxious to insert "McCarthy hearings" into this text, that with a keystroke he has converted a written FBI Deposition of Elizabeth Bentley into oral testimony before a Congressional Committee. Witness:

Original text:"...Elizabeth Bentley who provided this information to the FBI :" (followed by deposition quote).

Cberlet's doctored text:"...Elizabeth Bentley who provided this information to the FBI and later testified to that same effect during McCarthy era hearings : (followed by deposition quote).

The following facts were established two months ago:

• Harry Magdoff left government 30 December 1946.
• Joseph McCarthy took office the first week of January 1947.
• Harry Magdoff was never summoned before a Committee chaired by Joseph McCarthy.
• The circumstances of Magdoff leaving government employment had absolutely nothing to do with Joseph McCarthy.
• Harry Magdoff was not "hounded out" of government by Joseph McCarthy, and/or "McCarthyism".
• Joseph McCarthy did not begin his crusade until morethan four years after Magdoff leaving government employment.

Nevertheless, after several months of establishing the facts, and presenting the evidence in carefully crafted language by several editors, in Cberlet's exuberance to insert references to Joseph McCarthy, and present Magdoff as a "victim" of "McCarthyite" "persecution", Cberlet with a simple phrase transforms facts into a world that never existed. This fits the definition of Misplaced Pages:POV. nobs 20:45, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Nobs is correct that my original wording about the Bentley testimony was unsatisfactory, which is why I (not Nobs) changed it on my next edit: . I have no idea why Nobs has not noticed this, and assume his attack on me for having "doctored" the text was due to inadequate research. I will be happy to accept his apology for this error. We all make mistakes.

Bentley

I note that Nobs has chosen not to engage in the discussion of the paragraph I have posted above about how the FBI characterises the Bentley claims, and their own investigation, so I must assume he is OK with it.

So let's turn to Bentley, Which Nobs appears to want to urgently discuss.

It is significant that Magdoff was targetted for investigation by the FBI with Bentley's assistance, and if Nobs would prefer that we first mention the Red Scare as preceding the actual McCarthy hearings, that suits me fine. Usually, however, the term McCarthy era refers to a longer period than just the McCarthy hearings, stretching from the late 1940s to the mid 1950s.

This is the language I first proposed.

• The public accusation that Magdoff was working for Soviet intelligence was itself not new; it had originated with defector Elizabeth Bentley who provided this information to the FBI and later testified to that same effect during McCarthy era hearings

It is important to place Bentley in the historic moment. She was a major figure in the Red Scare. She also was an unstable person who struggled with alcoholism and was repeatedly caught lying. Some, perhaps even most, of her charges later were corroborated. Other charges never were corroborated. Some are most likely not true. Here is how two reviewers characterised her, based on her biography, Red Spy Queen: A Biography of Elizabeth Bentley:

From Publishers Weekly

In August 1945, a 37-year-old woman named Elizabeth Bentley walked into the FBI office in New Haven, Conn., and announced that she was a Communist spy who controlled a vast network of agents operating within the U.S. government. Her defection precipitated the decade's first "Red Scare" and set off a chain of events that eventually led to the execution of the Rosenbergs. Despite her importance, however, Bentley has been largely ignored by history. Olmsted, an assistant professor of history at UC-Davis, corrects this oversight in an intelligent, balanced biography of the woman the tabloids labeled the "red spy queen." Bentley, Olmsted makes clear, was by no means a doctrinaire Communist. She joined the CP-USA primarily because she was lonely, and became a spy because she fell in love with a Soviet agent named Golos. Bentley helped Golos with his work; after his death, she took over many of his agents. But Bentley was too erratic and independent-minded for Moscow (and a hardened alcoholic as well). When she realized her Soviet masters were plotting her "elimination," Bentley went to the FBI and became what Olmsted calls a "professional ex-Communist," collecting sizeable speaking fees and frequently appearing before Congress and on TV and radio. But Bentley soon faded from the spotlight, undone by her emotional fragility and penchant for lying. When she died in 1963, the world took little notice. Olmsted's thoughtful account restores Bentley to her rightful place and gives her all the credit and blame she deserves. 12 illus.

Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Though most readers are familiar with the names Joseph McCarthy, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, and Alger Hiss, many have not heard of Elizabeth Bentley (1908-63), the Red Spy Queen. With access to newly available documents, Olmsted (history, Univ. of California, Davis; Challenging the Secret Government) unveils the amazing story of the woman who became first a highly regarded spy for the Soviets and later a major informant for the U.S. government. A Vassar College graduate, Bentley defected from the Soviets in 1945 and soon became a household name when she began naming names, eventually uncovering a vast Soviet spy ring that extended into the government itself and helping to precipitate the Red Scare of the 1950s. Because of her unstable personality and willingness to stretch the truth, historians for decades have questioned her testimony. Olmsted shows that although Bentley may have sometimes exaggerated her own role in espionage activities, there was also truth in her testimony. This original biography about a complex personality is absorbing and well written. There is a lengthy notes section and an extensive bibliography but no index. An important addition to all academic collections.DMaria C. Bagshaw, Lake Erie Coll., Painesville, OH

So the fact that it was Bentley who first tapped Magdoff as a "spy" is significant, as is her later role in the McCarthy era, as is the fact that her claims sometimes turned out to be false or unproven.

So perhaps this wording is better:

• The accusation that Magdoff was working for Soviet intelligence was itself not new; it had originated with defector Elizabeth Bentley who provided this information to the FBI, which then launched an investigation of Magdoff. Bentley, an unstable alcoholic, later became a star witness during McCarthy era hearings, and made her living lecturing as a professional anticommunist. While the Venona documents confirm some of Bentley's claims, other claims remain uncorroborated, and Bentley's record is dogged by her penchant for exaggerating her role in communist espionage, and stretching the truth.

Perhaps Nobs can offer an alternative wording.--Cberlet 22:20, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Cberlet's digression into cut & pasted arguements from The Nation magazine over the past 50 years pales in light of the fact that a publication by an agency of the United States government, the NACIC now says Magdoff was a member of the Perlo group, and that the Venona decrypts confirm the accuracy of Bentley's testimony.

We could cut & paste the arguements from July & August here, from several articles, if you so wish to (again) trash Bentley (you left out "she was neither blonde nor beautiful", or "slut"), if you wish to recycle The Nation and the New York Times. Frankly, I am about to challenge the New York Times blatantly sexist language "Blond Spy Queen" someone had inserted into the Bentley article.

Now if the name of the game is to trash sources, we'll reserve comment on what has been called "a Kremlin directed Stalinist mouthpiece" which itself has two correspondents named in the Venona decrpyts, and seems to be the only source Cberlet has located to challenge the U.S. governments case. nobs 02:43, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

I will cut & paste a previous post from memory (I'll find it sooner or later): Bentley did not win any friends at the FBI when she walked into the New Haven field office. The FBI knew of exactly 5 (five) Soviet spies from 1942 to 1945; when Bentley named 82 more, it didn't make the FBI appear to being doing their job to good, especially during a National State of Emergency.

See: Talk:Elizabeth_Bentley#Reference for further discussion on the subject, we can begin with Stephen J. Spingarn, Asst. to the Attorney General of the United States, 1937-38; 1946-49; Alternate Member, President's Temp. Comm. on Employee Loyalty, 1946-47; Asst. to the Special Counsel of the President, 1949-50; Administrative Asst. to the President, 1950; from the Truman Library, pgs. 682, 711, 767, 769 - 777, 790.

What does this have to do with editing the paragraph?--Cberlet 03:41, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps I missed which paragraph you refered to in the first sentence of this subhead regarding what I'm "ok" with. nobs 03:45, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Since you ignored the first paragraph I posted, I assumed it was OK:

• The FBI reports that Magdoff and others were probed as part of "a major espionage investigation spanning the years 1945 through 1959" into an alleged "Soviet spy ring which supposedly had 27 individuals gathering information from at least six Federal agencies. However, none of the subjects were indicted by the Grand Jury.".

In this section, with the heading "Bentley" we are discussing my proposal for the following paragraph:

• The accusation that Magdoff was working for Soviet intelligence was itself not new; it had originated with defector Elizabeth Bentley who provided this information to the FBI, which then launched an investigation of Magdoff. Bentley, an unstable alcoholic, later became a star witness during McCarthy era hearings, and made her living lecturing as a professional anticommunist. While the Venona documents confirm some of Bentley's claims, other claims remain uncorroborated, and Bentley's record is dogged by her penchant for exaggerating her role in communist espionage, and stretching the truth.

I assumed you would want to rewrite it. If you are having difficulty understanding the procedure, simply review the previous text. We are taking one paragraph at a time, and working on it until we reach an agreement on NPOV and accurate wording. Then we move on to the next paragraph. It's all explained above. Please write an alternative to the paragraph on Bentley that I have just proposed...again.--Cberlet 03:53, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I do have difficulty understanding. I thought we were going to finish discussion on the intext citation as per NACIC. I see you made a GPO request. Very good. I hope you will share that information when it becomes available. Now secondly, once that is established, that still does not resolve the issue regarding the intext citation. No matter what, Mr. Rafalko cannot be cited as the voice speaking "The following were members of the Victor Perlo Network." He is not the speaker or author. He is only the editor. In the absence of Footnote 59, the document itself becomes the source, not an editor (particularly, an editor that made glaring mistakes). nobs 04:02, 25 September 2005 (UTC).

A number of authors suggest that Magdoff was a member of the Perlo network, but the initial accusation came from Bentley, and was pursued by the FBI. That's why the first paragraph was important:

• The FBI reports that Magdoff and others were probed as part of "a major espionage investigation spanning the years 1945 through 1959" into an alleged "Soviet spy ring which supposedly had 27 individuals gathering information from at least six Federal agencies. However, none of the subjects were indicted by the Grand Jury.".

So, according to the FBI, it was never verified that Magdoff was a spy. As for Magdoff being a member of the Perlo network of suspected communists and suspected Soviet Spys, we know that is what the FBI thought because it was in the 1946 FBI memo. So until we verify the Counterintelligence Redaer cite and footnotes, we really cannot rely on it for establishing that Magdoff was part of the Perlo network. But since we have the primary FBI document from 1946, we can cite that, which is convenient, because it is clear in that primary document, that the original accusation comes from Bentley.

You recently inserted the following in the Harry Magdoff and espionage page:

• According to publication by an agency of the United States Government, the National Couniterintelligence Center's Counterintelligence Reader,Magdoff was a member of the Perlo group of Soviet agents.

Forgive me, but I would characterize that as factually false, based on the discussion on this page, and the cite has been shamelessly hyped to the point of being a misrepresentation. So the intext cite does matter, and that is what we have been discussing. We do not need a cite to what is accurately cited as Rafalko, as demonstrated repeatedly above. We have the primary document from the FBI from 1946. By citing to that document, we have a primary source, and avoid the issue of shamelessly hyping the cite to Rafalko into the wordy and dubious: "publication by an agency of the United States Government, the National Couniterintelligence Center's Counterintelligence Reader." Furthermore, the Rafalko reader does not state that Magdoff was "a member of the Perlo group of Soviet agents," it states that Bently claimed Magdoff was a Soviet Spy, the FBI called the network the "Perlo Group," and we know the FBI is more cautios, and states:

• The FBI reports that Magdoff and others were probed as part of "a major espionage investigation spanning the years 1945 through 1959" into an alleged "Soviet spy ring which supposedly had 27 individuals gathering information from at least six Federal agencies. However, none of the subjects were indicted by the Grand Jury.".

So even the FBI disagrees with your claims. Perhaps now you will return to editing the paragraph we are actually working on:

• The accusation that Magdoff was working for Soviet intelligence was itself not new; it had originated with defector Elizabeth Bentley who provided this information to the FBI, which then launched an investigation of Magdoff. Bentley, an unstable alcoholic, later became a star witness during McCarthy era hearings, and made her living lecturing as a professional anticommunist. While the Venona documents confirm some of Bentley's claims, other claims remain uncorroborated, and Bentley's record is dogged by her penchant for exaggerating her role in communist espionage, and stretching the truth.

Please try to focus your attention on actually editing this text.--Cberlet 04:32, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Nobs01's obstinacy over allowing me to make small changes on William Remington led me to read more and more and more about Elizabeth Bentley, and the more I read, the more flaky behavior I kept reading about. A lot of the information about her is on the William Remington page or in the WR talk page. WR sued her for libel in 1948. Before he sued her, she had been all over, at hearings, on TV etc. After he sued her she disappeared, to where there were headlines such as "RED WITNESS MISSING AT 100-G SLANDER SUIT" on the front page of the New York Daily Mirror. After the publicity she re-emerged - and lost the case. So she lost a libel suit against someone she accused in court. She also had contradictory testimony (although I like the way you put it better, "lies").

Of course, Nobs01 calls the Nation "a Kremlin directed Stalinist mouthpiece", so I'm not really sure where you go from there. You'd hope that others reading this would get a proper perspective of all of this without having to read everything when he opens his mouth to say something, but this is Misplaced Pages after all, so... Ruy Lopez 09:23, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Response:

This bogus arguement has been disposed of three times by another editor (actually four, I found another I'll have to cut and past to the cut & pasted response here); (and I'm refered to as "obstinate"); see

• Talk:Harry_Magdoff_and_espionage#Evidence.2Fprosecution,
• Talk:Elizabeth_Bentley#Remington_libel_suit,
• Talk:Joseph_McCarthy#Venona,

Further as per The Nation I used the weasel term "has been described as", so like Ruy, I'm just repeating gossip. But Ruy is to be congratulated, despite two notices to his User Page that I no longer consider his editing in good faith, he provoked a response out of me. And I appologize to other readers of this page for wasting their time having to read this digression. God Bless. nobs 05:11, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Counterintelligence Reader

Nobs, we have had this discussion endlessly on this page. Now you bring it back up as if it had not been settled. You engage in surreal circumlocation and omphaloskeptic nit-picking to mask the fact that your claims can not be backed up.

If you are going to insist on plonking your innaccurate and POV text into Talk:Harry Magdoff and espionage and Talk:Harry Magdoff, I will renew the request for mediation, and seek page protection on both pages. We are supposed to be working out a compromise text here. I am willing, for the time being, to not refer to Rafalko's Counterintellignce Reader in the text. Under no circumstances is it acceptable to allow your fictitious, innacurate, and inflated cite to a "publication by an agency of the United States Government, the National Couniterintelligence Center's Counterintelligence Reader." That is hogwash, and you know it, and anyone who has read this discussion knows it. We have access to a primary document with the underlying information about who claimed Magdoff was a Soviet spy (Bentley) and how the FBI listed the group under investigation (The Perlo Group).. The only reason you insist on using the Counterintellignce Reader is to continue to insert your fraudulent cite that implies Magdoff was a spy and that this was certified by "an agency" of the U.S government. This is an outright fabrication. It has been exposed as an outright fabrication, and yet you continue to post this false text into two of the pages under discussion here.

I have repeatedly pointed to scholarly and library sources that properly cite the Counterintellignce Reader in some form such as this:

• Rafalko, Frank J., ed. A Counterintelligence Reader: American Revolution to World War II, Volume One. Washington, DC: NACIC, c. 1998.

In addition, it is surreal to claim that we do not have accurate information about the author/editor of the Counterintellignce Reader and we should wait for that information, and at the same time use information from that book and craft an idiosyncratic and ludicrous cite to inflate your claims. --Cberlet 14:08, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

The bibliographic citation I do not believe is in dispute; it is the intext citation. Raflako is not (1) the editor as per primary source (2) the author (3) the person speaking. The intext citation requires a source. "Rafalko" is not acceptable. The document, as a primary source, is the proper citation. The document needs a proper introduction as to who and what it is. Rafalko's name could be presented (as per the secondary FAS citation), as editor, once the introduction to the primary source, "a publication by an agency of the United States Government, the National Couniterintelligence Center's Counterintelligence Reader" is presented. That would read as such, "National Couniterintelligence Center's Counterintelligence Reader, Frank J. Rafalko, ed.".

--->We could discuss as to at what point the intial introduction to the CI Reader is made; perhaps presenting it earlier, making a separation, then using language as you propose, "According to the Rafalko Reader, Magdoff was a member of the Perlo group".

P.S. Please desist from the incessant innuendo you employ to (a) discredit me (b) accuse me of being unreasonable (c) mischaracterization of the substance of this discussion. A tireless examination of these unfounded misrepresentations will not support your claim. Also, please desist from personal references and address only issues of substance under discussion relating to the articles we are working on. nobs 18:55, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

No one is disputing that the FBI put in writing in 1946 (now declassified and available online) that Magdoff was, in their words, based on the allegations of Elizabeth Bentley, a member of what the FBI dubbed "The Perlo Group." There is no need to hype the claim. It is an established fact. The objection is to the improper hyping of the source. Following your suggestion, we would write:

• According to the Yale University Press, a publication of a respected university, Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America, Magdoff was a member of the Perlo Group.

And then when next mentioned:

• Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America, John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr.

That is not the proper way to cite information anywhere on this planet.

Furthermore, there is no reason to cite Counterintelligence Reader at all. It is an edited secondary source with missing footnotes that would help establish where the linkage of Magdoff to the Perlo group comes from in the main text. The proper cite still has not been confirmed, and we have a primary source that clearly states that the FBI considered Magdoff part of the Perlo group.

If you want to include the Counterintelligence Reader as a backup secondary source, the proper citation would be either "Rafalko" or simply Counterintelligence Reader. The publisher of the source being cited is not generally included in the text. In any case, nowhere in either Rafalko, or Haynes and Klehr, does it state that Magdoff was a spy, and even the FBI does not claim that everyone in the Perlo Group was a spy -- just a suspected spy -- and the source of that claim is Elizabeth Bentley. Once we clear away all the obfuscatory debris, we are left with ambiguity in many areas. What we know is that Bentley made the claim that Magdoff was a spy, and the FBI listed Magdoff as part of what they called the Perlo Group. Magdoff was investigated, but never prosectued. Nothing in the Counterintelligence Reader suggests otherwise.

Real cites, factual summaries, NPOV language. --Cberlet 19:24, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Cberlet uses words like "absurd" and "surreal". Let's look at what Cberlet proposes.

"According to Rafalko, Magdoff was a member of the Perlo group." When the neutral reader clicks on the primary source, they find Rafalko does not exist. When they click back to the article notes, they read "Frank J. Rafalko, ed., NACIC, CI Reader". Then going back to the source they see NACIC does not exist.

What is our hapless neutral non Anglocentric school reader to make of this?

(1) improper citation

(2) sloppy research

(3) broken link

There is no excuse for this. It only serves the POV to obsure the fact that the National Counterintelligence Center's Counterintelligence Reader lists Magdoff as a member of the Perlo group. nobs 20:00, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Nobs, when you check the footnotes about Magdoff being in the Perlo Group from the online version of Rafalko's Counterintelligence Reader they are missing from this publication on both the ONCIX website and the FAS website. So citing the online version is citing a secondary source with missing footnotes. Nobody is disputing that the FBI, based on Bentley's claims, listed Magdoff as being in the Perlo group for purposes of investigation. We have the underlying primary FBI document that states this clearly. Or, if you would prefer, the secondary Haynes and Klehr book, Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America, lists Magdoff as being in the Perlo Group on page 357. You cannot argue that on the one hand there is missing citation information and missing footnotes in the Counterintelligence Reader, and then insist that we use this publication as the cite. It simply makes no sense.--Cberlet 21:13, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Frameing the issue

The present dispute arises largely from unpublished Footnote 59. Cberlet shows signs of generally coming to understand the problem. For the folks viewing at home, I will provide some narrative to give some meaningful context.

Why was Footnote 59 withheld? We don't know.

Theory and analogy: The contents of footnote 59 probably contain reference to a yet declassifed file, let's call it FBI file XYZ-12345 for example. Once a reference to FBI file XYZ-12345 is published, it becomes open source, and can be subject to a Freedom of Information Act request. Why does FBI file XYZ-12345 remain classified? It may contain the name of an informer, for example, who ratted out certain individuals, and the informer still has grandchildren alive. The government must give careful consideration before releasing the contents of FBI file XYZ-12345, or any reference to it, because someone may take revenge against the grandchildren. Not difinitive, this is only intended to set you thinking in the direction as to why the government has yet to declassify certain things.

Why did the NACIC go defunct? Probably a victim of post-Cold War downsizing. In the post-911 era, counterintelligence in America has again become a big concern, and the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive (ONCIX) has taken over its function.

Why didn't, or why doesn't the NACIC or ONCIX slap the name of an editor on the publication? Perhaps it's the first rule of survival in a bureacracy, don't take credit for anything, then you can't be blamed for anything.

Why is an intext citation necessary? Because of unpublished footnote 59 (as per MLA style manual).

Why was the Counterintelligence Reader authored and released? The document's abstract, cited several times explains. it largely serves two purposes (1) as a training manual for Counterintelligence Officers learning the craft (2) an historical narrative to put the United States governments understanding in perspective of Counterintelligence operations after the release of the Venona materials. It draws on all sources known within the "Intelligence Community", including still classified materials. It is the U.S. Governments primary source for interpreting the meaning of Venona materials (and other controversial materials) in open source, that exists in the form of historical narrative. And we can surmise that there will be in the future additions, or corrections in spelling. nobs 21:57, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Nonsense. Typical circular logic and failure to answer basic questions. We have TWO undisputed cites for Magdoff being assigned to the Perlo Group for investigative purposes. TWO. One is a PRIMARY document prepared by the FBI in 1946 and now available online. AND, a book reference (Haynes & Klehr) supplied by Nobs himself.

Nobs typically argues in circles until editors give up in frustration. He has done this for months to several editors on numerous pages. This dispute is not about footnote 59, which is missing! This dispute is about getting simple answers to simple questions about editing straightforward text. This subheading is another in a long series of ludicrous side issues created by Nobs instead of actually discussing text on this page. --Cberlet 23:51, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Cberlet: I would suggest the above posting properly belongs on the Talk:Harry Magdoff and espionage page; this is the Venona project article. Note (A), the posting was not directed at you, (B) the CI Reader, and the contents of Footnote 59, and discussion of primary sources of the United States Government open source declassified documents is not limited to Mr. Harry Magdoff. While I can appreciate your best efforts to trash me, please understand this subject goes beyond your pet POV of denying what open source documents of the US government say about Mr Harry Magdoff. Thank you. nobs 03:58, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Start Over - Simple Sentences, Simple questions

Nobs, do you agree that these simple statements are an accurate and NPOV version of events. PLEASE DO NOT START AN ARGUMENT OVER CITES. We can find cites later. Please just edit the sentences below so that they reflect an accurate and NPOV version of events:

• Elizabeth Bentley told the FBI that Harry Magdoff was passing information to the Soviets.

The FBI launched an investigation based on Bentley's claims.

• The FBI divided those under investigation into the Silvermaster Group and the Perlo Group.

• Magdoff was listed by the FBI as in the Perlo Group.

• Information in the secret Venona documents provided evidence that at the very least, the Soviet espionage apparatus was interested in Magdoff as a potential information source.

• A memo discussing the Venona documents in terms of the FBI investigation suggested that in order to successfully prosecute those under investigation, the Venona documents would have to be made public, and even then, the evidence was not always clear, and the identification of persons by code names could be challenged, and in some cases the identification was problematic.

• The government decided not to prosecute.

• The FBI, to this day, is still cautious in its wording of this matter.

• Some scholars and journalists rely heavily on the Venona documents, and suggest they corroborate much of Bentley's testimony.

• Other scholars and journalists disagree.

• No publication by a reputable scholar or journalist comes right out and says Magdoff was a spy for the Soviet Union.

If you disagree, rewrite the sentences below.--Cberlet 23:57, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

What has this discussion produced?

Cberlet has shifted his arguement from "agency" , to "Rafalko" , and now "let's pretend it doesn't exist", to advance his consistent POV that a publication by the United States Government's, National Counterintelligence Center, A Counterintelligence Reader, does not say what it does say, "The following were members of the Victor Perlo Network".

Now Cberlet proposes original research to interpret the meaning of what the United States Government has already studied and published.

(incidently, here we see Cberlet deleting his own wording here , then accusing me off all sorts of nasty things when its pretty obvious I was restoring his own edit. I'm not gonna get into the game of trashing & innuendo. The histories tell the story). nobs 02:45, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

The "United States Government" did not edit or publish the "Counterintelligence Reader." Rafalko was the editor, the "National Counterintelligence Center" was the publisher. There is no dispute that the FBI created a file for investigation in which Magdoff was listed as a member of the Perlo Group. We can cite any one of three publications to footnote that fact. What Nobs has consistently done is to inflate the cite by using the following non-standard form. Here is one example:

• "According to United States Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive (ONCIX) Official History, Magdoff was a member of the Perlo group of Soviet spies."

and another:

• "According to publication by an agency of the United States Government, the National Couniterintelligence Center's Counterintelligence Reader, Magdoff was a member of the Perlo group of Soviet agents."

All of this verbiage is POV hyperbole, and it is not factual. The Counterintelligence Reader,does not identify Magdoff as a Soviet Spy or Soviet Agent. The Counterintelligence Reader,cites Bentley as charging Magdoff with being a spy, and then lists him under the heading "Perlo Group." We know the name "the Perlo Group" was used by the FBI for its investigation. We have the primary source document from the FBI dated 1946.

I have proposed numerous alternative phrasings for the text, and repeatedly asked Nobs for a response. rather than editing the text here, Nobs writes long essays that are generally incomprehensible or self-contradicting. He then goes to the Harry Magdoff and Harry Magdoff and espionage pages and reinserts his factually false and improperly cited text back into the pages.

Here are two different wordings I have proposed:

• "Several sources indicate Magdoff was investigated as a member of what was called the Perlo group....The public accusation that Magdoff was working for Soviet intelligence was itself not new; it had originated with defector Elizabeth Bentley who provided this information to the FBI and later testified to that same effect in open hearings. Bentley told the FBI....Rafalko's Counterintelligence Reader repeats the claim that Magdoff was a member of the Perlo group of Soviet agents."

• "Elizabeth Bentley charged that a number of government employees had worked on behalf of the Soviets in the late 1930s and early 1940s. According to Rafalko's Counterintelligence Reader, Magdoff was a member of the Perlo group.(See pg. 31) "

Nobs, please tell me what is wrong with those wordings.--Cberlet 04:35, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

What is the purpose? You have just accused me of something you know is not true. We agreed on NACIC citation, and I made the change from ONCIX, yet you just posted "consistently", You know that is in fact not true. Please exhibit good faith in your representations. nobs 04:55, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

This is the accepted format per MLA for a Federal Agency Report.

• United States. National Counterintelligence Center. A Counterintelligence Reader. NACIC, no date. <http://www.nacic.gov/history/index.html> nobs 05:50, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

And if you want to go back and change all the "Works Referenced" citations on all the pages you edit to the MLA format, you go right ahead. Of course, in this case you have simply erased the fact that Rafalko is listed as the editor in library catalogs and exisiting scholarly citations. But let's set that aside for the moment. We are awaiting clarification of the cite from a government agency.

So here is a compromise suggestion. All we have to do is write:

• "Magdoff was investigated by the FBI as being a member of the Perlo group of suspected Soviet spies." ftn1 ftn2

The footnotes can be linked to both the Counterintelligence Reader and the 1946 FBI Silversmith memo.--Cberlet 12:47, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

I propose we leave no reference to the phrase "Soviet spies" in the passage in question. The CI Reader does not use that phrase, it simply references "Victor Perlo Network". We have successfully articulated the problems with the primary source document in question (recap:primary source document online does not list an editor; original issuing authority is defunct; online source is a successor agency; editors attribution drawn from a secondary source; classified footnotes; typographical errors in orginal).

There are two issues under consideration: the name of the citation, and an intext reference to that name. My sense is we are not that far apart on the name of the citation. That the source document is a U.S Government publication, and not a private or academic publication I do not believe can be disputed. There appears to be some disagreement upon how this should be represented in the body of the text given the aforementioned recap.

I would suggest that consultation should be given to this specific issue: an intext citation to a U.S. government publication. As you have presented an arguement, "Rafalko" intext is adaquate; I believe this is unqualified and mistaken. If "Ralalko" is to be used, "Rafalko" needs a proper introduction & qualification to the readers, that "Rafalko" is not an academic historian or private researcher; that "Rafalko" is the editor of a United States Government sponsored "study" , or "account" of Soviet espionage in the United States. I believe this fits the definition of a Federal Agency Report, and should be identified as such in the body of the text. It is a minor point to argue whether it is "corporate" or "authored". Either way, it needs to be identified in the text as U.S. government authorized, sponsored & issued (language negotiable). I intend to spend sometime on the stylistic prose to get it correct. I welcome assistance, cooperation, and collaboration. Thank you. nobs 18:13, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

We know that the FBI listed Magdoff as part of the Perlo Group as early as 1946. By hyping the cite, it makes it seem that the U.S. government has certified that Magdoff was a member of the Perlo group. That, of course, would be an outright falsehood, and I am sure we both want to avoid that. The issue here is that you want to avoid mentioning Elizabeth Bentley, who is important since she first accused Magdoff of being a Soviet spy--a charge that has never been substantiated. Even Haynes and Klehr refuse to call Magdoff a spy, and if we even implied that, it would be an outright falsehood, and I am sure we both want to avoid that. And after Magdoff was publically identified by Bentley in Red Scare or McCarthy Ear hearings (your choice), he was dogged by accusations he was a Soviet spy, but even the FBI does not say that, and to suggest otherwise would be an outright falsehood, and I am sure we both want to avoid that. So stop trying to inflate the cite to the Counterintelligence Reader, because we both agree there is a problem in figuring out the proper citation, and the crucial footnote about where the mention of the Perlo Group is cited to by Rafalko is missing from the online version, and to suggest otherwise would be an outright falsehood, and I am sure we both want to avoid that. Looking forward to crafting an accurate and NPOV version of the text.--Cberlet 18:54, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

As per Complete Guide to Citing Government Information Resources, revised edition -- ALA Government Documents Round Table (GODORT) , given the particulars the proper citation is Title, Issuing Agency, Publisher, Date of Issue, with no reference derived from secondary source. nobs 19:32, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Excellent, so in the body of the text we simply refer to the Counterintelligence Reader, and then footnote it to the cite format you just suggested. Finally, an agreement!--Cberlet 19:36, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Let's try it. nobs 19:40, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Link to FEDERAL AGENCY REPORT WITH CORPORATE AUTHOR, Citing Government Information Sources Using MLA (Modern Language Association) Style , i.e. "Corporate Author" no reference to secondary source, i.e. "Rafalko". nobs 20:03, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

a U.S. government agency

Cberlet: The phrase, "a U.S. government agency", needs to be inserted in both articles, per all style manuals, to introduce CI Reader, somewhere between the opening sentence and the footnote to NACIC CI Reader. I do not believe it can be watered down any less than this. Please make a suggestion where you wish to place it.

Outline for an agreement: "a U.S. government agency" intext; "The Counterintelligence Reader names Magdoff as a member of the Perlo group"; footnote to citation; Bentley is not second-guessed or trashed.

Trade-off: no second guessing Bentley and no full qualification of "According to an agency of the United States Government, the National Counterintelligence Center, in thier publication A Counterintelligence Reader, Magdoff was a member of the Perlo group" within the body of the text.

Please let me know if this is acceptable. Thank you. nobs 21:21, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Cberlet: The opening two paragraphs give us this: "an agency declares...", followed by "An FBI report says supposedly..."; this may be the necessary amibiguity you are seeking because the agency is not identified as NACIC (ONCIX) and could be taken to mean FBI. In truth, this is a fairly accurate reading of the U.S. Govt. primary source documents we can be proud of. I hope we have achieved NPOV. All that remains in minimizing the weasel words (allegedly, supposedly, claims, etc.), not devouring each others sources, and one other minor thing I forgot but will come to mind sooner or later. In the truelly collaborative spirit, I remain your humble servant, nobs 16:48, 27 September 2005 (UTC)