From: attila <attila@hun.org>
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1998 08:31:11 -0700 (PDT)
To: Jim Gillogly <cypherpunks@toad.com>
Subject: Re: FDR
In-Reply-To: <9807272025.AA16791@mentat.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.3.96.980728011751.5602B-100000@hun.org>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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On Mon, 27 Jul 1998, Jim Gillogly wrote:

>Woops, cryptography relevance inadvertently embedded in a farrago by Attila:
>
>>     I always wanted to believe Alger Hiss was innocent as his son Tony 
>>     was in my class at Harvard --he wasnt innocent, nor were the Rosenbergs 
>>     as the CIA had cracked the code but would not show it in court --they 
>>     even knew who handed over the trigger mechanism (never punished and he 
>>     left the U.S. after the Manhattan project and taught for many years at 
>>     Oxford).
>
>For one thing, the CIA didn't crack the VENONA ciphers: it was the
>Signal Intelligence Service at Arlington Hall, a predecessor of the
>NSA, and NSA continued the cracks for the next three decades.
>
	you are absolutely correct --my gaffe. CIA has never worked code
	to my knowledge. in fact, the old man who was the lead
	mathematician on the Verona project just died, did he not?

>While the VENONA decrypts do indeed establish the Rosenbergs' guilt
>beyond reasonable doubt, the evidence about Alger Hiss is more
>tenuous.  The only relevant evidence released is a single decrypt at
>http://www.nsa.gov:8080/docs/venona/docs/Mar45/30_Mar_1945_R3_m4_p1.gif
>about an interview with a Communist agent code-named ALES.  A footnote
>says ALES is "Probably Alger Hiss".  The text of the message says that
>ALES was at the Yalta conference (Alger Hiss was in fact there) and
>went on to Moscow (I don't know whether Hiss did this or not, nor how
>many others of the rather large American team did so).
>
	I believe he went on to Moscow since he was one of FDR's two or
	three top people. I would need to reread the rather long paper
	on the various people involved and just how close McCarthy was
	to a truth he could not prove --didn't make McCarthy any less of a
	scumbag, though. I read the Alger Hiss portions of the documen-
	tation rather carefully because of the personal friendship I had
	with Tony who was a very genuine, refined individual (we were
  	on the Harvard Crimson editorial staff together). I will also
	check your reference on Verona, but I believe there is more in
	the open records which ties it down.

	what is interesting is the number of intelligent individuals who
	not only believe in the concept of socialism/communism, but were
	essentially apologists for Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, etc. through
	the period 1917-1950. it was if the pain of Russia's people was
	just a catharsis on the road to Utopia --by 1950, the apologia 
	wore rather thin...

	the guilt of the man who passed the trigger from White Sands is
	confirmed beyond a doubt by Verona also.
>
>In any case, the identification is less than certain, and much less
>definitive than the Rosenberg data.
>
	granted, but with the outside information, sufficient I believe
	to raise more than an eyebrow and Alger Hiss certainly should not
	have been in the position of trust and power that he was. part of
	the evidence is based on process of elimination --if not Hiss,
	who was standing at FDR's side in incident or "give-up" time and
	time again?  with or without the McCarthy Red scare, I think the
	evidence was sufficient to convict, but then and again, I am known
	to be wrong --as above...

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_________________________________________________________________ attila__