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→VENONA files - added Moynihan info
===VENONA files===
===VENONA files===
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, documents from the [[KGB]] and [[Comintern]] Archives in [[Moscow]] became available to researchers and the public for the first time, corroborating the facts of McCarthy's undelying premise. In the United States, the [[Moynihan Secrecy Commission]] was empowered by statute to investigate and secure documents from the [[National Security Agency]] and the [[FBI]] which had remained classified for more than 40 years. The Secrecy Commission's Final Report found that,
{{Cquote|But for every accusation there was a denial. ... For all who could agree there were Communists in government, there were as many who saw the Government as contriving fantastic accusations against innocent persons. A balanced history of this period is now beginning to appear; the [[VENONA]] messages will surely supply a great cache of facts to bring the matter to some closure....
The first fact is that a significant Communist conspiracy was in place in Washington, New York, and Los Angeles, but in the main those involved systematically denied their involvement. <ref>Moynihan Commission on Government Secrecy, Appendix [http://www.gpo.gov/congress/commissions/secrecy/pdf/12hist1.pdf ''The Experience of the Bomb,''] pg. A-33.</ref>}}
Hayden Peake, curator of the [[Central Intelligence Agency]]’s Historical Intelligence Collection has stated, "No modern government was more thoroughly penetrated." <ref>Peale, Hayden B., [http://www.nwc.navy.mil/press/review/2000/summer/re2-su0.htm ''The Venona Progeny''], Naval War College Review, Summer 2000, Vol. LIII, No. 3.</ref>
In 1995, when the VENONA transcripts were declassified, further detailed information was revealed about Soviet espionage in the United States. FBI Director [[J. Edgar Hoover]] was among only a handful of people in the U.S. Government who was aware of the Venona project, and there is no indication whatsoever Hoover shared Venona information with McCarthy. In fact, Hoover may have actually fed McCarthy disinformation, or dead end files, in an effort to put pressure on relatives, friends, or close associates of real Venona suspects by threatening to reveal embarrassing information about them in a public forum if they failed to cooperate and reveal what they might have known about someone's else’s activities and associations. And there is no indication McCarthy might have known he was being used by Hoover in this way.
In 1995, when the VENONA transcripts were declassified, further detailed information was revealed about Soviet espionage in the United States. FBI Director [[J. Edgar Hoover]] was among only a handful of people in the U.S. Government who was aware of the Venona project, and there is no indication whatsoever Hoover shared Venona information with McCarthy. In fact, Hoover may have actually fed McCarthy disinformation, or dead end files, in an effort to put pressure on relatives, friends, or close associates of real Venona suspects by threatening to reveal embarrassing information about them in a public forum if they failed to cooperate and reveal what they might have known about someone's else’s activities and associations. And there is no indication McCarthy might have known he was being used by Hoover in this way.