text: The Venona Secrets is a deceptive book. It tries to pass itself off as an objective portrait of Soviet spying in the US, but by the time the reader is a third of the way in it becomes apparent that the authors are more interested in smearing "Liberals" than in painting a true portrait of their subject. Although the information the authors provide is interesting, the biased and heavy-handed way it's presented negates whatever scientific value it might have. For example, the authors insist that J. Robert Oppenheimer was working for the Soviets (they call this a "fact") yet they present absolutely no proof that Oppenheimer was anything more than an idealistic, naive man who couldn't keep his mouth shut and whose only contribution to the advancement of Communism in America was money to the CPUSA. The book is full of these so-called "facts" with little to nothing to back them up. The authors praise Joe McCarthy and claim in the last chapter of the book that he was barely a factor in the anti-Communist hysteria of the 1940's and 1950's, ignoring the fact that MCCarthy capitalized on fears of Communism obscenely and was wrong far more than he was right about who was and was not loyal. McCarthy's methods of terrorism and hypocrisy in running hearings that could have been chaired by Stalin are completely overlooked, as are the innocent lives he destroyed in his smear campaign. The authors also praise Senator Henry Jackson as some sort of all-American crusader against Communism, not even mentioning that all of Jackson's anti-Communist attacks were motivated by his virulent anti-Semistism and hatred of blacks. Overall this book is nothing more than an indictment of Liberal ideology -- one can simply hear the disdain for Liberals dripping from the authors' prose -- and should not be given much credence by scholars not interested in right-wing propaganda who want an objective account of Venona. The authors have sacrificed their credibility for their Conservative agenda; they deserve not to be taken seriously
  