William Cotter married Virginia Alicia McMahon, a cryptanalyst at Arlington Hall (VENONA), 1949. Spousal immunity? Did Soviets know we had broken their code BEFORE so far publicly acknowledged? I.e. NOT from Weisband but from McMahon/Cotter? IMPORTANT. (Would explain need for mail opening program from '51-'73.
Shils called for a “functional secrecy” that would protect the society from “genuine external danger.”[9] What he feared was secrecy that was not functional but symbolic.
[P]art of the war of fantasy which the pure and good conduct incessantly with corruption and evil until the Last Judgment. The secrecy demanded by ideological extremism in the United States and in Soviet Russia, in Soviet China and in the Soviet satellites is not connected with national security except by the occasion which crises provide for fanatics to focus their excited fantasies.[10]
What Shils did not know, something none of us knew until John M. Deutch in his role as Director of Central Intelligence and a member of the Secrecy Commission made the archive public, was that the United States had by then intercepted and decrypted the text of Soviet cables going back to World War II: the VENONA project. The first such cable was broken by Meredith Gardener in a requisitioned girls’ school, Arlington Hall, not far from the Pentagon on December 20, 1946. It contained a list of the principal scientists at Los Alamos. Looking over Gardner’s shoulder was one William W. Weisband, an Army corporal, a cipher clerk, a spy. By the time Shils published (1956) the United States military and law enforcement agencies knew all about the Soviet attack, or all that they needed to know, and had pretty much rolled up the entire operation.
Outstanding. McCord debriefed Powers as well.
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp88-01350r000200460018-5
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80-01601R000200190001-2.pdf
Circle here of McMahon, McCord, William Cotter ...
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp75-00001r000400130017-2
William Cotter married Virginia Alicia McMahon, a cryptanalyst at Arlington Hall (VENONA), 1949. Spousal immunity? Did Soviets know we had broken their code BEFORE so far publicly acknowledged? I.e. NOT from Weisband but from McMahon/Cotter? IMPORTANT. (Would explain need for mail opening program from '51-'73.
https://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/11/obituaries/william-cotter-74-ex-official-in-cia-and-postal-service-dies.html
https://www.nytimes.com/1949/09/04/archives/virginia-mmah___-on-bride-married-to-william-j-cotter-department-of.html
Shils called for a “functional secrecy” that would protect the society from “genuine external danger.”[9] What he feared was secrecy that was not functional but symbolic.
[P]art of the war of fantasy which the pure and good conduct incessantly with corruption and evil until the Last Judgment. The secrecy demanded by ideological extremism in the United States and in Soviet Russia, in Soviet China and in the Soviet satellites is not connected with national security except by the occasion which crises provide for fanatics to focus their excited fantasies.[10]
What Shils did not know, something none of us knew until John M. Deutch in his role as Director of Central Intelligence and a member of the Secrecy Commission made the archive public, was that the United States had by then intercepted and decrypted the text of Soviet cables going back to World War II: the VENONA project. The first such cable was broken by Meredith Gardener in a requisitioned girls’ school, Arlington Hall, not far from the Pentagon on December 20, 1946. It contained a list of the principal scientists at Los Alamos. Looking over Gardner’s shoulder was one William W. Weisband, an Army corporal, a cipher clerk, a spy. By the time Shils published (1956) the United States military and law enforcement agencies knew all about the Soviet attack, or all that they needed to know, and had pretty much rolled up the entire operation.
https://politicalanthro.wordpress.com/the-science-of-secrecy-daniel-patrick-moynihan/