Stalin's Spies and America's Forgotten Codebreakers

How did a team black women codebreakers help the United States understand Stalin’s Soviet Union and prevent a potentially catastrophic Cold War miscalculation? In this episode, James speaks with historian and author Sarah Valentine (@sarahvalentinewriter) about Decoding the Devil: Black Women Codebreakers and the Secret War Against Stalin’s Bomb, a book that reveals how Soviet spies penetrated American intelligence and the Manhattan Project, forcing the United States to turn to a team of black codebreakers and data processors to fight a secret war against the Soviet Union. The discussion ranges from Project Venona to the exploits of double agent William Weisband, to Soviet atomic bomb program and the overlooked black women of Arlington Hall who transformed intercepted Soviet telegrams into vital intelligence, despite segregation and institutional discrimination. Covered in this Episode Stalin’s Spy Network: How Joseph Stalin inherited Russia’s secret police tradition and built a global espionage network, including the Cambridge Five and Soviet agents inside Western intelligence. William Weisband and the Insider Threat: How Russian linguist and Army intelligence insider William Weisband, codenamed Link, betrayed American codebreaking secrets to the Soviets. Atomic Espionage and the Manhattan Project: How Klaus Fuchs, Harry Gold, David Greenglass, and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg helped Soviet intelligence obtain American nuclear secrets. Truman, Stalin, and the Atomic Bomb: Why Stalin already knew about the American atomic bomb when Harry Truman spoke to him at Potsdam in July 1945. Project Venona and Soviet Codes: How American cryptanalysts exploited duplicated Soviet one-time pads to decrypt messages and identify Soviet espionage networks. Arlington Hall and the Plantation: How Black women codebreakers worked in the Signals Intelligence Service’s Traffic Processing Division under segregated, restrictive conditions. Black Friday and the Soviet Intelligence Blackout: How Weisband’s betrayal contributed to the Soviet communications shutdown in 1948 and left American intelligence scrambling for answers. Russian Plaintext and the Soviet Economy: How African American women scanned Soviet telegraph messages for military movements, industrial production, and economic intelligence. The Soviet Atomic Bomb Test: How the August 1949 RDS-1 nuclear test, known in America as Joe-1, exposed major weaknesses in American intelligence assessments. Operation Drop Shot and Nuclear War: How incomplete intelligence and exaggerated threat estimates raised the prospect of a preemptive nuclear strike against the Soviet Union. Soap Flakes and Early Computing: How the codebreakers helped develop a secret language-processing machine in the 1950s that automated aspects of their work. Sarah Valentine’s Historical Recovery: How the women’s careers, pensions, and later testimonies illuminate the intersection of Cold War intelligence, civil rights, and the history of computing. Mentioned in this Episode Joseph Stalin, James Crossland, Sarah Valentine, History’s Devils, Decoding the Devil: Black Women Codebreakers and the Secret War Against Stalin’s Bomb, The Secret Codebreakers, Vladimir Lenin, Ivan the Terrible, Nicholas I, William Weisband (William Weissband), Koba, Yoseb Jughashvili, the Cheka, the Okhrana, the Third Section, the Oprichniki, the Decembrist Revolt, the Gulag, the Holodomor, Ukraine, the Soviet Union, the Russian Empire, the NKVD, the KGB, the GRU, the Cambridge Five, Kim Philby, Antonio Senior, the Cold War, the Second World War, World War I, the American Civil War, the British Empire, the United States, the United Kingdom, Winston Churchill, the Iron Curtain speech, Adolf Hitler, Nazi Germany, the German Communist Party, Klaus Fuchs, Harry Gold, David Greenglass, Julius Rosenberg, Ethel Rosenberg, Sing Sing prison, the Manhattan Project, Los Alamos, Tube Alloys, J. Robert Oppenheimer, the Trinity test, Harry Truman, the Potsdam Conference, the atomic bomb, nuclear espionage, Soviet intelligence, American intelligence, the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, the Army Signal Corps, the Signals Intelligence Service, the Army Security Agency, the Armed Forces Security Agency, Arlington Hall, Traffic Processing Division, the Plantation, Project Venona, one-time pad encryption, cryptanalysis, signals intelligence, communications intelligence, counterintelligence, Russian plaintext, Soviet telegraph system (TAS), Amtorg, Black Friday, the Soviet nuclear program, RDS-1, Joe-1, the Soviet atomic bomb test, Kazakhstan, the nuclear arms race, nuclear deterrence, preemptive nuclear war, Operation Drop Shot, the Soviet military, Soviet economic intelligence, African American women codebreakers, segregation, Jim Crow, the civil rights movement, racial discrimination, gender discrimination, intelligence failures, human intelligence, data processing, cryptologic clerks, Cyrillic alphabet, machine translation, Soap Flakes, early computing, language-processing machines, large language models (LLMs), technological automation, declassified intelligence interviews, Cold War historiography. Chapters 00:00 — Joseph Stalin: The Soviet Spy Master and His Secret Intelligence Network 05:09 — Stalin’s Secret Police: From the Cheka to the KGB 09:08 — William Weisband: The American Insider Who Betrayed Codebreaking Secrets 13:50 — Atomic Espionage: Klaus Fuchs, Harry Gold, and the Manhattan Project 20:08 — Truman and Stalin at Potsdam: Who Really Knew About the Atomic Bomb? 23:05 — Project Venona Explained: Breaking Soviet Codes and Exposing Spies 30:29 — The Plantation at Arlington Hall: Black Women in Secret Intelligence 34:50 — Black Friday, Russian Plaintext, and the Soviet Intelligence Blackout 45:56 — Joe-1 and Operation Drop Shot: How Close Did the Cold War Come to Nuclear War? 57:47 — Soap Flakes: How Black Women Codebreakers Helped Advance Early Computing Thanks to SOULFULJAMTRACKS for their tune "Dark Halloween" PRE-ORDER James' new book -The Afterwar: Britain's Secret Battle Against Revolutionaries, Rioters and Russia After WWI Follow HISTORY's DEVILS On Instagram @historysdevils Follow JAMES On Bluesky @jamescrossland.bsky.social #HistorysDevils #JamesCrossland #History #DarkHistory History's Devils is a podcast exploring the lives of murderers, charlatans, psychopaths, dictators, war criminals, tyrants, demagogues, revolutionaries, cult leaders, conquerors, fraudsters, and other controversial figures. History's Devils is hosted by James Crossland, professor of international history and author of: ...