Judith Coplon - VENONA Soviet Spy Case FBI, CIA & State Dept Files, Newspaper Articles

Judith Coplon - VENONA Soviet Spy Case FBI, CIA & State Dept Files, Newspaper Articles

This collection contains 7,529 pages 

Judith Coplon was the first person to face trial due to evidence obtained from the American intelligence operation known as VENONA, which was able to intercept and decode many Soviet diplomatic and intelligence messages. Convictions from her two trials were overturned due to FBI agents lying at trial about the source of information against Coplon.

This collection contains 7,529 pages of files, made up of FBI files, Coplon espionage trial transcripts, CIA files, VENONA intercepts related to Soviet intelligence asset SIMA (Judith Coplon) and newspaper articles related to the Judith Coplon-Gubitchev espionage case.

Judith Coplon Socolov (1921 – 2011) was born in Brooklyn, New York.  When she graduated from Barnard College during World War II, she had already adopted communist ideologies and was a member of the Young Communist League.  She graduated from Barnard College cum laude in 1943 and went on to Columbia University. At Columbia a classmate of Coplon's, Flora Wovschin and Soviet intelligence Marion Davis Berdecio, recruited her for Soviet intelligence. She was even the pseudonym SIMA, by Soviet intelligence. 

After college, Coplon worked as an analyst for the Justice Department and supplied information to the Soviet NKGB. She passed along information covering Justice Department policies and cases regarding foreign agents. She became the first person prosecuted for espionage as a result of successful "VENONA" project Soviet intelligence cable traffic detection, interception, and decoding.  

During her trial in 1949, Coplon claimed she was meeting a Soviet intelligence officer because she was writing a book and gathering firsthand experience during pillow talk. Coplon was convicted on charges involving espionage and conspiracy.  She was sentenced to five years on count one and fifteen years on count four of the indictment. 

The convictions were overturned on appeal, due to the FBI’s practices during the gathering of evidence in the case and its presentation to juries. After success in her first appeals, she married one of her attorneys. In 1950, Coplon married Albert Socolov, and they remained married until her death in 2011. The couple had four children. 

Her convictions, and subsequent successful constitutional appeals significantly shaped espionage prosecutions in the Cold War era. The government worked on preparing a third trial but gave up 17 years later and returned her $40,000 of bail money in 1967. 

Modern reviewers of the case often find that despite, "perjured testimony from FBI special agents" and a "lack of physical evidence," they find that the preponderance of the evidence points to Coplon's guilt.  

More concrete evidence of Coplon’s guilt became public in 1995, when the VENONA (a United States counterintelligence program initiated during World War II) intercepted message decrypts were declassified. These intercepted and translated Soviet cables identify 200 Americans who were spying for the Soviet Union including Coplon, the Rosenbergs, Klaus Fuchs, and Ted Hall.

Judith Coplon Socolov died on 26th February 2011.

 
This collection contains:

Judith Coplon FBI Files 

6,872 pages of FBI Files that were mostly produced from 1948 to 1950. The files cover what became known as the Judith Coplon-Gubitchev case. In December 1948, the FBI identified a Soviet agent, cover named SIMA, as being Judith Coplon.

In 1948, Coplon received greater attention from the FBI when special agents observed her meeting repeatedly in New York with an officer of Soviet intelligence, Valentin A. Gubitchev. The files recount the surveillance Coplon was placed under. On March 4, 1949, the FBI arrested Coplon along with Soviet UN employee Gubitchev in New York City.

1949 saw other major criminal cases against communists in the United States: Alger Hiss and Whittaker Chambers (1949–1950), and that of the Smith Act trials of Communist Party leaders (1949–1958).

The files include 932 pages of Coplon's espionage trial transcripts.

 
CIA Files

100 pages of CIA files related to the Coplon-Gubitchev case. Includes approximately 25 pages of VENONA intercepts of Soviet message’s' English translations and annotations about the messages' subjects and their activities.

 
Excerpt - Eastern Europe the Soviet Union (Foreign Relations of the United States, 1949 Volume V)

56 pages from the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1949 Volume V Eastern Europe the Soviet Union. Content related to the Judith Coplon-Gubitchev case and the rejection of the claim to diplomatic immunity for Valetin Alexeyevich Gubichev, arrested and tried for espionage 1949–1950.

 
Newspapers

453 full sheet American newspaper pages. Dating from March 5, 1949, to September 15, 1957. 321 pages from Washington D.C.'s Evening Star and 132 pages from various regional newspapers, from Juneau's The Daily Alaska Empire to Key West Florida's The Key West Citizen.