I have no respect for Chambers. He swore off communism like a drunk swears off booze and joins the Salvation Army. Whatever core belief permitted him to betray his country and condone human slavery was still operative, but rationalized, when he wrote the book.
Correct spelling is Venona.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venona_project
I assume you never met Chambers. I did. He lost faith in Communism and sought out another “faith” as many people who become “true believers” (Eric Hoffer) do.
It mentally/psychological sustains their existence to believe in something that has a purpose (good or bad), and gives them structured guidance.
Once one sees the fatal flaws in the dangerous “isms” (fascism, communism, racism, etc), those who have the mental capability to analyze these flaws will eventually reject them, and leave that cause.
However they will often look for a new, better, and more ethical cause. Such was the life of Whitaker Chambers, Phil Luce, Max Yergan, Jay Lovestone, “The God Who Failed” group of writers, and the No. Vietnamese/VC defectors I interviewed in So. Vietnam.
[The No. Vietnamese POWS in Cambodia were too young to have any real ideology. They were either brainwashed or shanghaied into the PAVN forces, often at gunpoint).
Please, if you are going to write about a person, learn a little about their emotional/psychological history and makeup before you criticize their actions.
I’ve know many of the top Communists and white racists in the country (as a journalist), and have learned that they are the “true believers” of the psychopathic world of fanaticism. Very few ever leave it because it is a pathological addiction to utopianism, power, and for some, the path to killing people.