[ckilmer]

There is no actual proof that I have seen that J Edgar Hoover informed McCarthy of the Venona cables.

What we do know is that the NSA informed the FBI starting about 1948 about the information contained in the Venona cables but insisted that the FBI had to develop their own cases to convict the spies implicated in the cables. In any case J Edgar Hoover would have known about the Venona.

Also, the suicide Husband of the former Editor of the Washington Post--would have known about Venona

[aristeides]

J. Edgar Hoover needn't have informed McCarthy about VENONA, only about spiea that had been identified in the government. And, once spies had been identified through VENONA, it would have been possible for the FBI to go ahead and develop its own cases against those thus identified.