Edna Patterson

Francia Yakilnilna Mitynen aka Edna Margaret Patterson was a Soviet citizen born in Australia. Mitynen was an "illegal" officer of the Naval GRU who was smuggled into the United States in August 1943. Mitynen worked under the name Edna Patterson until she left America in 1956.

The Naval GRU assigned the cover names AUSTRALIAN WOMAN and then SALLY to an "Illegal" to be sent by ship from the Soviet Far East to the U.S. West Coast. Fourteen messages relating to this operation were translated. The first of these, Washington to Moscow, Nos. 2505-2512, 31 December 1942, is one of the longest messages in VENONA — an extraordinary document showing the Naval GRU’s inexperience in this sort of activity and the need for assistance from the GRU and/or KGB. The last decrypted message about the case states that SALLY had been landed in San Francisco from a Soviet freighter (Washington to Moscow No. 1983, 14 August 1943). The FBI later learned that SALLY had been known in the United States as Edna Patterson, that she had left the United States suddenly in 1956, and that she was a Soviet citizen who had been born in Australia.

Venona

Mitynen is referenced in the following nineteen Venona decryptions:

*2505–2512 Naval GRU Washington to Moscow, 31 December 1942;
*1016 Naval GRU Washington to Moscow, 10 May 1943;
*1040–1041 Naval GRU Washington to Moscow, 13 May 1943;
*1080 Naval GRU Washington to Moscow, 19 May 1943;
*1209 Naval GRU Washington to Moscow, 5 June 1943;
*1252 Naval GRU Washington to Moscow, 10 June 1943;
*1271 Naval GRU Washington to Moscow, 12 June 1943;
*1348 Naval GRU Washington to Moscow, 19 June 1943;
*1600 Naval GRU Washington to Moscow, 12 July 1943;
*1902 Naval GRU Washington to Moscow, 8 August 1943;
*1983 Naval GRU Washington to Moscow, 14 August 1943;
*2124 Naval GRU Washington to Moscow, 27 August 1943;
*126 Naval GRU Moscow to Washington, 22 January 1943;
*394 Naval GRU Moscow to Washington, 5 March 1943;
*452 Naval GRU Moscow to Washington, 16 March 1943;
*484 Naval GRU Moscow to Washington, 20 March 1943;
*611 Naval GRU Moscow to Washington, 8 April 1943;
*835 Naval GRU Moscow to Washington, 12 May 1943;
*846 Naval GRU Moscow to Washington, 14 May 1943;
*863 Naval GRU Moscow to Washington, 17 May 1943;
*1006 Naval GRU Moscow to Washington, 10 June 1943.

References

* [http://www.nsa.gov/publications/publi00039.cfm Robert Louis Benson, NSA Historical Monograph] (1996)
* John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, "Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America", Yale University Press (1999), pgs. 188-189, 358, 458.