Jurist [Lawyer]

An NKGB foreign intelligence code name appearing in a number of Soviet intelligence World War II period cables which were partially decrypted in the course of the American Venona operation, and released in 1995-1996. At the time of this release, “Jurist” was identified by Venona translators as Harry Dexter White, an American Keynesian economist and U.S. Department of Treasury official.

The code name “Jurist” also appears in the notes about KGB foreign intelligence archival records made in the early 1990s by the former KGB officer and later journalist, Alexander Vassiliev. Vassiliev was conducting research for a collaborative Russian-American book project, which later became the basis for The Haunted Wood, a 1999 book he co-authored with Allen Weinstein. In Vassiliev’s notes about a few April-May 1936 documents, “Jurist” is identified as Alger Hiss, then an employee of the Department of Justice.