Linn Markley Farish was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 citizen and a member of the Office of Strategic Services

Office of Strategic Services

The Office of Strategic Services was a United States intelligence agency formed during World War II. It was the wartime intelligence agency, and it was a predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency...

 (OSS) during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. While acting as the OSS liaison officer to Josip Tito's Yugoslav Partisans

Partisans (Yugoslavia)

The Yugoslav Partisans, or simply the Partisans were a Communist-led World War II anti-fascist resistance movement in Yugoslavia...

 he was also allegedly serving Soviet intelligence

NKVD

The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....

. Fitzroy Maclean

Fitzroy Maclean

Sir Fitzroy Hew Royle MacLean of Dunconnel, 1st Baronet KT CBE was a Scottish soldier, writer and politician. He was a Unionist MP from 1941 to 1974 and was one of few people who entered World War II as a private and left having risen to the rank of Brigadier.Maclean wrote several books, including...

 jocularly referred to him in his memoir Eastern Approaches

Eastern Approaches

Eastern Approaches is an autobiographical account of the early career of Fitzroy Maclean. It is divided into three parts: his life as a junior diplomat in Moscow and his travels in the Soviet Union, especially the forbidden zones of Central Asia; his exploits in the British Army and SAS in the...

as "my American chief of staff

Chief of Staff

The title, chief of staff, identifies the leader of a complex organization, institution, or body of persons and it also may identify a Principal Staff Officer , who is the coordinator of the supporting staff or a primary aide to an important individual, such as a president.In general, a chief of...

". Farish died in an aircraft crash in the Balkans

Balkans

The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...

 in September 1944. Farish's code name in Soviet intelligence, and as deciphered in the Venona project

Venona project

The VENONA project was a long-running secret collaboration of the United States and United Kingdom intelligence agencies involving cryptanalysis of messages sent by intelligence agencies of the Soviet Union, the majority during World War II...

 is "Attila".

Venona

Farish is referenced in the following Venona project decryption:

• 1397 KGB New York to Moscow, 4 October 1944

Sources

• John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America, Yale University Press (1999), pgs. 194, 195.