Lauchlin Bernard Currie worked as White House economic adviser to President Franklin Roosevelt during World War II. From 1949 to 1953, he directed a major World Bank mission to Colombia and related studies. Information from the Venona project, a counter-intelligence program undertaken by agencies of the United States government, references him in nine partially decrypted cables sent by agents of the Soviet Union. He became a Colombian citizen after the United States refused to renew his passport in 1954, due to doubts of his loyalty to the United States engendered by the testimony of former Communist agents and information in the Venona decrypts.