“it was politically ‘too hot’ to pursue”: Newsweek, Aug. 2, 1948, p. 23.
“the resultant publicity ‘would not be unfavorable’”: May, Un-American Activities, p. 94.
“the twelve-man national board of the American Communist Party”: Newsweek, Aug. 2, 1948, p. 23. All were subsequently found guilty and sentenced to five years and a $10,000 fine, except Robert Thompson, a decorated soldier, who was given a three-year sentence. See Belfrage, American Inquisition, p. 104.
“it would be harder, riskier—and of little use—for the KGB to harm her”: Whittaker Chambers, IPR hearings, May 29, 1952, p. 4784. In a Nov. 21, 1947, column by Marquis Childs, the Washington Post had already leaked the information that the grand jury’s investigation had been prompted by “a woman of education.” Bentley had every reason to be nervous.
“Frank’s nose for news began to twitch”: This and the rest of the narrative concerning how the newspaper series evolved is taken from “World Telegram Touched Off Spy Expose,” New York World Telegram, Aug. 5, 1948, p. 1.
“a troubled witness who could blow his chances”: FBI memo “Re: Gregory,” April 5, 1948, pp. 1–2, Bentley file No. 65-14603-3847.
“the Department of Justice would not appreciate a story at this time”: The newspaper wrote that it withheld the story “at the request of government officials.” Nelson Frank and Norton Mock-ridge, “Super-Secrecy Veiled Russia’s Spy Cells Here,” New York World Telegram, July 22, 1948, p. 1.
“an attempt to throw a curve to the rest of the press”: FBI Special Agent Jack Dahany had somewhat of the same idea. See Peake’s afterword in Out of Bondage (1988), p. 275, fn. 7.
“full of the idealism which had flowered at Walden Pond and Brook Farm”: “The Case of Mary and the Spy Ring,” Newsweek, Aug. 2, 1948, p. 20.
“he could personally arrange for her appearance”: “World Telegram Touched Off Spy Expose,” New York World Telegram, Aug. 5, 1948, p. 1.
CHAPTER 15: THE LADY APPEARS
“‘…an investigation was being made of that particular employee on questions of espionage and loyalty’”: Export Policy and Loyalty, July 30, 1948, p. 49. 164 “The small room became uncomfortably hot almost immediately”: Export Policy and Loyalty, July 30, 1948, p. 50.
“the kind of outfit a woman of a certain age might wear to a ladies’ luncheon”: Physical descriptions and other details of the July 30 session are from coverage in the New York Times, July 31, 1948, p. 1; and photographs in Life magazine, Aug. 9, 1948, p. 23.
“‘plump…with a sharp nose and a receding chin’”: Time, Aug. 9, 1948, p. 14.
“treating her kindly”: So Nelson Frank told FBI agent Joe Kelley, FBI memo “Re: Gregory,” July 29, 1948, Bentley file No. 65-14603-3934.
“they knew far more about him than could be found in his official records”: O’Reilly, Hoover and the Un-Americans, p. 106.
“‘…that is a woman’s privilege’”: Export Policy and Loyalty, July 30, 1948, p. 1.
“but Ferguson quickly dubbed a ‘communist front’”: Export Policy and Loyalty, July 30, 1948, p. 4.
“slightly nasal East Coast finishing school tone about it”: I thank speech pathologist Jane Eyre McDonald for listening to tapes of Bentley and offering her professional assessment.
“‘We would like to conduct this hearing if we can concerning one person: William Remington’”: Export Policy and Loyalty, July 30, 1948, p. 6.
“‘I do not want to go too fast now, on this’”: Export Policy and Loyalty, July 30, 1948, p. 8.
“because she had access to material at the Italian Library of Information”: Export Policy and Loyalty, July 30, 1948, p. 7.
“‘effect of Mr. Golos was wearing off’”: Export Policy and Loyalty, July 30, 1948, p. 44.
“they met in drugstores and on park benches ‘ten or fifteen or twenty’ times”: Export Policy and Loyalty, July 30, 1948, p. 31.
“‘…and I don’t too much like having to do this to Mr. Remington, either’”: Export Policy and Loyalty, July 30, 1948, p. 45.
“Golos was a Dutch journalist writing a book”: Export Policy and Loyalty, July 31, 1948, p. 91, and Aug. 3, 1948, p. 186.
“That’s why they met on street corners”: Export Policy and Loyalty, Aug. 3, 1948, pp. 189–90. 168 “contributions to an antifascist fund, he said”: Export Policy and Loyalty, Aug. 3, 1948, p. 204.
“he wanted to examine the stories in the paper to evaluate their accuracy”: Export Policy and Loyalty, Aug. 3, 1948, p. 199.
“Nothing was secret or confidential”: Export Policy and Loyalty, Aug. 3, 1948, p. 185.
“accusing himself only of ‘forgivably erroneous judgment’”: Export Policy and Loyalty, Aug. 3, 1948, p. 190.
“it did not appear to me to be of a dubious nature”: Export Policy and Loyalty, Aug. 3, 1948, p. 232.
“Ferguson called his story ‘preposterous’”: Export Policy and Loyalty, Aug. 3, 1948, p. 203.
“dismissed him as a ‘boob’”: May, Un-American Actvities, p. 100.
“he was sure he could prove his innocence when he testified again”: New York Times, July 31, 1948, p. 1.
“staying after the questions to chat with reporters and pose for photographs”: May, Un-American Activies, p. 98.
“had placed ‘perhaps thousands’ of its members in government jobs”: New York Times, Aug. 3, 1948, p. 1.
CHAPTER 16: UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES
“‘…keep the heat on Harry Truman’”: New York Times, Feb. 8, 1954.
“HUAC would lead the way”: Insights into the political motivation of HUAC come from Carr, The House Committee, pp. 86–88; Cook, FBI Nobody Knows, p. 287; O’Reilly, Hoover and the Un-Americans, p. 8.
“information already known to the FBI, and most probably leaked to the committee”: Cook, FBI Nobody Knows, p. 288.
“‘drive these rats from the federal…payroll’”: HUAC, Communist Espionage, July 31, 1948, p. 502.
“‘Share and share alike—that’s democracy!’”: Kempton, Part of Our Time, p. 203. In a study made at the height of the Red Scare and using the hypersensitive standards of the time, Dorothy Jones found no trace of communist propaganda in 159 films released between 1929 and 1949 in which a member of the Hollywood Ten had screen credits.
“They stood trial, were found guilty and, after various appeals, went to jail”: Fariello, Red Scare, pp. 257–58; Kempton, Part of Our Time, pp. 202–06; and www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/blacklist.html. The Hollywood Ten were: novelist, journalist, and Warner Bros. screenwriter Alvah Bessie; director, producer, and screenwriter Herbert Biberman; cofounder of the Screenwriters Guild Lester Cole; director Edward Dmytryk (who later returned to HUAC as a “friendly witness”); Oscar-winning screenwriter Ring Lardner Jr.; playwright and screenwriter John Howard Lawson; Warner Bros. and Paramount scriptwriter Albert Maltz; novelist and early Screen Actors Guild board member Samuel Ornitz; screenwriter and producer Adrian Scott; former newspaper reporter and MGM scriptwriter Dalton Trumbo.
“not one listed HUAC as a committee preference”: Carr, The House Committee, p. 209.
“coarse and vindictive on the House floor”: Carr, The House Committee, pp. 214–17.
“later convicted and sent to federal prison”: Cook, FBI Nobody Knows, p. 287.
“‘the beginnings of a communist dictatorship the likes of which America has never dreamed’”: Caute, The Great Fear, p. 90.
“‘hounded and persecuted the Savior during his earthly ministry’”: 91 Congressional Record 7737 (July 18, 1945).
“was sympathetic to the Ku Klux Klan”: Haynes and Klehr, Venona, p. 149.
“vehemently disagreed with Truman’s post-war foreign policy in general”: Carr, The House Committee, p. 228.
“a battalion of newsreel cameras and klieg lights”: As described by Whittaker Chambers in Witness, p. 539.
“Bentley appeared unintimidated”: For reports on the hearings, see New York Times, July 31, Aug. 1, 4, 7, 1948, all p. 1; Washington Po
st, Aug. 3, 1948, p. 1; Time magazine, Aug. 9, 23, 1948, both pp. 15–16; Life magazine, Aug. 16, 1948, p. 26.
“‘No; I never was,’ Bentley replied”: HUAC, Communist Espionage, July 31, 1948, p. 549.
“The list continued”: HUAC, Communist Espionage, July 31, 1948, pp. 508–18.
“she could have easily made that assumption”: HUAC, Communist Espionage, July 31, 1948, p. 508.
“it was their duty to do something about it”: HUAC, Communist Espionage, July 31, 1948, p. 526.
“‘That is right,’ Bentley said”: The exchange between Bentley and Hébert is in HUAC, Communist Espionage, July 31, 1948, pp. 550–51.
“shipped out ‘by the boatload’”: HUAC, Communist Espionage, July 31, 1948, p. 558. 178 “The congressmen laughed”: Nixon’s comments and the exchange between committee members is in HUAC, Communist Espionage, July 31, 1948, pp. 555–56.
“Hébert called her a ‘reformed saint’”: HUAC, Communist Espionage, p. 952.
“thanking her again in the committee’s name”: The congressmen’s laudatory comments are found in HUAC, Communist Espionage, July 31, 1948, pp. 559–60.
“‘It was worth a try’”: For Stripling’s reasoning, see Stripling, The Red Plot, p. 97.
“He perspired profusely”: In his book Witness, Chambers spends many pages describing the agony of testifying in public. See also Cook, FBI Nobody Knows, p. 298.
“‘…the concealed enemy against which we are fighting’”: HUAC, Communist Espionage, Aug. 3, 1948, p. 572.
“There were four handwritten notes, sixty-five single-spaced pages of retyped cables, and three rolls of microfilm”: Weinstein, Perjury, pp. 204–35.
“‘the trial of the century’”: Hiss died in 1996 at age 92, still maintaining his innocence.
“He would invoke his constitutional privilege under the Fifth Amendment”: Silvermaster’s opening statement is in HUAC, Communist Espionage, Aug. 4, 1948, p. 590.
“you are afraid that if you answer ‘No’ we will prove you were a member”: HUAC, Communist Espionage, Aug. 4, 1948, p. 594.
“The only spy ring he knew of, he said, was in Karl Mundt’s head”: Caute, The Great Fear, p. 33.
“inventions of irresponsible sensation-seekers”: HUAC, Communist Espionage, Aug. 9, 1948, p. 699.
“inconsistency of Perlo denying the charges in his statement”: HUAC, Communist Espionage, Aug. 9, 1948, pp. 694–95.
“his face ashen, his hands clasping his knees to keep them from shaking”: Description of Perlo testifying is from coverage in Time magazine, Aug. 16, 1948, p. 19, and Washington Post, Aug. [date illegible], 1948, clipping in Hiss papers.
“No. And no”: Lee’s testimony, HUAC, Communist Espionage, Aug. 10, 1948, pp. 720–42.
“‘…she has an extremely active imagination’”: HUAC, Communist Espionage, Aug. 10, 1948, p. 742.
“‘It’s hard for me to believe,’ he told the committee, ‘that Miss Bentley’s statements are those of a rational person’”: HUAC, Communist Espionage, Aug. 10, 1948, p. 723.
“‘…figure out that something was unusual,’ Mundt said”: HUAC, Communist Espionage, Aug. 10, 1948, p. 735.
“a woman with a serious drinking problem”: Washington Post coverage, Aug. 11, 1948, p. 1.
“Coe and Bela Gold denying any involvement”: HUAC, Communist Espionage, Aug. 13, 1948, pp. 906–12, 916.
“rejecting any possibility of indiscretion on his part”: HUAC, Communist Espionage, Aug. 13, 1948, p. 853. Venona decrypts show Currie provided sensitive White House memoranda and a report on FDR’s thinking about DeGaulle. They also indicate that he met with Akhmerov in October of 1944. After Currie testified before HUAC, he left the country for Colombia, renouncing his U.S. citizenship in the mid-1950s. Romerstein and Breindel, Venona Secrets, p. 183–84.
“White pulled strings to help members of the network”: Bentley’s signed FBI statement, pp. 27–28; Lamphere, FBI-KGB, p. 284.
“‘the most fantastic thing I have ever heard of’”: Rees, Harry Dexter White, pp. 409–11.
“Whittaker Chambers thought the performance was gripping”: Chambers, Witness, p. 246.
“The room erupted in applause”: White’s opening statement is in HUAC, Communist Espionage, Aug. 13, 1948, pp. 877–79.
“denying that he knew anything about or had ever participated in espionage activities”: HUAC, Communist Espionage, Aug. 13, 1948, p. 882.
“he had knowingly met with Soviet underground contacts”: This is what Bruce Craig, in his meticulously researched and quite sympathetic study of White, concludes. See Craig, “Treasonable Doubt,” p. 560.
“the FBI would positively identify White—whose code name was ‘Jurist’—in a number of Venona messages”: FBI memo, D. M. Ladd to director, Venona file, p. 17.
“He didn’t survive the second one”: On White’s death, see Craig, “Treasonable Doubt,” pp. 430–31.
“a ‘red herring,’ a political invention whose purpose was brazenly partisan”: New York World Telegram, Aug. 5, 1948, p. 1.
“fearless, honest, and moral men crusading against the enemies of the American Way of Life”: Latham, Communist Controversy, p. 8.
CHAPTER 17: SHE SAID, HE SAID
“But others, many others, sat up and took notice”: The FBI believed that Bentley’s revelations “resulted in the awareness on the part of the public as to the extent of Soviet espionage in government circles.” FBI memo, Branigan to Belmont, Aug. 13, 1959, Bentley file No. 132-435-228.
“‘the queen bee of the informer set’”: Cook, FBI Nobody Knows, p. 283.
“as A. J. Liebling dubbed her”: A. J. Liebling, “The Wayward Press,” The New Yorker, Aug. 28, 1948, pp. 40–45.
“The Nation and The New Republic reviled her”: The Nation, Aug. 7, 1948, and The New Republic, Aug. 16, 1948.
“God help that country where informers thrive/ Where slander flourishes and lies contrive”: Quoted in Lamphere, FBI-KGB, p. 100.
“a story that she had spent time in a mental institution”: Bentley, Out of Bondage, p. 309.
“was now starved for attention”: Author’s interview with Jack Beckerman, June 24, 2000.
“‘We will wright (sic) the last chapter’”: Reproduced in a letter from the FBI to the U.S. attorney, Nov. 5, 1948, Bentley file No. 65-56402-3693.
“the story went out across the country through the wire services”: Bentley, Out of Bondage, p. 310.
“‘I thought of her as a vague, rather pleasant lady…’”: Quoted in May, Un-American Activities, p. 113. I owe much of my understanding of the Remington affair to May’s insightful book.
“‘imparting nonpublic information to a person closely identified with communists’”: May, Un-American Activities, p. 121.
“‘strange combination of…brilliance and gullibility’”: May, Un-American Activities, p. 118.
“Yes, I would certainly do that”: May, Un-American Activities, p. 118.
“‘But I did nothing wrong’”: May, Un-American Activities, p. 124.
“The panel then listened to a parade of impressive character witnesses”: New York Times, Feb. 11, 1949, p. 1.
“a $100,000 suit against Bentley, NBC, and General Foods, the sponsor of Meet the Press”: William Remington v. Elizabeth Bentley, et. al., 4 Civ 47-554, U.S. District Court, Southern District, New York.
“so Remington’s lawyers could take her deposition”: FBI teletype, New York office to director, Nov. 13, 1948, Bentley file No. 134-435-5.
“RED WITNESS MISSING AT 100-G SLANDER SUIT ran a headline in the New York Daily Mirror”: New York Daily Mirror, Nov. 13, 1948.
“Bentley was sequestered at a Catholic retreat in the Bronx”: New York World Telegram, Nov. 16, 1948.
“‘quietly pursuing her religious meditations…’”: “Spy Queen in Catholic Retreat,” Washington Times Herald, Nov. 16, 1948, p. 1.
“along the attendant and related evils of the New Deal”: See Caute, The Great Fear, p. 108.
“Bentley was baptized into the faith”: FBI memo, H. B. Fletcher to D. M. Ladd, Nov. 4, 1948, Bentley file No. 134-435-4; New York Times, Nov. 16, 1948, p. 1.
“‘a comforting, all-consuming dogma, absolute, unquestionable, and infallible’”: See Gornick, Romance of American Communism, p. 203, who is extraordinarily articulate on this subject.
“‘They must have something to tie to’”: Time magazine, Nov. 24, 1948.
“in New Orleans, giving another lecture”: For this sequence of events, see James A. Wechsler, “The Remington Loyalty Case,” New Republic, Feb. 28, 1949, pp. 18–20; May, Un-American Activities, pp. 123–26.
“a ‘young man whose every action in public employment showed a distinct anticommunist slant’”: Quoted in May, Un-American Activities, p. 129.
“ordering him reinstated, with $5,000 back pay, in his Commerce job”: New York Times, Feb. 11, 1949, p. 1.
“he told journalists that he owed his clearance to ‘the vigor of democracy’”: Quoted in May, Un-American Activities, p. 130.
“There was no record of Bentley ever having been admitted to the clinic”: FBI teletype, New Haven office to director, Dec. 23, 1948, Bentley file No. 134-435-8.
“drinking to excess and carrying on promiscuously”: “Memorandum of conversation with Dr. Lombardo,” Rauh papers.
“tracking down leads about his communist activities”: May, Un-American Activities, pp. 138, 142.
“deliberated all through the spring and summer and into the fall”: May, Un-American Activities, pp. 136–37.
“teaching political science at Mundelein College”: FBI letter, New York office to director, Aug. 8, 1949, Bentley file No. 134-435-14. For an understanding of Mundelein, I thank Sister Carolyn Farrell of that institution.
“Her Catholic friends pulled strings”: Olmstead, Red Spy Queen, p. 153.
“Bentley would never issue a retraction”: May, Un-American Activities, pp. 141–42.
“Lawrence Spivak wrote a long and vehement letter to NBC’s insurance company”: Godfrey Schmidt to Elizabeth Bentley, May 5, 1950, in HUAC, Regarding Communism, May 6, 1950, p. 1851–52. See also New York Herald Tribune, March 1, 1950.
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