Clever Girl

by Lauren Kessler

  “pay next month’s rent, let alone that night’s dinner”: Bentley, Out of Bondage, p. 3.

  “being forged by the Soviet Union”: Nearing, Must We Starve? pp. v, viii–ix, 215.

  “a clarifying experience, a crucible”: This is a point most articulately made by Gornick in The Romance of American Communism, p. 95.

  CHAPTER 4: CIRCLE OF FRIENDS

  “only a term away from a master’s degree”: Bentley, Out of Bondage, p. 3.

  “Fuhr would just smile”: Bentley talks about Fuhr in Out of Bondage, pp. 3–4, 6, and in her signed statement to the FBI, Nov. 30, 1945, p. 2. See also Belfrage, The American Inquisition, p. 19.

  “Would Bentley like to come to the next meeting?”: This is Bentley’s version, in Out of Bondage, pp. 6–7. Belfrage, p. 19, whom Bentley named as a spy and who had every reason to try to blacken her reputation, writes that Fuhr disliked Bentley, and that Bentley “nagged” her to go to a meeting until Fuhr “relented.” There is no reason to believe this version.

  “she was impressed”: Peake’s afterword in Bentley, Out of Bondage (1988), p. 225, concerning membership.

  “in the face of such enthusiasm and fervor”: Bentley, Out of Bondage, p. 7.

  “money to spend on fancy fronts”: Bentley, Out of Bondage, p. 10; Bentley’s signed statement to the FBI, p. 2. 35 “She liked him”: Bentley, Out of Bondage, p. 10.

  “envious of her new friends”: Bentley, Out of Bondage, pp. 8–9.

  “draw good liberals into the revolutionary cause”: Later, the organization would be described as a kind of “farm system” for the Communist Party (Gabriel Almond, The Appeals of Communism, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1954, p. 5) and the “largest, most seductive and successful of the front organizations” (Peake’s afterword in Bentley, Out of Bondage [1988], p. 225). Of its eight thousand or so members, perhaps ten percent were what would later be called “card-carrying” communists, according to Klehr, Heyday of American Communism, p. 372. The organization itself had been founded under communist sponsorship a few years earlier at the World Congress Against War held in Amsterdam. See Ralph Lord Roy, Communism and the Churches, New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1960, pp. 83–86.

  “I am a communist”: Details of this remembered conversation can be found in Bentley, Out of Bondage, pp. 11–18.

  “seemed to know how to get there”: Bentley discusses the attraction of communism in Out of Bondage, p. 21; in her congressional testimony, Communist Activities Among Aliens, May 13, 1949, p. 122; and in her testimony before HUAC, Hearings Regarding Communist Espionage, July 13, 1948, p. 540.

  “with power and moral imagination”: These are the words Gornick used to explain the appeal of communism to liberals of the day, in Gornick, The Romance of American Communism, p. 13.

  “the tenets of Christian brotherhood her mother had taught her”: Bentley, Out of Bondage, p. 23.

  “a home for the homeless”: These comments, in different form, were told to Gornick when she interviewed former and present communists for her book, The Romance of American Communism.

  “nobody could become a somebody”: Gitlow, The Whole of Their Lives, p. 236.

  “But of course, we’re not”: Bentley, Out of Bondage, p. 19.

  “contingent on Bentley joining the Party”: Bentley reports the struggle with her decision in Out of Bondage, pp. 21–25.

  “to stand up for her convictions”: As recounted by Bentley in Out of Bondage, pp. 26–27.

  “‘Welcome to our ranks, comrade,’ she said”: This is Bentley’s version of the events recounted in Out of Bondage, pp. 28–29, and there is every reason to believe her. Peake, after a meticulous study of Bentley’s life, concluded in his afterword to the 1988 edition of Out of Bondage, p. 226, that Bentley joined the Party for idealistic and humanitarian reasons.

  CHAPTER 5: A STEELED BOLSHEVIK

  “seizure of power by the working classes…”: Carl Paivio writing in Luokkataistelu (Class Struggle), quoted in Klehr, The Secret World, p. 5. Two communist parties were formed in 1919: the Communist Party of the United States of America and the Communist Labor Party. They merged as the CPUSA in 1921.

  “united in common work for a beautiful future”: M. J. Olgin, Trotskyism. New York: Workers Library, 1935, p. 148.

  “a result of his unending purges”: Klehr, The Secret World, p. 10.

  “just twentieth-century Americanism”: For more on the appeal of the party to liberals of the day, see Gornick, The Romance of American Communism, p. 111; Kirschner, Cold War Exile, pp. 285–86; author’s interview with Jack Beckerman, June 24, 2000.

  “hundred thousand by the end of the decade”: Klehr, The Secret World, p. xxxii; Klehr and Haynes, American Communist Movement, p. 1.

  “outnumbered the foreign-born members…”: Klehr and Haynes, American Communist Movement, p. 86.

  “recent immigrants from Czarist Russia”: Klehr, The Secret World, p. 5.

  “on the ragged fringe of American society”: For example, Benjamin Gitlow, Communist Labor Party cofounder and Communist Party candidate for president in 1924 and 1928. See Gitlow, I Confess, pp. 4, 7–8.

  “Will I ever be able to live up to their standards?”: Details of first meeting are from Bentley, Out of Bondage, pp. 31–33 and Bentley’s signed FBI statement, p. 3. Additional insight into what happened at unit meetings from Davis, “Looking Back,” p. 13.

  “this was the place for her”: Details concerning that meeting from Bentley, Out of Bondage, p. 61.

  “another meeting each week”: Bentley’s signed FBI statement, p. 5, and Bentley, Out of Bondage, p. 51.

  “linked arms with comrades and sang ‘The Internationale’”: Bentley’s congressional testimony, Export Policy and Loyalty, July 30, 1948, pp. 4–5; also Bentley, Out of Bondage, pp. 44–45.

  “without knowing in detail just what it stands for”: Bentley, Out of Bondage, p. 67.

  “…new to this clandestine life”: Bentley recounts this incident in Out of Bondage, pp. 71–72.

  “…the Marxist-Leninist interpretation was correct”: Bentley, Out of Bondage, p. 68.

  “‘…the whole of their lives’ to the cause”: Lenin in Iskra newspaper, No. 1, 1900.

  “no time to feel sorry for herself”: Many communists commented on the appeal of this activity. See, e.g., Kempton, Part of Our Time, pp. 218–19; Chambers, Witness, p. 9; Gitlow, The Whole of Their Lives, p. 236; Gitlow, I Confess, p. 289. Gornick, The Romance of American Communism, is particularly articulate about this (p. 9).

  “breaking the bourgeois code of behavior”: See, for example, Gitlow, I Confess, p. 314.

  “an Iraqi student at Columbia”: Bentley listed some of her affairs in the autobiographical sketch she wrote for the NKVD summarized in Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, p. 88.

  “Some of them undoubtedly shared her bed”: From an FBI report by Special Agent John J. Danahy, Oct. 13, 1950, quoted in Yalkowsky, Murder of Rosenbergs, pp. 125–26.

  “‘…with a zeal for the horizontal’”: Belfrage, The American Inquisition, p. 19.

  “aided by her friend, nurse Lee Fuhr”: This according to Peake’s interview with the FBI Special Agent Danahy. Peake thought the talk was “very likely true.” Correspondence with author, Aug. 9, 2000. Also see Belfrage, The American Inquisition, p. 19.

  “the very best time of her life”: Bentley, Out of Bondage, p. 279.

  “the old Christian ideals on which she was raised”: Bentley, Out of Bondage, p. 22.

  “Communism could—and should—take its place”: Recounted by Bentley in Out of Bondage, pp. 42–43.

  “…a communist in spirit as well as in name”: Bentley, Out of Bondage, pp. 65–66, 69.

  “‘…if I had a quarter, I’d have eaten it’”: Bentley recounts this incident in Out of Bondage, pp. 39–40. See also her signed FBI statement, p. 3.

  “demanding aid for their families”: “150 in Plea for Home Relief.” New York Times, Apr. 17, 1934.

 
“clothes for the unemployed”: “7 Relief Pickets Jailed.” New York Times, July 27, 1934.

  “But she said yes”: Bentley recounts her experiences with the Home Relief shop unit in Out of Bondage, pp. 35–38.

  “she sent in her resignation”: Bentley, Out of Bondage, p. 58.

  “targeted as a prime recruit”: On Poyntz, and Poyntz and Bentley, see Bentley, Out of Bondage, pp. 44–57, 72–77; Bentley’s signed FBI statement, p. 3; Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, pp. 88–89; Peake’s afterword in Out of Bondage (1988), p. 228; and Chambers, Witness, p. 131.

  “‘…all you lost was your soul’”: Bentley’s signed FBI statement, p. 6.

  “‘No one ever leaves the organization’”: Bentley, Out of Bondage, pp. 89–90.

  “KGB agents”: The Soviet secret political police, the KGB, had a number of predecessor or related organizations—the Cheka, the GPU, the GRU, the OGPU, the NKVD, the NKGB, the MGB, the MVD—the names and acronyms of which are unfamiliar to anyone other than scholars of communism. For simplicity, I use KGB, an acronym well-known to Americans, to refer to the Soviet Secret Police. See Klehr and Haynes, The Secret World, p. xxvi.

  “Macy’s Fresh Air Fund camp”: Bentley’s employment detailed in her signed FBI statement, pp. 5–6; FBI report (date illegible) No. 65-56402-25; FBI memo, Nov. 1, 1950, noted in Roeker, “The Story of a Communist Agent,” p. 24; Bentley, Out of Bondage, p. 65; and Peake in his afterword in Out of Bondage (1988), pp. 225, 229.

  “Bentley went downtown to headquarters to talk to him”: F. Brown was his name in the open party; Mario Alpi was his underground name. He was one of the Communist International’s representatives in the United States assigned to the Italian bureau. See Romerstein and Breindel, The Venona Secrets, p. 149.

  “take her and her information seriously”: Details of the Italian Library experience in Bentley, Out of Bondage, pp. 92–93, and her signed FBI statement, pp. 7–8.

  CHAPTER 6: YASHA

  “Of course, she didn’t”: Very similar versions of this first meeting are detailed in Bentley, Out of Bondage, pp. 94–97, and Bentley’s signed statement to the FBI, p. 9.

  “She listened carefully”: Bentley, Out of Bondage, p. 98.

  “He was a hero”: As recounted by Bentley in the autobiographical sketch she wrote for the NKGB, summarized in Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, p. 87.

  “a true believer”: Bentley, Out of Bondage, p. 99.

  “they were just a couple in love”: Bentley, Out of Bondage, pp. 98–103.

  “leaving her there alone on the bench”: “Timmy” took the name Golos—which means voice in Russian—when he originally joined the Communist Party. His real name was Jacob Raisen, although no one in the United States knew him by that name. See Haynes and Klehr, Venona, p. 94; Bentley, Out of Bondage, p. 218.

  “personalities that played roles in its tangled history”: Bentley, Out of Bondage, pp. 112–13.

  “the Party used its services extensively”: FBI report on World Tourists, October 1954, Bentley file No. 61-6328; Haynes and Klehr, Venona, p. 95; Craig, “Treasonable Doubt,” p. 107.

  “a healthy, profitable venture”: Bentley discusses World Tourists in her testimony before HUAC, Export Policy and Loyalty, July 30, 1948, p. 505.

  “the triumphs of the new Soviet Union”: Quoted directly from World Tourist brochure, 1935, courtesy of Hayden Peake.

  “permanently left the country”: FBI “thumbnail sketch” to director from special agent in charge, New York, June 21, 1955, Bentley file No. 61-6328.

  “a man with high ideals”: Details of Golos’s background come from NKVD documents discovered by Weinstein and Vassiliev, summarized and cited in Haunted Wood, pp. 85–87; Haynes and Klehr, Venona, pp. 93–96; Romerstein and Breindel, Venona Secrets, p. 146; Klehr and Haynes, Secret World, pp. 55, 246; Bentley, Out of Bondage, pp. 113, 207–08, 218.

  “and had produced a child”: FBI report by Harold Kennedy, New York field office, Jan. 7, 1946, Bentley file No. 65-56402-420; Bentley’s autobiographical sketch for the NKVD in Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, p. 86; FBI memo quoted in Yalkowky, Murder of the Rosenbergs, p. 326.

  “golubushka, a Russian endearment”: Kempton, Part of Our Time, p. 221. Bentley mentions this several times in Out of Bondage.

  “bourgeois sin and Leninist bliss”: William Duffy in his review of Out of Bondage, Oct. 11, 1951, newspaper unknown, clipping in Bentley FBI file, with no file number.

  CHAPTER 7: TRADECRAFT

  “he fired her on the spot”: In Bentley’s version, Out of Bondage, p. 102, and her signed FBI statement, p. 10, she says the director “stumbled over”—which hardly seems likely—an antifascist article she wrote. After extensive research, Hayden Peake discovered the only article in the Columbia newspaper that mentioned Bentley by name, published Oct. 17, 1935, was written about, not by, her. See Peake’s afterword in Out of Bondage (1988), p. 232.

  “working directly for him”: Bentley, Out of Bondage, p. 103.

  “the Daily Worker and The Masses”: Bentley’s signed FBI statement, p. 13.

  “native-born Americans, rather than Russians or immigrants”: Bentley’s signed FBI statement, p. 71.

  “the plot to assassinate Trotsky”: Bentley, Out of Bondage, p. 105; Bentley’s signed FBI statement, p. 11; Haynes and Klehr, Venona, p. 98; Lamphere, FBI-KGB, p. 37.

  “walk the wrong way down a one-way street”: Golos’s instructions on tradecraft noted in Bentley’s signed FBI statement, pp. 66–69; Bentley, Out of Bondage, pp. 103–04.

  “I want to be especially proud of you, he said”: From Bentley’s autobiographical sketch for the NKVD in Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, pp. 87–88.

  “align itself with all the evils we are fighting against?”: Bentley recounts this conversation in Out of Bondage, p. 106.

  “the end of their membership in the Party”: Norman Holmes Pearson, “The Nazi-Soviet Pact and the End of a Dream,” in Daniel Aron, ed., America in Crisis, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1952.

  “dream must be preserved at all costs, he said”: Bentley, Out of Bondage, p. 106.

  “she believed that, too”: Bentley, Out of Bondage, p. 110.

  “instead you are letting me down”: Conversation recounted in Bentley, Out of Bondage, p. 108.

  “Waldo fired Bentley”: Bentley’s signed FBI statement, p. 12; Bentley, Out of Bondage, pp. 107–08, 111, 120.

  “while Golos conducted business with the men”: Bentley, Out of Bondage, p. 104.

  “the car he was driving”: Bentley’s signed FBI statement, p. 9.

  “dropped the matter quickly”: Bentley’s signed FBI statement, p. 10.

  “suspended sentence and a $500 fine”: The World Tourists investigation is chronicled in a number of sources, including FBI memo, J. Edgar Hoover to Gen. Hoyt Vandenberg, Feb. 21, 1946, Bentley file No. 61-6328-62; Bentley’s signed FBI statement, p. 12; Bentley’s autobiographical sketch written for the NKVD in Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, p. 87; Bentley, Out of Bondage, pp. 116–18; Klehr and Haynes, Secret World, p. 310; Cook, FBI, p. 285.

  “as close to self-pity as a good Bolshevik would let himself get”: Bentley, Out of Bondage, p. 120.

  “regularly reporting on his activities to the Bureau”: Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, p. 91.

  “Golos’s direct link to Moscow”: FBI report, New York Field Office, July 22, 1952, Bentley file No. 65-57904-37.

  “another subpoena was on its way”: Interestingly, the Dies Committee also had Bentley’s old Vassar professor, Hallie Flanagan, in its sights. Flanagan had left Vassar to run a New Deal theater project that members of the Dies Committee suspected of spreading sedition from the stage. Daniels, Bridges, p. 207; Chambers, Witness, p. 72.

  “Golos’s secret police credentials”: Incident recounted by Bentley in signed FBI statement, p. 15.

  “an internecine struggle over the control of his network”: Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, pp. 89–91.


  “heart disease and arteriosclerosis”: Bentley’s signed FBI statement, p. 15; Bentley, Out of Bondage, p. 134.

  “Golos suffered a heart attack”: May, Unamerican Activities, p. 82.

  CHAPTER 8: KONSPIRATSIA

  “No one was following her when she left”: FBI memo, William Whelan, New York field office, Mar. 22, 1950, in Alger Hiss papers; Bentley, Out of Bondage, pp. 138–40.

  “she was wrong about that”: FBI report, from director to Washington field office, Apr. 5, 1947, Bentley file No. 100-17493, p. 8; Bentley, Out of Bondage, pp. 140–41.

  “much to the Bureau’s later embarrassment”: Hoover noted in 1944 that “there are numerous leads set forth in [the World Tourists] report which have apparently received no investigative attention whatsoever.” FBI memo, Hoover to special agent in charge, New York, May 5, 1944, Bentley file No. 61-6328-17. Former agent Robert Lamphere called the lack of attention “a bad mistake.” Author’s interview, June 23, 2000.

  “‘growing demand for services’”: “Report of Director” in Annual Report of the FBI, July 1, 1940, to July 30, 1941. Also see “A Short History of the FBI” on the agency’s Web site, www.fbi.gov.

  “reporting directly to the Russians”: Bentley, Out of Bondage, pp. 145–47.

  “Bentley took up much of the slack”: Information about John Reynolds and the formation of USS&S found in FBI memo, J. Edgar Hoover to Gen. Hoyt Vendenberg, Feb. 21, 1946, Bentley file No. 61-6328-62; Haynes and Klehr, Venona, p. 97; Bentley’s congressional testimony, Export Policy and Loyalty, July 30, 1948, p. 10; Bentley’s signed FBI statement, pp. 14, 99–100; Bentley, Out of Bondage, pp. 125, 130, 133.

  “‘…behind the scenes in the American government’”: Bentley, Out of Bondage, p. 144; Haynes and Klehr, Venona, p. 98.

  “funneling information to the Soviets”: Haynes and Klehr, Venona, pp. 60–62.

  “the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland”: Chambers, Witness, p. 27.

  “the Office of War Information”: Penetration of these government agencies is confirmed by Venona cables. See Haynes and Klehr, Venona, pp. 191–207.

  “an oppressive government: their own”: Bentley’s explanation of her sources’ motivation during her congressional testimony, Export Policy and Loyalty, July 30, 1948, pp. 24–25.