Clever Girl

by Lauren Kessler

  “keeping tabs on the German American Bund”: Haynes and Klehr, Venona, pp. 85–87.

  “agencies didn’t talk to one another or share information”: Haynes and Klehr, Venona, p. 132.

  “the golden age of Soviet espionage”: Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, p. 340.

  “Golos’s substitute in July of 1941”: Bentley’s congressional testimony, Export Policy and Loyalty, July 30, 1948, p. 11.

  “to be their link to the party”: From Bentley’s autobiographical sketch for the NKVD in Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, p. 92.

  “At Christmastime, she bought them presents”: Bentley, Out of Bondage, p. 210.

  “OSS, FBI, trade unions, and U.S. foreign embassies and missions”: KGB memo to Anatoly Gorsky, August 1944, quoted in Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, pp. 227–28.

  “production figures on planes and tanks and the deployment of forces”: According to Bentley’s congressional testimony, Export Policy and Loyalty, July 30, 1948, p. 12.

  “commercial vats, filters, and shafts used in the manufacture of chemicals”: FBI report by Joseph Walsh, New York field office, April 29, 1950, in Harry Gold FBI file; also Bentley’s signed FBI statement, p. 113; and Lamphere, FBI-KGB, p. 37.

  “spending several days at a time on each trip”: Bentley, Out of Bondage, p. 191.

  “They rendezvoused on park benches”: Bentley’s congressional testimony, Export Policy and Loyalty, July 30, 1948, p. 31.

  “a shopping bag, always with a department store name on it”: Bentley’s testimony before HUAC, Communist Espionage, July 31, 1948, p. 522.

  81 “undeniably thrilling”: Hope Hale Davis writes that clandestine assignments “stirred me in a way that made [my husband] shake his head” in “Looking Back,” New Leader, p. 17.

  “agents linked to Soviet intelligence through her”: Haynes and Klehr, Venona, p. 93.

  “sleeping on a bed in the enclosed back porch”: Information about Bentley and Mary Price in Bentley’s congressional testimony, Export Policy and Loyalty, July 30, 1948, p. 27; Bentley’s signed FBI statement, p. 16; and Bentley, Out of Bondage, pp. 132, 181. Thirty years after the fact, Mary Price told an interviewer that Bentley had made homosexual advances toward her. This may or may not be true, but it certainly makes sense that Price would be interested in discrediting Bentley any way she could.

  “the location of OSS personnel in foreign countries”: The intelligence provided by Lee is noted in various Venona cables. See Haynes and Klehr, Venona, pp. 105, 107. Bentley testified about her meetings with Lee before HUAC, Communist Espionage, July 31, 1948, p. 529; Lee testified on Aug. 8, 1948. See especially pp. 718–19. Bentley also testified about Lee at the Institute of Pacific Relations hearings, Aug. 14, 1951, p. 413. See also Bentley’s signed FBI statement, pp. 34–36 and Bentley, Out of Bondage, p. 183.

  “his job gave him access to sensitive information from the agency’s Far East and Russian sections”: Haynes and Klehr, Venona, p. 108; Bentley’s signed FBI statement, pp. 30–31; and Bentley, Out of Bondage, p. 159.

  “secret reports from agents in Spain”: On Tenney, see Romerstein and Breindel, Venona Secrets, pp. 298–99; Haynes and Klehr, Venona, p. 112; Bentley, Out of Bondage, pp. 200–01.

  “bulletins and reports prepared by the agency on a variety of topics”: Information on Halperin from FBI report, Jan. 27, 1947, Bentley file No. 65-14603; Haynes and Klehr, Venona, pp. 101–02; Bentley’s signed FBI statement, p. 33; Bentley, Out of Bondage, pp. 263–64. Also see Kirschner, Cold War Exile, especially pp. 279–80. 84 “a former newspaper reporter working for the press division of CIAA”: Bentley named all these sources in her signed FBI statement: Size on p. 50, Gregg, pp. 45–46, Miller, p. 17, and Redmont, p. 49.

  “commenting on the personalities and opinions of those he knew in government”: Bentley testified about her relationship with Remington at the Export Policy and Loyalty hearings, July 30, 1948. Remington responded on July 31, 1948, p. 169. She offered additional testimony before HUAC, Communism in the U.S. Government, May 6, 1950, pp. 185–89. See also Bentley’s signed FBI statement, pp. 47–48; Bentley, Out of Bondage, pp. 178–79; May, Un-American Activities, pp. 258–59.

  “held herself like the patrician she was”: Romerstein and Breindel, Venona Secrets, p. 152; author’s interview with Bud Rubin, who knew the Silvermasters in New Jersey, Nov. 19, 2000.

  “supply the party with information that might aid the Soviet war effort”: Craig, “Treasonable Doubt,” pp. 113–14.

  “one of Browder’s assistants during the San Francisco general strike of 1934”: Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, pp. 157–58.

  “he had been living with the Silvermasters for years”: Author’s interview with Bud Rubin, Nov. 9, 2000; author’s correspondence with Alice Rubin, Sept. 29, 2000; Haynes and Klehr, Venona, p. 136.

  “some in the party understood to be a ménage à trois”: Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, p. 164. Bud Rubin found this idea “ludicrous.” Author’s interview, Nov. 9, 2000.

  “manuals for American fighter planes and bombers”: Sixty-one decrypted Venona messages mention Silvermaster and the information he passed. See, especially, KGB/NY to Moscow, Oct. 17, 1944, message #1469. Other key Venona messages are #1691, #1751–1753,#1787, and #1821 (all relayed in December of 1944, all detailing documents passed by Silvermaster). See also Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, pp. 158–59; Haynes and Klehr, Venona, p. 136.

  “setting up a darkroom in the Silvermasters’ basement”: Haynes and Klehr, Venona, p. 129; Lamphere, FBI-KGB, p. 37.

  “forty rolls of undeveloped microfilm in her bag every two weeks”: FBI memo, special agent in charge, New York to Washington field office and director, Nov. 8, 1945, Bentley file No. 65-56402-1.

  “Abraham George Silverman, an economic adviser in the Air Force”: Members of the Silvermaster Group are named in Haynes and Klehr, Venona, p. 129; Romerstein and Breindel, Venona Secrets, pp. 184–85; Packer, Ex-Communist Witnesses, p. 58.

  “secure jobs in ‘productive areas’”: Bentley’s testimony before HUAC, Communist Espionage, July 31, 1948, p. 553; Haynes and Klehr, Venona, p. 346; Chambers, Witness, p. 247.

  “he was a contributing member of the group”: Corroboration of White’s involvement can be found in various Venona cables. See, especially, Venona #1119–1121 (Aug. 4–5, 1944); also see Romerstein and Breindel, Venona Secrets, p. 46; Carpozi, Red Spies, p. 229; Rees, Harry Dexter White, p. 424; Craig, “Treasonable Doubt,” who is otherwise sympathetic to White, makes the point clearly.

  “Morganthau Plan for the pastoralization of Germany after the war”: On White’s importance, see Latham, Communist Controversy, p. 177. 87 “facilitating espionage by sponsoring the employment of Soviet-friendly sources”: Bentley’s signed FBI statement, p. 25.

  “protect Silvermaster when his friend came under scrutiny”: Haynes and Klehr, Venona, p. 139.

  “he was in a position to influence U.S. policy in a pro-Soviet direction”: Bentley, Out of Bondage, p. 164.

  “an effort to remember what happened the week before”: Bentley writes about her weariness and depression in Out of Bondage, p. 191.

  “report to a Russian operative, not Golos”: Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, p. 91; Bentley, Out of Bondage, p. 206.

  “trying to defend his position and hold on to his leadership role”: Letter found in the KGB archives and summarized in Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, p. 93.

  “‘They want to get rid of me’”: Conversation recounted by Bentley in Out of Bondage, p. 195.

  “she lay awake listening to the sound of his ragged breathing”: Bentley, Out of Bondage, pp. 191–92.

  CHAPTER 9: CLEVER GIRL

  “‘talent spotter, personal data gatherer, group controller, and recruiter’”: Letter in KGB archives noted in Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, p. 93. When informed of his death, his superiors in Moscow decided not to award the medal posthumously.

  “T
hey carried Golos out of the apartment in a canvas sling”: Bentley relates the circumstances of Golos’s death and its immediate aftermath in Out of Bondage, pp. 212–22. She also refers to it in the autobiographical sketch she wrote for the NKVD summarized in Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, p. 93.

  “fight the Russians for control of the sources”: Bentley, Out of Bondage, pp. 223–26; Bentley’s signed FBI statement, p. 92.

  “Golos was one of the old-timers”: Bentley, Out of Bondage, p. 228.

  “showing only as much emotion as would be appropriate”: FBI report, “Re: Confidential Informant Gregory” (undated). Bentley file No. 65-14603 gives some details of the funeral arrangements. See also Bentley’s signed FBI statement, p. 92; Bentley, Out of Bondage, p. 229.

  “She was to call him ‘Bill’”: Bentley’s signed FBI statement, p. 74.

  “he was married to Earl Browder’s niece”: On Akhmerov, see Haynes and Klehr, Venona, pp. 154–55; Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, pp. 35–36.

  “Price should report directly to him”: Bentley recounts the meeting in Out of Bondage, p. 233.

  “She was a ‘sincere person’”: Report in KGB archive quoted in Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, p. 95.

  “his closest assistant from whom he had no secrets”: KGB memo in Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, p. 94.

  “She put them in her big bag and left”: Incident recounted in Bentley, Out of Bondage, p. 235.

  “Bentley met several times with Earl Browder”: According to Venona 2011, KGB New York to Moscow, Dec. 11, 1943.

  “political and economic material she thought might interest him”: Bentley’s signed FBI statement, p. 93.

  “a ‘genuine American Aryan’”: Letter in KGB archives, quoted in Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, p. 80.

  “at the expense of two important sources”: Klehr and Haynes, Secret World, p. 310; Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, p. 260.

  “another incautious and amateurish blunder”: Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, p. 262.

  “the FBI wasn’t paying close attention”: Klehr and Haynes, Venona, p. 122.

  “commensurate with the usefulness of that person to the Soviet enterprise”: Bentley’s signed FBI statement, p. 66; Bentley, Out of Bondage, pp. 210, 236.

  “a ‘lost tribe’ in wartime Washington”: Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, p. 223. The so-called Perlo Group probably became inactive because of Whittaker Chambers’s 1938 defection, after which the members feared exposure.

  “the Ware Group, the original espionage apparatus established in the early 1930s”: Chambers, Witness, p. 347.

  “Now Bentley was being asked to follow up”: Haynes and Klehr, Venona, p. 117.

  “collecting party dues from the group and providing them with literature”: Bentley testified about this first meeting with the Perlo group before HUAC, Communist Espionage, August 9, 1948, p. 692, and in her signed FBI statement, pp. 51–52. See also Venona 588, KGB New York to Moscow, April 29, 1944.

  “reliable party members who were ‘politically highly mature’”: Venona 687, KGB New York to Moscow, May 13, 1944.

  “Perlo was the son of Russian immigrants”: On Perlo, see Haynes and Klehr, Venona, p. 116; Bentley, Out of Bondage, pp. 239–40.

  “the longtime legal council for the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union and a member of the original Ware Group”: Abt’s memoir, Advocate and Activist, pp. 150–51.

  “Donald Wheeler, an Oxford-trained OSS employee”: Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, p. 252.

  “Solomon Lishinsky and George Perazich”: Bentley identified the Perlo Group in her signed FBI statement, p. 52. The members are also listed in Romerstein and Breindel, Venona Secrets, p. 185; FBI memo, Washington field office, Oct. 27, 1951, WFO No. 101-3599-36 in Alger Hiss papers; Haynes and Klehr, Venona, pp. 117–18. The identities were also confirmed in Venona 687, May 13, 1944 and May 30, 1944.

  “off-hand American informality that drove Akhmerov crazy”: Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, p. 225.

  “her apartment served as a regular meeting spot”: Bentley testified about the details of the group’s operation and meetings before HUAC, Communist Espionage, July 31, 1948, p. 525. See also her signed FBI statement, pp. 53–54; Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, pp. 225, 229; Haynes and Klehr, Venona, p. 123.

  “information on aircraft production and distribution by countries and theaters of action”: Bentley, Out of Bondage, p. 259.

  “Wheeler provided copies of OSS reports”: Bentley details what each group member contributed in her signed FBI statement, pp. 55–56. See also Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, pp. 227, 231–32; Bentley, Out of Bondage, p. 259.

  “came across Donald Wheeler’s desk—and made it to KGB headquarters in Moscow”: Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, p. 253.

  “the group was ‘really going to town’”: Bentley, Out of Bondage, p. 259.

  “He will be very upset by it”: KGB cable quoted in Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, p. 226.

  “demanding that she turn over Price immediately”: Bentley, Out of Bondage, p. 238.

  “an argument she made to both Akhmerov and Browder”: Venona 1065, KGB New York to Moscow, June 28, 1944.

  “Price was taken out of commission”: Haynes and Klehr, Venona, p. 100.

  “turn over the entire Silvermaster network”: Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, p. 96.

  “she was refusing to obey orders”: Reports from KGB archives quoted in Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, pp. 97–98.

  “it is possible to correct her behavior”: Letter in KGB archives quoted in Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, p. 97.

  “wrest the Silvermaster Group from Bentley’s control”: Bentley’s signed FBI statement, pp. 13–16; Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, p. 304.

  “evidently supposing that we do not trust her”: Venona 973, KGB New York to Moscow, July 11, 1944.

  “associating with a man who turned out to be an undercover counterintelligence agent”: Bentley’s signed FBI statement, p. 84.

  “they would be contacted by another individual”: Bentley’s signed FBI statement, p. 79.

  “meet at various venues in Manhattan”: Bentley’s signed FBI statement, pp. 75–76, 78; Bentley, Out of Bondage, p. 249.

  “He was really Anatoly Gorsky”: Bentley’s signed FBI statement, p. 83.

  “‘Her life will lose its meaning without this work’”: Letter in KGB archives, June 25, 1944, quoted in Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, p. 98.

  “a fur coat and an air conditioner”: Bentley so testified before HUAC, Communist Espionage, Aug. 11, 1948, p. 812.

  “Bentley nonetheless must have felt deeply honored”: Bentley testified about the details of the Red Star meeting before HUAC, Communist Espionage, Aug. 11, 1948, pp. 811–12. See also her signed FBI statement, pp. 83–84.

  “she would work ‘indefatigably’ to justify the award”: Report from Gorsky to Moscow in KGB archives, summarized in Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, p. 99.

  “‘directly threaten the existence of [Bentley’s] cover’”: Venona 1673, KGB NY to Moscow, Nov. 30, 1944; see also Venona 1802, Dec. 21, 1944.

  “‘The question of a husband for her must be thought over’”: Cable in KGB archives, quoted in Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, p. 98.

  “it was urgent to find her a husband”: Cable in KGB archives, quoted in Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, p. 99.

  CHAPTER 10: RUSSIAN ROULETTE

  “That was just bad tradecraft”: Bentley’s signed FBI statement, p. 84.

  “she never felt more alone or more adrift”: Bentley, Out of Bondage, p. 270.

  “a front for illegal activities”: Bentley’s signed FBI statement, p. 84. 106 “mixing her legal and illegal activities”: Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, p. 100.

  “She continued to be involved in the operation”: For the USS&S saga, see Bentley’s signed FBI sta
tement, pp. 59–61.

  “the purpose of which was to tell her, again and in no uncertain terms, to stay out of USS&S”: Bentley’s signed FBI statement, p. 86.

  “‘she didn’t have time to think too much’”: Moscow to Gorsky in KGB archives, quoted in Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, p. 101.

  “resume her clandestine work”: Bentley testified about this before HUAC, Communist Espionage, July 31, 1948, p. 541. 108 “she would be entrusted with this position”: Bentley’s signed FBI statement, p. 81.

  “and then be recalled to active espionage duty”: Bentley’s signed FBI statement, p. 86.

  “Gorsky was suggesting that Bentley be relocated to another country”: Gorsky to Moscow, Sept. 10, 1945, in KGB archives, quoted in Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, p. 101.

  “Akhmerov was taken aback by her bitterness”: Akhmerov to Moscow in KGB archives, quoted in Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, p. 97.

  “‘shattered nerves’ and an ‘unsettled private life’”: Moscow to Gorsky, Oct. 11, 1945, in KGB archive, quoted in Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, p. 102.

  “The American Communist Party was ‘a gang of foreigners’”: Bentley’s signed FBI statement, p. 86, for her description of the meeting.

  “‘Get rid of her’”: All quotes are from Gorsky to Moscow messages in KGB archives, quoted in Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, pp. 101–02.

  “a new OSS employee who would be willing to pass along confidential material”: Venona 1464, Oct. 14, 1944.

  “remind her of the good work she had done”: Merkulov to Gorsky, Oct. 11, 1945, in KGB archives, quoted in Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, p. 102.

  “Bentley was sober, cordial, and apologetic”: Gorsky to Merkulov, Oct. 29, 1945, in KGB archives, quoted in Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, p. 103.

  “dribble a little on her handkerchief”: Gorsky memo, Nov. 27, 1945, in KGB archives, quoted in Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, p. 108.