Clever Girl

by Lauren Kessler

  “Her frequent subpoenas ‘did not help class morale,’ she said”: Newspaper clippings in FBI file: Washington Post, May 1, 1950, Bentley file No. 61-6328-A; New Haven Register, Oct. 16, 1951, Bentley file No. 134-435-48.

  “Sister Mary Josephine thought it would be best if she left”: May, Un-American Activities, p. 143.

  “‘She fitted in here very well’”: Newspaper clipping in FBI file: Washington Post, May 1, 1950, Bentley file No. 61-6328-A.

  “living temporarily at the Hotel Commodore”: Bentley’s testimony before HUAC, Regarding Communism, May 6, 1950, p. 1852.

  “his client was not a party to the settlement and did not agree with it”: FBI teletype, New York office to Washington, D.C., office, Feb. 8, 1950, Bentley file No. 134-435-16; HUAC, Regarding Communism, May 6, 1950, p. 1851.

  CHAPTER 18: THE SPOTLIGHT

  “‘Only Elizabeth Bentley can answer…these questions’”: I obtained the Aug. 13, 1948, Meet the Press broadcast (on tape) from the Library of Congress Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division. LWO 36768.

  “‘there’s still time to undo the damage we have so foolishly done’”: “Miss Bentley Urges Ex-Reds to Testify,” New York Times, Aug. 18, 1948.

  “‘the greatest sinners make the greatest saints’”: Time magazine, Nov. 29, 1948.

  “made her a ‘pushover’ for communism”: New York Times, Feb. 14, 1949, p. 17; Washington Times Herald, Feb. 13, 1949.

  “she was ‘surrounded by procommunist professors’”: Newspaper clipping (name unreadable), dated April 4, 1949, Bentley file No. 61-6328-A.

  “the danger of communist propaganda spreading to young people”: Newspaper clipping from Brooklyn Eagle, Jan. 12, 1951, Bentley file No. 61-6328-5ASB.

  “a victim of brainwashing”: Huntsville (Alabama) Times, March 11, 1949, p. 1.

  “a meeting sponsored by the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals”: Newspaper clipping from Los Angeles Herald & Express, June 29, 1949, in Hiss papers.

  “charging $300 an evening”: FBI memo, New York office to director, Jan. 23, 1952, Bentley file No. 134-435-52; FBI memo, New York office to director, Sept. 26, 1952, Bentley file No. 134-435-66.

  “‘…you are taking away from the party the brains behind it’”: Subcommittee on Immigration and Naturalization, Communist Activities, May 13, 1949, p. 117.

  “agents served in the Soviet Union’s United Nations’ delegation and on the staff of foreign-language newspapers published in America”: Subcommittee on Immigration and Naturalization, Communist Activities, May 13, 1949, pp. 113–14.

  “‘Yes, Mr. William Remington’”: Subcommittee on Immigration and Naturalization, Communist Activities, May 13, 1949, p. 114.

  “the single most expensive scientific endeavor in human history”: Thomas Hager, Force of Nature, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995, p. 271.

  “a ‘hoax conspiracy’”: The case was officially called U.S.A. v. Julius Rosenberg, Ethel Rosenberg and Morton Sobell. The FBI’s FOIA electronic reading room has online a 171-page summary of the case at foia.fbi.gov/roberg.html. See also “Atomic Espionage from Fuchs to the Rosenbergs,” in Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, pp. 172–222. A number of books proclaim the Rosenbergs’ innocence See, for example, Yalkowsky, The Murder of the Rosenbergs, and Walter and Miriam Schneir, Invitation to an Inquest. More recent books, based on the Venona cables and new information from some of the principals, argue that Julius was, indeed, a spy. See Roberts, The Brother, and Feklisov, The Man Behind the Rosenbergs. Weinstein and Vassiliev in Haunted Wood make a strong and informed case against Julius as well. Sources on both sides agree that Ethel had little to do with the operation.

  “she initiated the investigation that eventually led to the Rosenbergs”: Former FBI agent Don Shannon, who interviewed both Brothman and Gold, was very helpful in piecing this together. Author’s interview with Shannon, July 22, 2000.

  “‘…only served the interests of Moscow, whether it be propaganda or espionage or sabotage’”: This and other key testimony can be found online at www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/rosenb.

  “Now Bentley was used to help establish a link between them and Golos”: I am in debt to Peake’s afterword to Out of Bondage (1988), p. 260, for this clear explanation.

  “a man identifying himself as Julius called her several times”: Bentley’s signed FBI statement, p. 106. Rosenberg corroborated Bentley’s account of him using her as a messenger for Golos when he met with New York operative Alexander Feklissov in December of 1945. See Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, p. 217.

  “an accident waiting to happen”: For good summaries of the entire Remington affair, see Packer, Ex-Communist Witnesses, pp. 78–80, and Caute, The Great Fear, pp. 287–89.

  “turned over the Knoxville information to the eager Red-hunters at HUAC”: This is what Carr, The House Committee, p. 198, suspects, and I think he’s right.

  “naming Remington as one of a half dozen members of the Knoxville cell”: Testimony quoted and summarized in the New York Times, May 5, 1950, p. 2.

  “either ‘quite ignorant of the facts’ or ‘engaged in deliberate falsehood’”: New York Times, May 5, 1950, pp. 1–2.

  “He had been a communist in Knoxville”: In addition to the two Knoxville witnesses, Remington’s ex-wife testified that he had been involved in Communist Party activities.

  “Bentley’s story—which she retold in detail before HUAC the following day—remained uncorroborated”: HUAC, Regarding Communism, May 6, 1950, pp. 1849–64.

  “the involvement of forty-four field offices, agents in seven foreign countries, and the special attention of J. Edgar Hoover”: O’Reilly, Hoover, p. 150.

  “a ‘conscious agent,’ not, as she had implied elsewhere, a confused idealist”: May, Un-American Activities, p. 167.

  “she had assured her former husband just the day before”: May, Un-American Activities, p. 158.

  “she would stop receiving alimony or child support”: For insights into Ann Moos Remington, see May, Un-American Activities, pp. 44–48, 73–76, 110.

  “her husband was ‘a communist from my earliest acquaintance of him’”: Packer, Ex-Communist Witnesses, pp. 86–89. The grand jury testimony was reprinted in the opinion of the dissenting Court of Appeals judge, included as a footnote in Packer, p. 88.

  “‘would be almost disastrous to the…Remington case’”: May, Un-American Activities, p. 203.

  “Bentley told her story in ninety minutes”: New York Times, Jan. 9, 1951, p. 1.

  “her relationship with the foreman of the grand jury”: New York Times, Jan. 11, 1951, p. 1.

  “she remembered typing just such a contract”: Packer, Ex-Communist Witnesses, p. 85.

  “at the very least, eleven other men had voted for the indictment”: New York Times, Jan. 12, 1951, p. 28.

  “the crime, said the judge, had involved disloyalty to the country and so should be treated most seriously”: May, Un-American Activities, pp. 263–65.

  CHAPTER 19: MY LIFE AS A SPY

  “begin to transform her experiences into salable prose”: May, Un-American Activities, pp. 155–56 for the Bentley-Brunini meeting and background on Brunini. Olmstead, Red Spy Queen, pp. 168–69, makes an interesting circumstantial case that Brunini may have written or rewritten most of the manuscript.

  “‘this is John Brunini who is helping her do it’”: This was the testimony given by Mrs. Collins, Devin-Adair’s publicity director at Remington’s first trial. See May, n-American Activities, p. 236. FBI teletype, New York office to director, Oct. 16, 1950, Bentley file No. 134-435-28, states that “Brunini assisted Miss Bentley in making arrangements with [the] publisher.”

  “Bentley signed the document”: Packer, Ex-Communist Witnesses, p. 85.

  “Devin Garrity arranged for her to stay”: FBI memo, New York to director, June 23, 1950, Bentley file No. 134-435-24; FBI memo, New York to director, Jan. 4, 1951, Bentley file No. 134-435-[num
ber illegible].

  “the doctor who must perform a caesarian”: May, Un-American Activities, p. 156.

  “Mr. Sloane, she said, was under the influence of this friend”: New York Times, Jan. 15, 1951, p. 1.

  “a melodramatic memoir”: Bentley’s book was part of a torrent of confessional literature written by ex-communists who had seen the light, like Benjamin Gitlow’s I Confess and Whittaker Chamber’s Witness.

  “‘waves of dizziness’ swirl around her”: Bentley, Out of Bondage, p. 96. 223 “‘…fought back a rising hysteria’”: Bentley, Out of Bondage, p. 215.

  “‘…what a monstrous thing Communism is’”: Bentley, Out of Bondage, p. 311.

  “‘a great deal of respect for the veracity of Elizabeth Bentley’”: Information about McCall’s reaction and the meeting with the FBI in FBI memo, Tolson to Nichols, Jan. 24, 1951, Bentley file No. 134-435-35.

  “three or four times what she made from the book advance”: McCall’s paid top dollar for serial rights. In early 1950, the magazine paid Sinclair Lewis $25,000 for a four-part series. Even if Bentley received only half that amount, it was still many times more than she received from Devin-Adair as an advance for the book. Thanks to veteran of the New York publishing world, Robert Loomis, for the McCall’s payment information.

  “‘a human document of tremendous interest and significance’”: McCall’s news release, April 19, 1951, Bentley file No. 134-435-40.

  “‘and we didn’t turn communist’”: The press conference is covered in a column in the Washington News, April 24, 1951, p. 23, Bentley file No. 134-435-41.

  “‘the disciplined, obedient Bolshevik’”: The McCall’s stories ran in May 1951, beginning on p. 34; June, p. 36; July, p. 30; August, p. 50.

  “the subcommittee directed its attention to the Institute of Pacific Relations”: SISS, Institute of Pacific Relations, August 1951, pp. 403–47. Also see Newsweek, Aug. 27, 1951, pp. 21–22 for coverage of the hearings. Bentley discusses the IPR in Out of Bondage, pp. 193–94.

  “the IPR was ‘as red as a rose’”: SISS, Institute of Pacific Relations, August 1951, p. 437.

  “‘beyond the advance she had already been given’”: May, Un-American Activities, p. 280.

  “‘an illuminating book’”: New York Herald Tribune Book Review, Sept. 23, 1951, p. 6.

  “‘fascinating and exciting account’”: Chicago Sunday Tribune, Oct. 14, 1951, p. 4.

  “‘an interesting and instructive picture of a Communist secret agent’”: The Atlantic, November 1951, p. 91.

  “neither an acute observer of herself nor of those around her”: Saturday Review of Literature, December 1951, p. 58.

  “‘…for a spy thriller, it is surprisingly dull’”: New York Times Sunday Book Review, Sept. 23, 1951, p. 6.

  “The author he deemed ‘obviously unstable’”: The Commonweal, Nov. 9, 1951, p. 120.

  “‘…as she had later with her New England conscience’”: The New Yorker, Oct. 20, 1951, p. 150.

  “compiling a list of new names to investigate”: FBI memo, special agent in charge, New York, to director, Dec. 17, 1953, Bentley file No. 134-435-95.

  “enhanced the narrative by telescoping events”: FBI memo, special agent in charge, New Orleans, to director, Jan. 14, 1954, Bentley file No. 134-182-38; FBI memo, Jan. 19, 1954, Bentley file No. 65-14603-4563.

  “she had already spent all her money”: Her lawyer suggested that she spread her 1951 income over four years to mitigate taxes, which, it turned out, greatly displeased the IRS. See FBI memo, Nichols to Tolson, May 20, 1955, Bentley file No. 134-435-146.

  “Bentley bought her first house”: FBI memo, special agent in charge, New York, to director, Sept. 29, 1951, Bentley file No. 134-435-45.

  “She intended, she said, to live a much less hectic life”: Clipping from the New Haven Register, Oct. 16, 1951, Bentley file No. 134-435-48.

  CHAPTER 20: THE CENTER CANNOT HOLD

  “help build dossiers on suspected subversives”: FBI report, Jan. 21, 1952, Bentley file No. 134-435-50.

  “It was Granich”: HUAC, Communist Press, Jan. 15, 1952, p. 2207.

  “‘I took every possible precaution’”: SISS, IPR, May 29, 1952, p. 4789.

  “‘It very definitely is,’ replied the admiral”: SISS, IPR, May 29, 1952, pp. 4790–91.

  “they don’t bother with clerks”: “Capital Reds Held Still Unexposed.” New York Times, May 30, 1952.

  “nothing more than what she had told the committee”: FBI memo, D. M. Ladd to A. H. Belmont, Nov. 23, 1953, Bentley file No. 134-435-[illegible].

  “the only money she had ever received from the government was reimbursement for travel”: FBI memo, W. A. Branigan to A. H. Belmont, Oct. 15, 1952, Bentley file No. 134-435-70.

  “the company owed her nothing”: FBI memo, director to special agent in charge, New York, March 24, 1955, Bentley file No. 100-94014.

  “the $2,000 she had handed over to the bureau back in 1945”: This meeting detailed in FBI memo, A. H. Belmont to Mr. Ladd, Jan. 15, 1952, Bentley file No. 65-56402-3944.

  “The return of the money ‘cannot be recommended…”: FBI letter, special agent in charge, New York, to director, Jan. 4, 1951, Bentley file No. 65-14603.

  “hinting that the Bureau might want to reverse its previous decision”: FBI memo, A. H. Belmont to Mr. Ladd, Jan. 15, 1952, Bentley file No. 65-56402-3944.

  “handed Elizabeth Bentley the envelope containing the $2,000 in cash”: FBI memo, special agent in charge, New York, to director, July 10, 1952, Bentley file No. 134-435-59.

  “She appeared nervous and depressed”: Author’s interview with Nathaniel Weyl, July 31, 2000.

  “emotionally volatile, alternately weepy and demanding”: FBI letter, director to William Tompkins, March 4, 1955, Bentley file No. 134-435-134.

  “insulin shock treatments”: On Katherine Perlo, see FBI memo, special agent in charge, Dallas, to director, July 31, 1952, Bentley file No. 65-57904-37X; FBI memo, special agent in charge, Houston, to director, April 4, 1952, Bentley file No. 65-57904-35.

  “she was suffering from ‘a severe case of hallucinations’”: On Helen Tenney, see FBI report “Re: Confidential Informant Gregory,” Bentley file No. 65-14603.

  “the local pastor paid a call”: FBI memo, special agent in charge, New York, to director, May 16, 1952, Bentley file No. 134-435-58.

  “Wright said he ‘blew his cork and hit her with a right cross’”: The altercation is chronicled in a series of FBI memos: FBI memo, special agent in charge, New York, to director, May 16, 1952, Bentley file No. 134-435-58; A. H. Belmont to D. M. Ladd, May 13, 1952, Bentley file No. 134-435-56; A.H. Belmont to D.M. Ladd, May 15, 1952, Bentley file No. 134-435-57.

  “Bentley and Wright had gotten sloppy drunk together”: FBI report to A. H. Belmont and W. V. Cleveland, May 8, 1952, Bentley file No. 134-435-[no number assigned].

  “A short time later, Mr. Wright disappeared”: FBI memo, Mr. Belmont to Mr. Ladd, May 13, 1952, Bentley file No. 134-435-55; FBI memo, A. H. Belmont to Ladd, May 13, 1952, Bentley file No. 134-435-56; also see May, Un-American Activities, p. 281.

  “payments to Bentley of $50 a week for three weeks”: FBI memo, special agent in charge, New York, to director, July 10, 1952, Bentley file No. 134-435-59; see also FBI memo quoted in Yalkowsky, Murder of the Rosenbergs, p. 333.

  “‘in recognition of [her] time and assistance’”: FBI memo, special agent in charge, New Haven, to director, June 27, 1955, Bentley file No. 134-435-169.

  “a $500 lump-sum payment to help settle her debts”: FBI memo, special agent in charge, New York, to director, July 10, 1952, Bentley file No. 134-435-59; FBI memo special agent in charge, New York, to director, April 10, 1953, Bentley file No. 134-435-76; FBI memo, A. H. Belmont to Mr. Ladd, Oct. 15, 1952, Bentley file No. 65-56402-3944, p. 1.

  “Cohn had once again saved the day”: Details of the incident in FBI memo, special agent in charge, New York, to director, Sept. 4, 1952, Bentley file No. 134-435-6
3; teletypes, New Haven office to director and special agent in charge, New York, Aug. 29, 1952, 6:17 P.M. and 6:25 P.M., Bentley file No. 134-435-62; FBI memo, A. H. Belmont to Mr. Ladd, Aug. 29, 1952, Bentley file No. 134-435-61.

  “She was ‘difficult to handle’”: This incident is detailed in FBI memos, A. H. Belmont to C. E. Hennrich, Sept. 22, 1952, Bentley file No. 134-435-65; and special agent in charge, New York, to director, Sept. 26, 1952, Bentley file No. 134-435-66.

  “that much more unable to take care of her own affairs”: This affair is detailed in FBI memos, Thomas McAndrews, New York office, to director, Sept. 29, 1952, Bentley file No. 134-182-6; Lester Gallaher, New York office, to director, Sept. 23, 1952, Bentley file No. 134-182-5; A. H. Belmont to D. M. Ladd, Sept. 26, 1952, Bentley file No. 134-435-67; New York to director, Sept. 26, 1952, Bentley file No. 134-435-66.

  “cease to be the ‘neurotic’ and ‘emotionally unstable’ burden she had become”: Her financial problems and the Bureau’s reaction are chronicled in FBI memos, New York to director, Sept. 26, 1952, Bentley file No. 134-435-66; New York to director, Oct. 8, 1952, Bentley file No. 134-182-7; W. A. Branigan to A. H. Belmont, Oct. 15, 1952, Bentley file No. 134-435-70.

  “bail her out of her financial difficulties”: FBI memo, A. H. Belmont to Mr. Ladd, Oct. 15, 1952, Bentley file No. 65-56402-3944.

  “‘…every time she finds herself in financial or other difficulties’”: FBI memo, New York to director, Oct. 22, 1952, Bentley file No. 134-435-69.

  “She ‘appeared much less nervous and more reasonable in her attitude’”: FBI memo from Lester Gallaher, Oct. 29, 1952, Bentley file No. 134-182-8.

  “step out in front of a car and settle everything”: FBI report, New York office, March 9, 1955, p. 6, Bentley file No. 134-182-74.

  CHAPTER 21: BACK IN THE ACT

  “Alfred Kohlberg, a wealthy anticommunist bigwig”: FBI memo, special agent in charge, New York, to director, Jan. 16, 1953, Bentley file No. 134-435-72.

  “the $50 a week she was continued to be paid by the FBI”: FBI memo, special agent in charge, New York, to director, April 10, Z 1953, Bentley file No. 134-435-76.