The unbelievable extent to which Americans participated in Russian-directed espionage against the United States during the depression and during World War II has only recently become generally recognized. Many complete books have now been written which summarize the evidence unearthed by the FBI, the courts and Congress.
Whittaker Chambers Breaks with Communism
In 1938, at the very height of his career as a Russian courier and contact man, Chambers found his philosophy of materialism collapsing. It was one morning while feeding his small daughter that Chambers suddenly realized as he watched her that the delicate yet immense complexity of the human body and human personality could not possibly be explained in terms of accumulated accident. Chambers dated his break with Communism from that moment.
At first he was highly disturbed and tried to thrust the new conviction from his mind, but as he opened his thinking to the evidence around him he finally became completely persuaded that he was living in a universe of amazingly immaculate design which was subject to the creative supervision of a supreme intelligence. Consequently, just as Communist philosophy had brought him into the movement its collapse made him determined to get out. It was many months later before he finally disentangled himself and ran away from the Soviet Intelligence Service.
Chambers says that when he ultimately made his break with Communism he did everything in his power to get his close friend, Alger Hiss, to leave with him. Alger Hiss, however, not only refused but, according to Chambers heatedly denounced him for trying to influence him.
From watching the fate of others, Chambers already had some idea of what it meant to try and leave the conspiratorial apparatus of Communism. Nevertheless, the course he followed brought physical and mental suffering that not even he had suspected.
Today, no more complete account of the agonizing experiences of those who dare to wear the badge of an ex-Communist can be found than that contained in the s of Chambers’ autobiography, Witness. At one point he worked with a gun beside him for fear the Russian secret police would take his life just as they were doing to so many others. At another point he tried to take his own life to keep from having to expose those who had formerly been his most intimate friends.
Most of these details can only be appreciated in their full text. For our purposes it is sufficient to point out that up until the time Chambers did finally make up his mind to tell the whole story, the American public was almost completely unaware of the vast network of spy activities which Russia had built into every strata of American society. And this unfortunate condition existed even though the FBI had been carefully gathering facts and warning government officials concerning Communist activities for many years.
Finally, a cloud of witnesses confirmed that it was true.
Elizabeth Bentley Takes Over After Chambers Leaves
Chambers had no way of knowing that after he deserted the Russian espionage system, the Soviets would replace him with a woman. Her name was Elizabeth Bentley.
She came from a long line of New England American ancestors, She had attended Vassar, traveled and studied in Italy for a year and returned to the United States in 1934 to find the country deep in a depression. Having failed to get a job, she decided her only chance was to learn a business course so she enrolled at the School of Business at Columbia University. There she met up with a number of people who were friendly and sympathetic toward her. It was quite some time before she knew they were Communists. As these friends explained Communism to her it seemed rather reasonable—in fact, the way they explained it, Communism would be a great improvement over American Capitalism (which at that moment was bogged down like an iceberg with unemployment and bankruptcy). So Elizabeth Bentley became a Communist. She entered the campaign with all the zeal that could come from a girl in her twenties who suddenly believes that a new era of history is about to open up which will solve all of humanity’s problems.
For some time Elizabeth Bentley worked in New York’s Welfare Department and while there she was made the financial secretary of the Columbia University Communist unit. She attended the Communist Workers’ School and joined so many front organizations under different names that on at least one occasion she went to a meeting and could not remember who she was supposed to be!
Before long the activities of Elizabeth Bentley had tracked the leaders of the Russian underground apparatus and before she really knew what had happened to her she had been carefully shifted from the day-to-day assignments of the U.S. Communist Party to the underground network of Soviet espionage.
She worked for three different individuals before she was finally assigned to an over-worked, old-time revolutionary called “Timmy.” Elizabeth Bentley fell in love with Timmy.
One day he said to her: “You and I have no right to feel the way we do about each other…. There is only one way out, and that is to stick together and keep our relationship unknown to everyone…. You will have to take me completely on faith, without knowing who I am, where I live, or what I do for a living.”
This was how Elizabeth Bentley became the Communist wife of a man who turned out to be Jacob Golos, one of the all-powerful chiefs of the Russian Secret Police in the United States.
Under his training Elizabeth Bentley became what she later called a “steeled Bolshevik.”
In May, 1940, she read that an attempt had been made against the life of Leon Trotsky in Mexico. The attempt had failed but his personal bodyguard had been kidnaped and shot in the back. For years Stalin had been trying to liquidate his old enemy and from the way Jacob Golos behaved Elizabeth Bentley knew her Communist mate was in on the plot. Several months later a killer actually got through to Trotsky and smashed his skull with an alpenstock.
Beginning in 1941, Elizabeth Bentley was used by the Russian espionage apparatus to collect material from contacts in Washington, D.C. She says she first became the courier for the Silvermaster spy group which was extracting information from Communist contacts in the Pentagon and other top-secret governmental agencies. Before she was through she had picked up nearly all of Whittaker Chambers’ former contacts and many more besides.
Occasionally there was near disaster, as was the case just after Gregory Silvermaster got a job with the Board of Economic Warfare through the influence of Lauchlin Currie (an administrative assistant at the White House). She says that after taking the Job he was shown a letter addressed to his superior from the head of Army Intelligence indicating that the FBI and Naval Intelligence had proof of his Communist connections. The letter demanded that Silvermaster be discharged.
The panicky Silvermaster asked Elizabeth Bentley what to do. She gave him the same instruction that other exposed Communists were being given: “Stand your ground, put on an air of injured innocence; you are not a Communist, just a ‘progressive’ whose record proves you have always fought for the rights of labor. Rally all your ‘liberal’ friends around…. If necessary, hire a lawyer to fight the case through on the grounds that your reputation has been badly damaged. Meanwhile, pull every string you can to get this business quashed. Use Currie, White (Harry Dexter White, top official of the Treasury Department), anybody else you know and trust.”{73}
Anyone familiar with the format of defense followed by suspected Communists who were hailed before Congressional investigating committees will immediately recognize the Party’s trade mark on the trite pretension of abused innocence recommended by Elizabeth Bentley. When one considers its relatively naive and childlike simplicity it is almost a cause for national chagrin that it confused and deceived such an amazing number of people for such an inexplicable number of years. As with practically all of the others Elizabeth Bentley’s suggestions paid off handsomely for Silvermaster and he soon gained support from many powerful and unexpected sources.
After three months of “fighting back” the Under-Secretary of War became convinced from hearing various pleas that an injustice had been done to Silvermaster and therefore ordered his dismissal cancelled. Silvermaster was all
owed to resign and return to his old job in the Department of Agriculture with a clean slate. Elizabeth Bentley concludes by saying, “After a sigh of relief that must have echoed throughout the entire Russian Secret Police apparatus, we went back to our normal routine.”
According to the sworn testimony of Elizabeth Bentley, she worked with three major spy cells. The first was the “Ware Cell”—the same group Chambers had handled. In addition she handled the “Silvermaster Cell” and the “Perlo Cell.” She said these three cells were charged with the task of supplying her with an almost endless stream of information for transmittal to Moscow. She testified under oath that the members of the Silvermaster Cell and the Perlo Cell were as follows (the departments in which the members were working during the time she had contact with them are also listed):
The Silvermaster Cell
1. Nathan Gregory Silvermaster served as Director of the Labor Division of the Farm Security Administration; was detailed for a short period to the Board of Economic Warfare.
2. Solomon Adler served in the Treasury Department as an agent to China.
3. Norman Bursler worked in the Department of Justice as a special assistant.
4. Frank Coe worked as Assistant Director, Division of Monetary Research, Treasury Department; special assistant to the United States Ambassador in London; assistant to the Executive Director, Board of Economic Warfare; Assistant Administrator, Foreign Economic Administration.
5. William Gold, known also as Bela Gold, worked as assistant head of the Division of Program Surveys, Bureau of Agricultural Economics, Department of Agriculture; Senate Subcommittee on War Mobilization; Office of Economic Programs in Foreign Economic Administration.
6. Mrs. William (Sonia) Gold worked as research assistant, House Select Committee on Interstate Migration; labor-market analyst, Bureau of Employment Security; Division of Monetary Research, Treasury Department.
7. Abraham George Silverman served as Director of the Bureau of Research and Information Services, U.S. Railroad Retirement Board; economic adviser and chief of analysis and plans, Assistant Chief of Air Staff, Materials and Services, Air Force.
8. William Taylor worked in the Treasury Department.
9. William Ludwig Ullman worked in the Division of Monetary Research, Treasury Department; Material and Service Division, Air Corps Headquarters, Pentagon.
The Perlo Cell
1. Victor Perlo (also connected with the Ware Cell), worked as the head of a branch in the Research Section, Office of Price Administration; served the War Production Board handling problems relating to military aircraft production.{74}
2. Edward J. Fitzgerald served on the War Production Board.
3. Harold Glasser served in the Treasury Department, loaned to the government of Ecuador; loaned to the War Production Board; worked as adviser on North African Affairs Committee in Algiers, North Africa.
4. Charles Kramer (also connected with the Ware Cell), worked for the National Labor Relations Board; Office of Price Administration; economist with the Senate Subcommittee on War Mobilization.
5. Solomon Leshinsky worked for the United States Relief and Rehabilitation Administration.
6. Harry Magdoff worked for the Statistical Division of the War Production Board and the Office of Emergency Management; the Bureau of Research and Statistics of the W.P.B., the Tools Division of W.P.B. and the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce.
7. Allan Rosenberg worked in the Foreign Economic Administration.
8. Donald Niven Wheeler worked in the Office of Strategic Services.
In addition, Elizabeth Bentley named the following individuals who cooperated in obtaining information from government files even though they were not tied in to any particular cell:
1. Michael Greenburg—Board of Economic Warfare; Foreign Economic Administration, specialist on China.
2. Joseph Gregg—Coordinator of Inter-American affairs, assistant in Research Division.
3. Maurice Halperin—Office of Strategic Services; head of Latin American Division in the Research and Analysis Branch; head of Latin American research and analysis, State Department.
4. J. Julius Joseph—Office of Strategic Services, Japanese Division.
5. Duncan Chaplin Lee—Office of Strategic Services; legal adviser to General William J. Donovan.
6. Robert T. Miller—Head of political research, Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs; member, Information Service Committee, Near Eastern Affairs, State Department; Assistant Chief, Division of Research and Publications, State Department.
7. William Z. Park—Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs,
8. Bernard Redmont—Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs.
9. Helen Tenney—Office of Strategic Services, Spanish Division.
These lists of names are set forth to illustrate the remarkable and devastating pipelines of information which Elizabeth Bentley says the Soviet underground tapped in Washington during the time she served as the Russian Secret Police pay-master and courier in the nation’s capital.
Elizabeth Bentley worked doggedly for the Soviets until 1944. However, a great shock had come to her in 1943 when Jacob Golos died suddenly of a heart attack on Thanksgiving eve. Just before his death, Golos revealed to her the ruthlessness of his Soviet superiors who were driving him unmercifully and forcing him to engage in activities which were nauseating even to the revolutionary-hardened sense of his own calloused conscience.
And after Golos’ death further disillusionment came to Elizabeth Bentley when she learned that Earl Browder had agreed to turn over a group of American Communists in Washington to a most unscrupulous set of Soviet espionage agents. When she challenged Browder, he reportedly told her, “Don’t be naive. You know that when the cards are down, I have to take my orders from them. I just hoped I could sidetrack them in this particular matter, but it didn’t work out.”
“But Greg’s an old friend of yours,” Elizabeth Bentley said (referring to a member of the group). “So what?” replied Browder. “He’s expendable.” Shortly afterwards Elizabeth Bentley was surprised by a visit from a top Soviet official from Moscow who told her she had been awarded the highest medal of the Soviet Union—the Order of the Red Star. But she was not nearly as impressed by the proffered honor as she was disgusted and revolted by the kind of individual the Soviet official turned out to be. From that moment on she felt that the Communist leaders in Russia were absolutely incapable of building a great new world—no matter how much information she sent them.
The final blow to her idealism came when the Soviets tried to force her to turn over to them a girl-friend who was wanted for the immoral role of an entertainer for high government officials.
One night, alone, Elizabeth Bentley challenged herself, “What has happened to all of us who started out so gallantly to build a new world?” Deep inside herself she was finally able to admit what had happened. “We had been corrupted and smashed by a machine more merciless than anything the world had ever seen.”
Many weeks later, Elizabeth Bentley finally walked into the FBI ready to do everything in her power to make amends to her native country.
In some ways it was simultaneously a triumph and a tragedy. For her, personally, it was a triumph. It was the chance she needed to square herself with her conscience and her country. However, in 1948, when she gave her sworn testimony before a congressional committee, it threatened to become a tragedy. The Communist press was joined by many so-called “liberal” factions to accuse her of being everything from a degenerate to a psychopathic liar or a victim of insanity. It took time and corroborative testimony of many witnesses to finally halt the clamor.
Elizabeth Bentley and Whittaker Chambers have testified that they were both typical members of a small but extremely dangerous segment of Americans who, through misguided ideologies, swelled the ranks of Communism during the interval between World War I and the close of World War II. The vast majority passed through the same evolution—first, an ideological conversion foll
owed by a desire to take action; secondly, an exposure to the hard-core realities of Communism in actual operation; and finally, an awakening followed by a dynamic determination to desert the delusion and fight it from the outside.
Fortunately for America, as well as for its citizens who served the Communist cause, these erstwhile members of the party usually returned to the American way of life more loyal to its principles than when they left. Only a few have still refused to open their eyes and ears to all that has been revealed. This unreclaimed group still labors day and night in a dedicated service to “the cause.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Communism and World War II
While Communist espionage channels were being perfected in the United States, similar subversive networks were being built throughout the world. Soon Stalin found the state secrets of all the major powers pouring in so fast that he was able to play the world-wide game of power politics like a professional gambler who sits at the poker table carefully planning his strategy as he reads the marked cards held by each of the other players.
We now know that it was from this supremely satisfying position of political omniscience that Stalin initiated a series of schemes which had their part in precipitating World War II. Defected Russian Intelligence officers have revealed that World War II was fomented and used by the Russian leaders as an important part of the long-range strategy for the expansion of World Communism. This chapter will answer the following questions:
• What is the explanation for Stalin’s attempt to reach a secret understanding with Hitler in 1933?
• Why did Stalin claim credit for starting World War II?
• Why did Stalin’s pact with Hitler in 1939 surprise Communists throughout the world?
The Naked Communist Page 16