Published by The Devin-Adair Company, New York, 1951
(Buy this book on Amazon.com.)
Elizabeth Terrill Bentley was an American who served as a courier for Soviet espionage cells who became disillusioned, and like Whitaker Chambers (see the “Witness” review), went to the FBI. Bentley was a well educated liberal who became concerned about Fascism during a year in Italy and became a Communist when she had trouble finding work after she returned to the United States. Her intelligence and dedication attracted the attention of members of the Russian Secret Police. One was a woman named Juliet Glazer (actual name Juliet Poyntz) who scared her. Glazer was liquidated by her Soviet handlers not long after meeting Bentley. Over the next few years Bentley would work with others who would suffer the same fate as Glazer (Poyntz).
Elizabeth called herself a “steeled Bolshevik” by the time she went to work for a man called “Timmy,” and she was told to cut off contact with all her Communist friends to go deep under cover. “Timmy,” who she later called “Yasha,” was Jacob Golos, chief of Soviet espionage operations in the United States. Elizabeth, whose Venona code name was “Clever Girl,” served as courier for Golos, and the two became lovers against orders from the Soviets and despite the fact he had a wife in Lithuania and a mistress in Manhattan.
Germany attacked the Soviet Union, and orders came to Golos to get as many comrades as possible into the U.S. government. Bentley assumed the name of “Miss Wise,” and she found a job in the United States Services and Shipping Corporation. Bentley was surprised at how easy it was for hard core Communists to be hired into sensitive U.S. government jobs. There were so many agents that she and Golos worried that American intelligence would “trip over one of them.” So much information was stolen that it was difficult to keep up with the microfilming. The information included plane production data, planned destinations, and performance data. “Besides this purely military information, we had a steady flow of political reports from the Treasury…the Office of Strategic services, the Navy, the Army, and…the Department of Justice. We knew what was going on in the inner chambers of the United States Government.”
Golos was under significant stress because the U.S. had begun investigating him. He also began to have concerns about what was going on in the Soviet Union. The stress combined with declining health led to his death from a heart attack on Bentley’s couch. Bentley moved to take control of his operations, which included the Silverman and Peros espionage rings. The Soviets wanted to replace her with someone more experienced. Bentley became suspicious that she had been marked for liquidation, and she walked into an FBI office in Connecticut with the stated intention to “smash the Soviet espionage machine.”
The FBI informed the House Un-American Activities Committee about Bentley, and she originally testified to that committee in secret sessions. She would eventually begin public testimony, and the predictable concerted attacks on her began. The typical news article called her “The Red Spy Queen” and made fun of her as a “psychotic spinster seeking some sort of attention.” Her name and “ludicrous stories” became a common source of cocktail party jokes. Bentley’s detractors also spread stories about how her information couldn’t possibly be accurate. Unlike Chambers, Bentley had kept no physical evidence, which made it easy for her detractors to discredit the information she was presenting. She provided names of a lengthy list of Soviet agents and “fellow travelers,” and independent sources and history both confirm she had remarkably accurate recall.
I submit there should be some sort of statue or other memorial to commemorate Elizabeth Bentley. The U.S. government followed the news media’s lead in doing everything it could to ignore the massive problem with Soviet espionage, and many American agents named by Bentley kept their government jobs for years. The FBI knew what she was saying to be true, because they had the confirming evidence from the independent sources of Whittaker Chambers, Venona, and also the information from the Soviet code clerk Igor Gouzenko who turned himself over to Canadian authorities. Unfortunately they often couldn’t translate that knowledge into action by the government. However, despite the lack of action by the U.S. Government, Bentley did massive damage to the Soviet networks. They learned soon after Bentley had turned herself in to the FBI and what she was telling them. The Soviets made the decision to shut down several spy rings and to recall the Soviet agents. Considering the ineffective actions of the U.S. government, I wonder whether that was necessary.
I want to give credit to scandalouswoman.blogspot.com , which I used to fill in some details (http://scandalouswoman.blogspot.com/2008/07/elizabeth-bentley-red-spy-queen.html ). There is a link to Bentley’s book on Amazon.com at the front of this review, but be warned that the book must be considered a collector’s item. The least expensive used copy was just a bit over $54.