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Title: Red Spy Queen: A Biography of Elizabeth Bentley by Kathryn S. Olmsted ISBN: 0-8078-2739-8 Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Pr Pub. Date: 07 October, 2002 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $27.50 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (3 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Loneliness in the Spotlight--America's "Red Blond Spy Queen"
Comment: Red Spy Queen: A Biography of Elizabeth Bentley
By Kathryn S. Olmsted
University of North Carolina Press, 2002
Reviewed by Kenneth R. Kahn
"Either the government attacks you or they put you on the payroll" Chris Warnock
The long trail of bread crumbs leading to American communists acting as Soviet agents inside the U.S. government and the beginnings of the red scare in the 1950s leads to one woman--Elizabeth Bentley.
Long before the revelations of the Venona cables, Elizabeth Bentley, variously described as a spinster, neurotic, alcoholic, sexual adventuress, communist spy and FBI informant, was transmitting secrets to the Soviet Union on everything imaginable.
Elizabeth Bentley, born of New England parents, was a historic anomaly, a footnote in the history of the cold war and American communism. She brought her American character and applied it to her dealings with both Soviet agents and fellow American communists. She was one of those figures whose lifestyle intertwined with her actions and how she is portrayed by history is a direct result of this interaction.
Bentley, having followed a long, tortured and circuitous route to the FBI's field office in New Haven, Connecticut in 1945, remade American politics and led to the exposure of the top communists in America.
One of the primary themes, and intriguing concepts behind this book, is that it exposes a heretofore, seemingly unimportant person in early cold war history. Bentley's life and roller coaster like adventures stand in stark contrast to her personal appearance. Deemed by the press, 'the blond spy queen' she hardly seems to me a seductress. She seems a plain, ordinary woman by today's standards. Yet, her appearance and demeanor were pivotal to her story as a Soviet agent.
Elizabeth told her story of communist espionage activity before various congressional committees and testified as a government witness in the Rosenberg case. She managed to talk "McCall's" magazine into serializing her autobiography titled, "Out of Bondage." At first, they were leery of the former communist turned FBI informant until they spoke to FBI P.R. man Lou Nichols who gave the Bureau's approval. Amongst the lies she purported to McCalls was her self-description characterized in the headline of the June 1951 installment, "I Joined the Red Underground with the Man I Loved." In the article, she described herself as an ingenuous "college girl" despite the fact she was thirty when she met him.
In the curious case of Elizabeth Bentley, where twists and turns are the norm, as a government witness, Bentley had access to the protection of the government. In a little-known incident, the 20th century's prime mover and fixer, the infamous, gay, red-baiting Roy Cohn, came to her assistance after a beating by her live-in lover, John Wright. According to Olmsted, documented by Nicholas Von Hoffman in his seminal work, "Citizen Cohn" and an FBI memorandum dated May 13, 1952 contained in the FBI's file on Gregory Silvermaster, 65-14603-4417, Cohn told the FBI that Bentley's beating was, "the most serious problem he had faced since coming into the United States Attorney's office." As a chief witness in the William Remington case, the beating could, "ruin her career as a lecturer" (FBI memorandum from Agent Cleveland to SAC Alan Belmont, May 8, 1952, Bentley file, 134-135, no. serial), and could, "endanger the Brothman and Rosenberg convictions." The author writes, "Cohn told Elizabeth to entice Wright to New York under false pretenses. When he arrived, he was hit with the full force of the U.S. government. FBI agents whisked him to a meeting with two prosecutors and Special Agent John Danahy. U.S. Attorney Myles Lane told Wright "to get out of Bentley's life or else." He left Bentley alone.
On May 29, 1952, Elizabeth appeared before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee investigating Owen Lattimore and the Institute of Pacific Relations. McCarthy accused Lattimore of being a "top Russian spy." The Institute of Pacific Relations was accused of front activities, particularly aiding and abetting the "fall" of China.
As the anti-communist spotlight faded, so did Elizabeth's fortunes. In her later life, she taught classes at a reform school, publishing the school newspaper and avoiding the public spotlight. On November 18, 1963, at the age of fifty-five, she entered Grace New Haven Community Hospital. She was officially diagnosed with abdominal cancer but actually suffered from chronic alcoholism from years of self-abuse.
"Red Spy Queen" is an interesting, sad, twisted tale of one woman's political journey from fascism to communism to anti-communism and the human toll of political activism. It is an excellent read, an important story of a sad footnote in the history of the early cold war and that uniquely American obsession---anti-communism.
Rating: 4
Summary: History with intrique intact
Comment: I was amazed that this book would be such a delight to read. Initially, the historical research is well narrated, maintaining the suspense, danger, and the confusion behind the real life espionage of Elizabeth Bentley. Kathryn Olmsted displays an enjoyable interest in the vocabulary of the time, and is not shy to weave a moral into the story, as lasciviousness trumps cleverness. This book is a great resource on the fascinating history of the puzzle called the "Red Scare". As the Russians open their archives, the truth can be sought from a new light. Kathryn Olmsted pieces together Elizabeth Bentley's life, exaggerations, and manipulations in the sordid web of spies testifying against spies amidst political ambition and posturing of J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI. Honestly, I couldnât put the book down.
Rating: 3
Summary: Bentley book based on shaky sources.
Comment: This is a well written and informative book on Elizabeth Bentley and the ex-communist witnesses of the Red Scare period of the 1940s (and 1950s). Based on a rather narrow base of primary sources, while Olmsted appears to believe most of Bentley's fingering of communists, spies or otherwise, there is much still problematic in her story. She does not make the case that the "spies" posed any real threat to the security and stability of the country in the 1930s or during World War II, although some certainly existed and shared information, nuclear and otherwise, with the Soviety Union. Olmsted describes a most unstable woman, whose veracity is certainly questionable. And she underscores that spying ended with Bentley's public revelations at the end of World War II, long before the "McCarthy" Red Scare period of the early 1950s, as other historians have recently argued.
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Title: The Spy Who Seduced America: Lies and Betrayal in the Heat of the Cold War: The Judith Coplon Story by Marcia Mitchell, Thomas Mitchell ISBN: 1931229228 Publisher: Invisible Cities Press Pub. Date: September, 2002 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: In Denial: Historians, Communism, & Espionage by John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr ISBN: 1893554724 Publisher: Encounter Books Pub. Date: September, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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Title: A Death in Washington: Walter G. Krivitsky and the Stalin Terror by Gary Kern, Nigel West ISBN: 1929631146 Publisher: Enigma Books Pub. Date: July, 2003 List Price(USD): $29.00 |
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Title: The Man Behind the Rosenbergs by Aleksandr Feklisov, Sergei Kostin, Alexander Feklisov, Serguei Kostine, Ronald Radosh ISBN: 1929631081 Publisher: Enigma Books Pub. Date: 01 September, 2001 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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Title: Clever Girl : Elizabeth Bentley, the Spy Who Ushered in the McCarthy Era by Lauren Kessler ISBN: 0060185198 Publisher: HarperCollins Pub. Date: 05 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
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