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Elizabeth Terrill Bentley ( 1905 - 1963 ) was an American former Spy for the Soviet Union who eventually Defected to the United States and provided the Truman Administration and the House Committee On Un-American Activities with the names of several people she claimed were spies for the USSR. Bentley was studying in Italy at the University Of Florence when she first became interested in Fascism . In 1934 she returned to America and abandoned Fascism, joining the American League Against War And Fascism and the Communist Party Of The United States (CPUSA). GOLOS NETWORK In 1938 , while working at the Italian Library of Information in New York, Bentley met Jacob Golos , the chief of Soviet espionage operations in the United States. Bentley became Golos' lover, providing him with information acquired during her work with the Italian government and serving as a courier. Golos encourgaged Bentley to read the material she was handling, yet she never mastered the analytical skills Golos had to deliver oral briefings to Soviet Case Officers . Between the fall of 1942 to November 1943 Bentley spoke several times with Julius Rosenberg by phone. Every two weeks from 1941 to 1944 , Bentley traveled from New York City to the house near Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C. shared by Nathan Gregory Silvermaster , or 'Greg' as he was known, his wife Helen Silvermaster , and their close friend Lud Ullman . At first, Bentley picked up stolen wartime secrets transcribed by Silvermaster longhand, but when the volume of material grew unwieldy, Ullman set up a darkroom to photograph the documents. Bentley carried the undeveloped rolls of film in her knitting bag back to Manhattan and gave them to Golos. Later the film would be shipped to Moscow via Diplomatic Pouches , which are not subject to border inspections. Four days after Golos' death in 1943, Bentley met with an alternate Soviet contact according to contingincies in place should something ever happen to Golos. Bentley was introduced to Iskhak Akhmerov , the Soviet "Illegal Rezident", or station chief for unregistered agents operating under deep cover. Bentley was assigned to take over running the "Golos/Bentley" group (also called the "Sound" and "Myrna" groups) of spies. This included the Silvermaster Group , which had members in several U.S. government departments, including the Office Of The President . Greg Silvermaster was the principal contact. Soviet intelligence was concerned about operational security surrounding the group. The Silvermaster group was taken over in September 1944 by Iskhak Akhmerov, chief of the KGB 's illegal station in the U.S. after a bitter struggle. Bentley had opposed the KGB takeover because she felt they drove their agents too hard. Bentley’s objection was overruled by CPUSA General Secretary Earl Browder . DEFECTION In August 1945 , fearful of Soviet surveillance in Washington D.C. and New York, Bentley walked into the New Haven, Connecticut office of the FBI and Defected from Soviet espionage work. The FBI provided her with cover now that her life clearly was in jeopardy. FBI Code name "Gregory" was used during initial debriefings fearing a leak of the sensitive information and reprisal. However, J. Edgar Hoover bragged the next day about Bentley to Sir William Stephenson , head of British Intelligence . Through him word was quickly to Kim Philby , a Soviet agent in MI6 , and thus to the Soviet government which attempted to minimize the damage by temporarily shutting down its US operations. A year-long attempt by the FBI to run Bentley as a Double Agent was fruitless as most of her contacts were warned by the Soviets. Two counterintelligence debriefing memoranda with outlines of Soviet espionage in the United States were passed up to the White House , the initial debriefing with code name "Gregory" disclosing the network, and an extensive memo with her real name attached. The substance included naming names of high level administration officials. The White House, suspicious of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover , was skeptical of the source. Unbeknownst to the President was the existence of the Army Signals Intelligence Service (SIS) highly secret Venona Project , which also was giving information attesting to the existence in wartime of a large foreign espionage ring which had penetrated vital departments, bureaus, and agencies, within the United States government. Eventually Bentley's story was leaked, and when President Truman was asked at a press conference about statements she made regarding the involvement of high level administration personal, Truman responded that he believed the charges to be a "red herring." No one in the US Government was aware that evidence against the Soviets was developing on two adjacent tracks. The causes and consequences of Truman's remark for 50 years thereafter had a huge impact on American domestic politics. Bentley was asked in debriefings to name persons that were most adept at infiltration and placement of and Lauchlin Currie . They had an immense amount of influence and knew people, and their word would be accepted when they recommended someone." Stephen J. Spingarn, a member of the President's Temporary Commmission on Employee Loyalty in 1946 and 1947 later said of Bentley: :"I have no doubt that the main thrust of what Elizabeth Bentley says was correct—I mean I believe it—but on any given peripheral individual whom she didn't know but only heard about I would certainly want a lot more information." That corroborative information was provided in 1995 with the release of the Venona Project materials. MYRNA GROUP In debriefings, Bentley eventually named more than 80 Americans, some in the United States government, who were working for Soviet intelligence. The Myrna Group was also formerly the "Sound" group, prior to Jake Golos' (cover name "Sound") death ("Zvuk and Umnitsa" groups). The United States Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive Counterintelligence History says Venona decryptions confirm the accuracy of Bentley's story. Among them were,
AFTERMATH The public first became aware of Bentley when she testified before HUAC in 1948 . Bentley testified at the trial of Julius And Ethel Rosenberg . Newspapers referred to her as the "Red Spy Queen." She became a celebrity ex-communist and published an autobiography entitled ''Inside the Russian Spy Organization''. Bentley died in Connecticut in December 1963. She never knew about the Venona secret, or about the way in which her testimony assisted the program. Before she died, she had been denounced as a Traitor , a liar, and a criminal by everyone from her old comrades to a former President of the United States. The controversy over her testimony was only a skirmish in the national debate over the true extent of Soviet espionage, and over the federal government's attempts to balance competing requirements of Civil Liberties and internal security. Ironically, over 30 years after she died, her ''bona fides'' as a Soviet spy were verified by Pavel Sudoplatov , who had been a two-star general in the NKVD. He said in his autobiography, '' Special Tasks '', that: : "For the FBI to utilize the disclosures by Guzenko , and later by Elizabeth Bentley, an American NKVD agent, to penetrate and destroy our agent networks was not an easy job." This confirmed that she really was an NKVD agent, and really did expose real agents/sources to the U.S. authorities. SOURCES
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