Red Spy Queen: A Biography of Elizabeth Bentley [Hardcover]

Kathryn S. Olmsted (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 11, 2002

When Elizabeth Bentley slunk into an FBI field office in 1945, she was thinking only of saving herself from NKGB assassins who were hot on her trail. She had no idea that she was about to start the greatest Red Scare in U.S. history.

Bentley (1908-1963) was a Connecticut Yankee and Vassar graduate who spied for the Soviet Union for seven years. She met with dozens of highly placed American agents who worked for the Soviets, gathering their secrets and stuffing sensitive documents into her knitting bag. But her Soviet spymasters suspected her of disloyalty--and even began plotting to silence her forever. To save her own life, Bentley decided to betray her friends and comrades to the FBI. Her defection effectively shut down Soviet espionage in the United States for years.

Despite her crucial role in the cultural and political history of the early Cold War, Bentley has long been overlooked or underestimated by historians. Now, new documents from Russian and American archives make it possible to assess the veracity of her allegations. This long overdue biography rescues Elizabeth Bentley from obscurity and tells her dramatic life story.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In August 1945, a 37-year-old woman named Elizabeth Bentley walked into the FBI office in New Haven, Conn., and announced that she was a Communist spy who controlled a vast network of agents operating within the U.S. government. Her defection precipitated the decade's first "Red Scare" and set off a chain of events that eventually led to the execution of the Rosenbergs. Despite her importance, however, Bentley has been largely ignored by history. Olmsted, an assistant professor of history at UC-Davis, corrects this oversight in an intelligent, balanced biography of the woman the tabloids labeled the "red spy queen." Bentley, Olmsted makes clear, was by no means a doctrinaire Communist. She joined the CP-USA primarily because she was lonely, and became a spy because she fell in love with a Soviet agent named Golos. Bentley helped Golos with his work; after his death, she took over many of his agents. But Bentley was too erratic and independent-minded for Moscow (and a hardened alcoholic as well). When she realized her Soviet masters were plotting her "elimination," Bentley went to the FBI and became what Olmsted calls a "professional ex-Communist," collecting sizeable speaking fees and frequently appearing before Congress and on TV and radio. But Bentley soon faded from the spotlight, undone by her emotional fragility and penchant for lying. When she died in 1963, the world took little notice. Olmsted's thoughtful account restores Bentley to her rightful place and gives her all the credit and blame she deserves. 12 illus.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Though most readers are familiar with the names Joseph McCarthy, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, and Alger Hiss, many have not heard of Elizabeth Bentley (1908-63), the Red Spy Queen. With access to newly available documents, Olmsted (history, Univ. of California, Davis; Challenging the Secret Government) unveils the amazing story of the woman who became first a highly regarded spy for the Soviets and later a major informant for the U.S. government. A Vassar College graduate, Bentley defected from the Soviets in 1945 and soon became a household name when she began naming names, eventually uncovering a vast Soviet spy ring that extended into the government itself and helping to precipitate the Red Scare of the 1950s. Because of her unstable personality and willingness to stretch the truth, historians for decades have questioned her testimony. Olmsted shows that although Bentley may have sometimes exaggerated her own role in espionage activities, there was also truth in her testimony. This original biography about a complex personality is absorbing and well written. There is a lengthy notes section and an extensive bibliography but no index. An important addition to all academic collections.DMaria C. Bagshaw, Lake Erie Coll., Painesville, OH
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press; 1St Edition edition (September 11, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807827398
• ISBN-13: 978-0807827390
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #827,313 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars History with intrique intact, December 29, 2002

By 

David Campbell "daveheathr" (Arcadia, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Red Spy Queen: A Biography of Elizabeth Bentley (Hardcover)

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 couldnt put the book down.

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The book to read Before Whittaker Chamber's, June 30, 2004

By 

komyathy (U.S.A. & elsewhere traveling) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Red Spy Queen: A Biography of Elizabeth Bentley (Hardcover)

Once the depression struck many elitist students (such as Miss Bentley at Vassar) seemed to begin to feel guilty of their privileged position in society. For those who had not religious grounding this opened up the possibility for other faiths to explain the crisis of history that they perceived themselves to be living through. Paul Johnson, in his book "The Quest for God" makes the point that people long for a faith to believe in and when conventional religion fails to satisfy they seek a substitute. Environmentalism, nuclear dis-armament, anti-globalism and other such "movements" attract such folk. For Elizabeth Bentley it was fascism, then communism, that served this purpose. She associated herself with the CPUSA (Communist Party of the USA) and through this met Jacob Golos, a soviet agent. With this individual she became romantically involved, even though Golos had a wife back in the USSR. Eventually Golos gets caught in a passport fraud scheme which effectively blows his anonymity vis-a-vis the FBI, forcing him to utilize his mistress Bentley as a front. So she gets involved and covers Golos before the onset of the Nazi-Soviet pact which leads the FBI to begin paying more attention to communists within the USA. In time Golos gets ill and Bentley progressively takes on more responsibility, including running an underground network of Americans who were spying for Soviet intelligence. I don't want to detail the whole book so I'll just conclude by saying why Bentley was significant and why you ought to read this slim book. Elizabeth Bentley testified later that all communists were potential spies for the USSR. Communism wasn't just an intellectual proclivity ala liberalism or conservatism. She was the one who detailed how the head of the CPUSA, for instance, took direction straight from Moscow. The party's rank and file, moreover, was similarly loyal to the USSR, she testified. She was, in other words, the missing link connecting the CPUSA with the USSR and soviet intelligence. The fascinating part of this great story (well told by the book's author) is that her most damning accusations of espionage couldn't be proved by the FBI, as her contacts were all tipped off soon after she came "in from the cold", so to speak, once she turned herself in to American authorities. She had her sceptics. It just was hard to believe what she claimed could be true; that many senior American officials could be passing intelligence to the USSR. The US Army began to break some coded cables of the Soviets beginning in 1948 which confirmed Miss Bentley's accusations, but the public wasn't privy to this development, of course. Miss Bentley, consequently, continued to be portrayed as a crackpot by many in government and especially in the media. The fortunate appearance of Whittaker Chambers on the public scene, making similar accusations as Bentley...but eventually providing some proof to back it up, in the end, saved the day....and Miss Bentley's reputation. These individuals thus proved the case that the USSR was trying to undermine the USA even while we were allied to one another during WW2; that Stalin was gearing up for a cold war years before liberals accused FDR, Truman, and Eisenhower of choosing hostility over cooperation with the USSR. Read this book before Witness by Whittaker Chambers for a great 1-2 punch against political naivete. Thanks for reading my opinion.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Loneliness in the Spotlight--America's "Red Blond Spy Queen", August 25, 2003

By 

Kenneth R. Kahn (Baltimore, Maryland United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Red Spy Queen: A Biography of Elizabeth Bentley (Hardcover)

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. Bentleys 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.