From The Red Plot Against America by Robert E. Stripling, 1949
When it became apparent to her [Communist] superiors that she was drifting away, a great effort was made to placate her and revive her interest. It failed. In August, 1945, she went to F.B.I. headquarters in New Haven, Conn., because she felt she was being followed in New York City . . .The F.B.I. made its report, followed her thereafter. But the Communist Party did not give her up easily. Her case was considered important enough to enlist the attention of Anatol Gromov, First Secretary of the Russian Embassy. He gave her $2,000 in $20 bills at the corner of Fourth Street and Tenth Avenue in the fall of 1945 and later, by order of the Supreme Presidium of the U.S.S.R., the Order of the Red Star.
Though she turned over the $2,000 and the decoration to the F.B.I. immediately after receipt, and gave a fantastically detailed story of her activities and the men and women with whom she conspired, she apparently was viewed with suspicion by the Justice Department.
( page 91 )
The Committee at first heard Miss Bentley in closed session when she appeared July 31, 1948. But after a very short period of questioning it was unanimously decided by member Democrats and Republicans alike that the hearing should be opened.
In her crisp, unruffled manner Elizabeth Bentley accused, among others, the following:
Asst. Secretary of Treasury Harry Dexter White; Lauchlin Currie, an aide to President Roosevelt; Silvermaster, former Commerce Department representative on the Inter-Department Committee determining exports to Russia and its satellites; Duncan Lee, legal adviser to OSS head Maj. Gen. William Donovan; John Abt, CIO-PAC official; Victor Perlo, official in six Government agencies; Charles Kramer, attached to the Labor Sub-Committee headed by Sens. Claude Pepper and Harley M. Kilgore; Harry Magdoff, WPA official; Harold Glasser, who worked in a number of Government offices, and Maj. William Ludwig Ullmann, USAAF.
White, co-author of the Bretton Woods Monetary Plan, author of the so-called Morgenthau Plan for Germany, and sponsor of the World Bank, was charged with moving Red agents into key positions in various Government departments.
Currie, Miss Bentley charged, supplied her with advance information on the impending break of the Soviet code, the invasion of France, and the Administration�s plans for Chinese aid.
( pages 92-3 )
The protests of most of those named were quick and generally indignant.
�This is the most fantastic thing I ever heard of,� White told reporters. . . .
�I never met Miss Bentley nor knew of her existence,� Currie said in a statement issued from his home in Scarsdale, N.Y. . . .
So there we were, with the largest type of hot potato in our hands. This had inadvertently run the President�s special session of Congress off the front pages. Before 24 hours had passed the Committee was the target of a tremendous campaign of vilification. . . .
The subpoena I then served on Whittaker Chambers . . . was a forlorn shot in the dark.
( page 94 )
. . . In the spring of 1948, while inquiring into the record of Dr. Edward U. Condon, director of the national Bureau of Standards, I made an effort to establish the relationship between Condon and Nathan Gregory Silvermaster, a former Government economist accused by Elizabeth Bentley of heading one of the Communist spy rings working in Washington. * * *
( page 95 )
. . . Chambers did not know Silvermaster, nor did he know Condon. . . .
I forgot him.
But the startling testimony which Miss Bentley gave during her appearance before the Committee on July 31, 1948, and the denials of those named and the blasts the Committee received . . . made it imperative that we get some kind of corroborating witness on our stand. . . .
I remembered Chambers, and subpoenaed him. Miss Bentley�s story plainly was too hard to believe, I agreed. But if Chambers told us of his own work as a courier perhaps there would be links connecting his bygone activities with the later ones outlined by Miss Bentley.
( page 96 )
Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania : 1949.
From Elizabeth Bentley, Kathryn S. Olmsted, 2002
. . . Elizabeth . . . received another blow form a completely unexpected source. Her friend and protector, the U.S. government, accused her of cheating on her taxes.Elizabeth knew that the Internal Revenue Service had been investigating her for some time. Back in 1952, the agency had notified her that it did not accept her accountant's method of averaging her book royalties over a three-year period. She owed $2,700, the government said. But Elizabeth had brushed off official demands for payment.
115 A woman who had manipulated the NKGB and the FBI was not about to be intimidated by the IRS.But she did not count on the efficiency and independence of tax agents in the field. In June 1955, they confiscated her bank account and notified the press.* The mother superior at Sacred Heat then asked her to resign.116
Elizabeth's response to the newest crisis was typical. On the one hand, she was paranoid and delusional. She told the FBI that various people were out to get her, including Communists in the IRS. Yet she also cleverly combined appeals for sympathy with outright blackmail to get what she wanted.117
115. Memo. SAC New Haven to director, June 23, 1955, Bentley file, 134-435-157.
116. Memo, director to attorney general, June 27, 1955. Bentley file, 134-435-157; memo, Nichols to Tolson, June 9, 1955, ibid., 134-435-154; teletype, New York to director [etc].
117. See, for example, Bentley file, . . . and memo, Belmont to Boardman, June 24, 1955, ibid., [etc].Red Spy Queen : A Biography of Elizabeth Bentley
Chapel Hill and London : University of North Carolina Press, 2002, pages 195-6, notes p. 241.* Why notify the press ? —The IRS-hounded woman could easily get 'paranoid and delusional' on the occasion — but, was she fundamentally mistaken ?
Was not 'heavy and graduated income tax' a part of the Communist Manifesto ?
What business did somebody in the IRS have to notify somebody in the press about this one case ?
WPT.
Olmsted, Kathryn S. Title Red spy queen : a biography of Elizabeth Bentley / Kathryn S. Olmsted. Publisher Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, c2002. Description xiv, 268 p. : ill. ; 23 cm. Note Includes bibliographical references (p. [245]-255) and index. ISBN 0807827398 (cloth : alk. paper) Language EnglishStripling, Robert E. Title The Red plot against America / Robert E. Stripling ; edited by Bob Considine. Publisher New York : Arno Press, 1977, c1949. Description 282 p., [7] leaves of plates : ill. ; 23 cm. Note Reprint of the ed. published by Bell, Drexel Hill, Pa. ISBN 0405099762 Language English
Packer, Herbert L. Title Ex-communist witnesses; four studies in fact finding. Publisher Stanford, Calif., Stanford University Press, 1962. Description viii, 279 p. 23 cm. Note Bibliographical references included in "Notes" (p. [265]-269) Contents Chambers.--Bentley.--Budenz.--Lautner. Language English
Bentley, Elizabeth. Title Out of bondage. Publisher London, R. Hart-Davis, 1952. Description 255 p. 20 cm. Language English
Note This is a part-fictional account by Ms. Bentley of her life and her activities in the Communist underground U.S.A. The representations of the persons and the events may be largely faithful but the assumed literary licence is ever-apparent. This text may very well serve for gaining a general understanding of the conditions ; it is not a record of the historic facts as considered by more scientific standards. The recorded testimonies by Ms. Bentley before the Congressional Committees are the only acceptable source of data by more rigorous standards. (WPT).Bentley, Elizabeth. Title Out of bondage, the story of Elizabeth Bentley. Publisher New York, Devin-Adair, 1951. Description 3ll p. 22 cm. Language English
Stripling, Robert E. Title The Red plot against America, by Robert E. Stripling; edited by Bob Considine. Publisher Drexel Hill, Pa. : Bell, [1949] Description 282 p. illus. 22 cm. Language English