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Red Spy Queen: A Biography of Elizabeth Bentley. By Kathryn S. Olmsted. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. 2002. Pp. xiv, 268. $27.50.)
In a story illustrative of the early 1950s culture of headline-grabbing professional anti-Communist informers, Kathryn Olmsted reports that the self-confessed Soviet espionage agent turned FBI informant Elizabeth Bentley (1908-63) was routinely described in the right-wing press as a glamorous seducer. Olmsted quotes the New York Journal-American as calling Bentley "a 'shapely blond' and a 'blond and blue-eyed New Yorker' who testified before investigating committees in a 'form-fitting black dress' and who had 'lured' secrets out of weak-kneed New Dealers" (p. 134). In contrast, liberal commentators depicted Bentley as a "plain-faced spinster who became a Communist in a pathetic attempt to meet men" (p. 135). Olmsted rightly concludes that such representations communicate more about widespread anxiety over changing gender relations in the post-World War II United States than they do about Bentley or the truth or falsehood of her allegations.
Perceptions of the targets of informers typified by Bentley are scarcely less polarized today. In the eyes of many on the right, the accused are liars who considered themselves "Communist patriots" and who slavishly sought to please Soviet handlers with information gleaned from classified government documents. To many on...