Elizabeth Bentley - Espionage Activity

Espionage Activity

Bentley's entry into espionage came at her own initiative. In 1938 she obtained a job at the Italian Library of Information in New York City; an organization that was fascist Italy's propaganda bureau in the United States. She then reported to CPUSA headquarters, telling them of her willingness to spy on the fascists. The Communists were interested in the information Bentley could provide, and NKVD officer Jacob Golos was assigned to be her contact and controller. Golos was a Russian émigré who had been a naturalized United States citizen since 1915.

At this point, Bentley thought she was spying solely for the American Communist Party. In fact, Golos was one of the Soviet Union's most important intelligence agents in the United States. At the time when he and Bentley met, Golos was involved in planning the assassination of Leon Trotsky, which would take place in Mexico in 1940. Bentley and Golos soon became lovers, although it would be more than a year before she learned his true name, and, according to her later testimony, two years before she knew that he was working for Soviet intelligence.

In 1940, two years into their relationship, the Justice Department forced Golos to register as an agent of the Soviet government under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. This made it dangerous for him to contact and take documents from the network of American spies he controlled, and he gradually transferred this responsibility to Bentley. Golos also needed someone to take charge of the day to day business of the United States Service and Shipping Corporation, a Comintern front organization for espionage activities. Bentley stepped into this role as well. Although she was never directly paid for any of her espionage work, she would eventually earn $800 a month as vice president of U.S. Service and Shipping, a considerable salary for the time. An equivalent salary in 2008 dollars, adjusted for inflation, comes out to over $12,000 per month. As Bentley acquired an important role in Soviet intelligence, the Soviets gave her the code name Umnitsa, loosely translated as "clever girl" or "Miss Wise." (In some literature it is less correctly translated as "good girl".)