Month: September 2014

On October 8 at 5:00 PM, Joyner Library is pleased to host our first CWIS guest speaker: Dr. Gregory S. Taylor. Dr. Taylor is Associate Professor of History at Chowan University in Murfreesboro, North Carolina. He is the author of The Life and Lies of Paul Crouch: Communist, Opportunist, Cold War Snitch (University Press of Florida, 2014) and of The History of the North Carolina Communist Party (University of South Carolina Press, 2009). Dr. Taylor’s talk is titled “Cold War Pawn: One Man’s Ideological Journey through a Divided World.” It will provide a fascinating look at one of the most controversial elements of early Cold War American politics, the former communist turned anti-communist informant, by examining the life of one North Carolina native. Please make plans to join us on Wednesday, October 8, at 5:00 PM, in the Faulkner Gallery on the second floor of Joyner Library, to hear Dr. Taylor.

The following is a guest post by Dr. Taylor previewing his presentation:

Nearly everyone is familiar with the global icons of the Cold War.  Names like Stalin, Khrushchev, Castro, Mao, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, and McCarthy should be familiar to anyone with a sense of history.  These men played leading roles during some of the tensest and most trying times in modern history.  Whether we revere or revile them, they deserve their places in history.

But powerful political figures cannot act alone; even totalitarian leaders require supporters.  One way politicians garner such support is through an ideology.  By selling a worldview and convincing the masses of its righteousness, leaders can rally the masses by presenting any opposition as a threat.  Even more useful is the creation of ideologues: true ideological believers whose single-minded perspective convinces them that their opponents are not simply wrong, but evil and worthy of destruction.  Leaders on both sides of the Cold War used such ideologues for their own benefit.  I call these figures the Cold War pawns.

Although such pawns were fundamental to the Cold War era, their tales are rarely told as historians tend to ignore them and focus on the elite.  Some pawns, however, have broken through that historical resistance to have their stories told.  Often this is the result of some fantastic event.  Occasionally it is the result of their willingness to switch sides in the ideological struggle.  People like Elizabeth Bentley, Louis Budenz, Whittaker Chambers, J.B. Matthews, and Harvey Matusow have gained such historical relevance for exactly that willingness.  All five served first as Communists only later to turn on their former comrades to serve as anti-Communist informants.

There is one other figure, however, whose impact on the era and standing as a former Communist turned anti-Communist informant may dwarf even the historical significance of these five.  His name is Paul Crouch.  A North Carolina native, Crouch first came to fame in 1924 after being court-martialed for organizing a Communist group while serving in the U.S. military.  After serving three years in Alcatraz for this “crime,” he spent the next seventeen years organizing for the Communist Party of the United States of America.  During that time he studied in the Soviet Union, helped place Communists in the U.S. military, organized unions, oversaw strikes, created reams of propaganda, and attempted to spy on the Manhattan Project.  In 1942 he was expelled from the Party when he raised concerns that it was more focused on propping up the Soviet Union and Party leaders than it was in pushing for a true Communist revolution.

Although disillusioned with Communism, Crouch found life on his own difficult and sought out a new ideological center.  In 1949 he found it when he embarked on a career as an anti-Communist informant for the federal government.  He named names, testified in countless trials, appeared before numerous Congressional hearings, reached out through every media array available, and generally played the part of the loyal anti-Communist.  His efforts helped terrify the nation and propped up McCarthy’s claims that the nation was awash in Communists.  In 1954, however, Crouch was exposed as a liar and was summarily dropped by the federal government.  He died in 1955 a lonely and broken man, abandoned by both sides of the ideological struggle when his services no longer proved useful.

Crouch’s troubled life not only enables us to explore both sides of the Cold War-era ideological battle, it also allows us a unique opportunity to see the use and abuse of ideological pawns.  The reality of such insights makes clear that both American and Soviet leaders acted in remarkably similar ways – they used a worldview to terrify their populace, gathered together true believers to push the cause, took advantage of both the fear and their supporters to increase their own power, and then dumped those individuals when they no longer served a purpose.  Such a perspective may help explain our continuing fascination with the Cold War.

Join us at 5pm on Wednesday October 8 to learn more about Paul Crouch, to examine both sides of the Cold War ideological struggle, and to discuss the use and abuse of Cold War-era pawns.

 

Related Readings:

Budenz, Louis. This is My Story. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1947. (Joyner Hoover Collection: BX4668 .B72)

Chambers, Whittaker. Witness. New York: Random House, 1952. (Joyner Stacks: E743.5 .C47; second copy in Joyner Hoover: E743.5 .C47)

Kessler, Lauren. Clever Girl: Elizabeth Bentley, the Spy Who Ushered in the McCarthy Era. New York: Harper Collins, 2003. (Joyner Stacks: HX84.B384 K47 2003)

Lichtman, Robert M. and Ronald D. Cohen. Deadly Farce: Harvey Matusow and the Informer System in the McCarthy Era. Urbana: The University of Illinois Press, 2004. (Joyner Stacks: E743.5 .M36 L53 2004)

Taylor, Gregory S. The Life and Lies of Paul Crouch : Communist, Opportunist, Cold War Snitch. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2014. (Joyner Stacks: E748.C949 T39 2014)

 

Courtesy of YouTube, Soviet and German forces stage a joint victory parade in the eastern Polish city of Brest, September 23, 1939.

On September 1, 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland to mark the beginning of the Second World War in Europe. On September 17, 1939, 75 years ago today, the Soviet Union, in alliance with the Germans, invaded Poland from the east. Under the terms of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of August 23, 1939, the Third Reich and USSR agreed to partition eastern Europe between themselves. The Soviets gained control of the eastern half of Poland, plus the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia; the regions of Bessarabia and northern Bukovina from Romania; and parts of Finland obtained as a result of the “Winter War” of November 1939- March 1940.

In all, the Soviet portion of occupied Poland contained over 77,000 square miles of Polish territory, with a population of over 12 million people, constituting over half of pre-war Poland’s land and nearly 40% of its population. All of these lands were annexed to the Soviet Union. The Soviet occupation also exacted a devastating human toll. At least 30,000 Poles were killed in a series of mass executions, most famously the Katyn Forest massacre of April-May 1940. Over half a million other Poles were imprisoned or deported to the Gulag system of forced labor camps or to special settlements in Siberia or central Asia. An estimated 90,000-100,000 Poles died during these deportations. (Paczkowski, “Poland, the ‘Enemy Nation’,” 372; Kochanski, The Eagle Unbowed, 137-38)

The period of Nazi-Soviet alliance ended when Hitler invaded the USSR on June 22, 1941. Virtually all of the lands annexed by Stalin under the terms of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact were reclaimed by him in the wake of the victory over Nazi Germany in 1945. Poland was compensated for its territorial losses in the east with lands in the west taken from pre-war Germany. Poland became a Soviet-dominated communist satellite after the war, and would remain so until the fall of the Soviet empire in 1989.

The following is a select bibliography of CWIS documents and other publications concerning the Soviet invasion and occupation of eastern Poland in 1939-41, as well as the re-imposition of Soviet control after World War II. It includes items from the CWIS Collection, Joyner Library’s Federal Documents Collection, and from our general collection. This list is far from comprehensive, and is merely intended to provide an introduction to our relevant holdings and a starting point for research. Please contact David Durant, Federal Documents & Social Sciences Librarian, for further assistance on this topic.

 

1. CWIS Documents on Poland Under Communism

Communist Aggression Investigation: Fourth Interim Report. Hearings before the Select Committee on Communist Aggression, House of Representatives, Eighty-Third Congress, Second Session, under authority of H. Res. 346 and H. Res. 438. Part II, 1954.  (Joyner Docs CWIS: Y 4. C 73/5: C 73/Pt. 2)

Documentary Testimony of Gen. Izyador Modelski: Former Military Attaché of the Polish Embassy, Washington, D.C.. Hearings Before the Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, Eighty-First Congress, First Session. 1949. (Joyner Docs CWIS: Y 4 Un 1/2: M 72)

Franciszek Jarecki — Flight to Freedom. Hearing Before the Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, Eighty-Third Congress, First Session. 1953. (Joyner Docs CWIS: Y 4 Un 1/2: J 28)

International Communism: Revolt in the Satellites: Staff Consultations with Dr. Jan Karski, Mihail Farcasanu, Joseph Lipski, Monsignor Bela Varga, Bela Fabian, Stevan Barankovics, Stanislaw Mikolajczyk, Ferenc Nagy. Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, Eighty-Fourth Congress, Second Session. 1957. (Joyner Docs CWIS: Y 4 Un 1/2: C 73/72)

Investigation of Communist Aggression. Tenth Interim Report of Hearings before the Select Committee on Communist Aggression, House of Representatives, Eighty-Third Congress, Second Session, under authority of H. Res. 346 and H. Res. 438. Poland, Rumania, and Slovakia. 1954.  (Joyner Docs CWIS: Y 4. C 73/5: C 73/2)

Investigation of Communist Takeover and Occupation of Poland, Lithuania, and Slovakia. Sixth Interim Report of Hearings before the Subcommittee on Poland, Lithuania, and Slovakia of the Select Committee on Communist Aggression, House of Representatives, Eighty-Third Congress, Second Session, under authority of H. Res. 346 and H. Res. 438. 1954.  (Joyner Docs CWIS: Y 4. C 73/5: P 75)

The Katyn Forest Massacre. Hearings before the Select Committee to Conduct an Investigation of the Facts, Evidence and Circumstances of the Katyn Forest Massacre, Eighty-Second Congress, First[-Second] Session. 7 v., 1952. (Joyner Docs CWIS: Y 4. K 15: M 38/)

Lest We Forget: A Pictorial Summary of Communism in Action [in] Albania [and other countries]: Consultation with Klaus Samuli Gunnar Romppanen, Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, Eighty-Sixth Congress, Second Session. January 13, 1960. (Joyner Docs CWIS: Y 4 Un 1/2: C 73/109; additional circulating copy in Joyner Docs Stacks: Y 4. Un 1/2: C 73/109)

Soviet Espionage Through Poland. Hearing before the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Eighty-Sixth Congress, Second Session. Testimony of Pawel Monat. 1960. (Joyner Docs CWIS: Y 4. J 89/2: SO 8/10)

Testimony of Dr. Marek Stanislaw Korowicz. Hearing Before the Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, Eighty-Third Congress, First Session. 1953. (Joyner Docs CWIS: Y 4 Un 1/2: K 84)

Who Are They? Prepared at the Request of the Committee on Un-American Activities by the Legislative Reference Service, Library of Congress. Part 5: Josip Broz Tito and Wladyslaw Gomulka (Yugoslavia-Poland). 1957. (Joyner Docs CWIS: Y 4. Un 1/2: W 62/Pt. 5)

 

2. Additional Sources

Cienciala, Anna M., Natalia S. Lebedeva, and Wojciech Materski. Katyn: A Crime Without Punishment. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007. (Joyner Stacks D804 .S65 K359 2007)

Foreign Relations of the United States: The Soviet Union, 1933-1939. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1952. (Joyner Docs Stacks S 1.1: 933-939)

Foreign Relations of the United States, 1941: Volume I: General, The Soviet Union. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1958. (Joyner Docs Stacks S 1.1: 1941, V. 1)

Gross, Jan Tomasz. Revolution from Abroad: The Soviet Conquest of Poland’s Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia. Expanded ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002. (Joyner Stacks DK4415 .G76 2002)

Kochanski, Halik. The Eagle Unbowed: Poland and the Poles in the Second World War. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012. (Joyner Stacks D765 .K5755 2012)

‘Nazi-Soviet Relations 1939-1941.‘ The Avalon Project. Yale University Law School. (an extensive online compilation of translated German documents, including the full-text of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and all related agreements.)

Paczkowski, Andrzej.”Poland, ‘The Enemy Nation’.” in Stephane Courtois and Mark Kramer (eds.) The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999. (Joyner Stacks HX44 .L5913 1999)

Snyder, Timothy. Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. New York: Basic Books, 2010. (Joyner Stacks DJK49 .S69 2010)

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “German-Soviet Pact.” Holocaust Encyclopedia.

 

 

 

This post is in support of the exhibit “25th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall”, which will be available in Joyner Library from September 15 until November 15. The exhibit is located on the 1st floor hallway leading to Research & Instructional Services. Dean William Downs and Dr. Jill Twark will present a lecture on “The Berlin Wall:  A Historical and Photographic Exhibit to Commemorate the 25th Anniversary of its Fall” at 4:30 PM on Monday, September 15, in Room 2409, Joyner Library.

Erected by the Soviets in 1961 to stem the massive population flow from East Berlin to West Berlin, the Berlin Wall became the embodiment of the Cold War struggle between the U.S.-led west and the Soviet bloc. Ultimately, the wall came to symbolize the failure of Soviet communism to offer a viable alternative to liberal western capitalism. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 marked the end of the Cold War, the demise of communist East Germany and Soviet hegemony in eastern Europe, and just two years later, the Soviet Union itself. It paved the way for the reunification of Germany and subsequent growth of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and European Union.

The following is a select bibliography of items available in Joyner Library that are relevant to the Berlin Wall and the history of the German Democratic Republic (GDR: the communist East German state that existed from 1949-1990). It includes items from the CWIS Collection, Joyner Library’s Federal Documents Collection, and from our general collection. This list is far from comprehensive, and is merely intended to provide an introduction to our relevant holdings and a starting point for research. Please contact David Durant, Federal Documents & Social Sciences Librarian, for further assistance on this topic.

 

1. CWIS Documents on the GDR and Berlin Wall

An American Prisoner in Communist East Germany. Hearing Before the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws, of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Eighty-Fifth Congress, Second Session. 1958. (Joyner Docs CWIS Y 4. J 89/2: P 93/7)

Analysis of the Khrushchev Speech of January 6, 1961.  Hearing Before the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws, of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Eighty-Seventh Congress, First Session. 1961 (Joyner Docs CWIS Y 4. J 89/2: K 52/3) -June 16, 1961 assessment by scholar Dr. Stefan T. Possony. Includes analysis of Khrushchev’s actions in Berlin just prior to the wall going up.

The Erica Wallach Story. Report by the Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, Eighty-Fifth Congress, Second Session. 1958. (Joyner Docs CWIS: Y 4 Un 1/2: W 15) -The account of a woman arrested in the GDR and imprisoned from 1950-1955.

International Communism (Testimony of Ernst Tillich). Hearings Before the Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, Eighty-fourth Congress, Second Session. 1956. (Joyner Docs CWIS: Y 4 Un 1/2: C 73/69) -Testimony regarding current conditions in East Berlin by a West Berlin-based activist.

Soviet Political Agreements and Results: The Words of American Statesmen who Negotiated With Soviet Representatives Since 1959.  Staff Study for the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws, of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Volume II. 1964 (Joyner Docs CWIS Y 4. J 89/2: SO 8/6/V. 2) -Contains substantial material on the 1961 Berlin crisis.

Who Are They? Prepared at the request of the Committee on Un-American Activities by the Legislative Reference Service, Library of Congress. Part 4: Walter Ulbricht and Janos Kadar. 1957. (Joyner Docs CWIS: Y 4. Un 1/2: W 62/Pt. 4) -Ulbricht was leader of the GDR from 1950-1973.

 

 

2. Additional Federal Documents on the GDR and Berlin Wall

At Cold War’s End: U.S. Intelligence on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, 1989-1991. Benjamin B. Fischer (ed.) Center for the Study of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, 1999.  (Joyner Docs Stacks: PREX 3.2: C 67)

Background: Berlin, City Between Two Worlds. Office of Public Affairs,U.S. Department of State, 1952. (Joyner Docs Stacks: S 1.74: 39)

Background: Berlin, City Between Two Worlds. Rev. ed. Office of Public Affairs,U.S. Department of State, 1960. (Joyner Docs Stacks: S 1.74: 61)

Background: Berlin-1961. Office of Public Services, Bureau of Public Affairs, U.S. Department of State, 1961. (Joyner Docs Stacks: S 1.74: 64/2)

Berlin Crisis: A Report on the Moscow Discussions, 1948, Including text of a note addressed to the Soviet Government on September 26 by the Governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. U.S. Department of State, 1948. (Joyner Docs Stacks: S 1.74: 1)

The Berlin Crisis: Report to the Nation by President Kennedy, July 25, 1961. Office of Public Services, Bureau of Public Affairs, U.S. Department of State, 1961. (Joyner Docs Stacks: S 1.74: 63)

Current Foreign Policy: Berlin, The Four-Power Agreement. Office of Media Services, Bureau of Public Affairs, U.S. Department of State, 1971. (Joyner Docs Stacks: S 1.74: 73)

East Germany Under Soviet Control. Office of Public Affairs, U.S. Department of State, 1952. (Joyner Docs Stacks: S 1.74: 34)

Focus, Berlin: USIA in Action: United States Information Agency, 1963. (Joyner Docs Stacks IA 1.2 B 45)

Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961-1963: The Berlin Crisis, 1962-1963. Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State (Joyner Docs Stacks S 1.1: 1961-63, V. 15)

Grathwol, Robert P. and Donita M. Moorhus. American Forces in Berlin: Cold War Outpost, 1945-1994. U.S. Department of Defense, Legacy Resource Management Program, Cold War Project, 1994. (Joyner Docs Stacks: D 1.2: B 45/2)

The Soviet Note on Berlin: An Analysis. Public Services Division, U.S. Department of State, 1959. (Joyner Docs Stacks: S 1.74: 52)

 

3. Additional Sources

Childs, David and Richard J. Popplewell. The Stasi: The East German Intelligence and Security Service. New York: New York University Press, 1996. (Joyner Stacks DD287.4 .C45 1996)

Engel, Jeffrey A. The Fall of the Berlin Wall: The Revolutionary Legacy of 1989. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. (Joyner Stacks D860 .F35 2009)

Gelb, Norman. The Berlin Wall: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and a Showdown in the Heart of Europe. New York: Times Books, 1986. (Joyner Stacks DD881 .G45 1986)

Maier, Charles S. Dissolution: The Crisis of Communism and the End of East Germany. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1997. (Joyner Stacks DD289 .M34 1997)

Naimark, Norman M. The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945-1949. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1995. (Joyner Stacks DD285 .N35 1995)

 

 

In the summer of 1948, Mary Wolfe Price made history when she became North Carolina’s first ever female gubernatorial candidate. That same summer, however, Price also dealt with headlines of a much more negative nature. In six appearances before congressional committees, Elizabeth Bentley, a self-confessed former Soviet spy, had identified Price as a secret Communist Party (CPUSA) member who committed espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union.  Price denied the charges, and many historians came to see Bentley’s accusations as a crude McCarthyite effort to silence a voice for progressive social change. Post Cold War archival revelations, however, have forced a reassessment of this view.

1. Mary Price

Mary Wolfe Price was born in Madison, NC in 1909, the 10th child of a poor tobacco farmer. Highly intelligent, she overcame her disadvantaged circumstances to attend the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and graduated in 1930. Price moved to New York in 1933, and in 1939 obtained a job at the New York Herald Tribune as secretary to the renowned columnist Walter Lippmann. She worked for Lippmann until 1943. After spending some time in Mexico, and then working in an executive position for a union, Price returned to North Carolina in the summer of 1945 and helped organize the North Carolina Committee of the Southern Conference for Human Welfare (SCHW). The SCHW was a strong advocate for labor rights and opponent of segregation. Price became secretary-treasurer of the committee, then executive secretary. At the end of 1947, Price resigned from her position with SCHW in order to help organize the North Carolina chapter of the newly-formed Progressive Party.

The Progressive Party was a left-wing third party created to support the 1948 presidential candidacy of Henry Wallace, Vice-President from 1941-1945, who had been left off of the 1944 ticket in favor of Harry Truman. Wallace and the Progressives ran on a platform of opposition to Wall Street, support for civil rights, and a foreign policy calling for accommodation of the Soviet Union. This led many to charge that the Progressive Party was a “front” organization secretly controlled by the CPUSA, a charge the Progressives vehemently dismissed as “red baiting.” Price played a leading role in creating the Progressive Party’s North Carolina chapter, and was subsequently elected chair. She helped organize the Wallace campaign in North Carolina.

2. Bentley’s Charges

On July 30, 1948, a woman named Elizabeth Bentley would appear before a subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Expenditures in Executive Departments. Her testimony would prove to be a bombshell. Bentley testified that she had secretly joined the CPUSA in 1935, and had been part of an extensive communist espionage apparatus that had penetrated the US government and furnished information to the NKVD, the Soviet secret police. Bentley’s espionage activities ended when she turned herself into the FBI in November 1945.

At the prompting of North Carolina Senator Clyde Hoey, Bentley stated that she had known Mary Price since about February 1941, that Price was a secret CPUSA member, and that Price had given her information from Walter Lippmann’s files to be passed on to the Soviets. In the next two weeks, Bentley subsequently appeared five times before the House Un-American Activities Committee, where she expanded upon her allegations against a number of individuals, including Mary Price.

While overshadowed by the accusations of Soviet espionage leveled at individuals such as Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter White, the charges against Price were widely publicized in North Carolina. According to historian Thomas W. Devine, the accusations against Price were actually regarded with skepticism in the North Carolina media, but did provide added fuel to the Progressives’ critics, some of whom were eager to tar any opposition to segregation as being communist-inspired. Price herself fully denied Bentley’s  charges, calling them “fantastic.” She summarized her reaction to the allegations in a 1976 oral history interview:

That’s my memory of it and I fell sure that’s right, because I know that my reaction was that this was a putup job to discredit the Progressive party, when the reporters came to see me in the office in Greensboro, my to my surprise, to tell me about this Elizabeth Bentley before the House Un-American Committee in Washington. She had said that she was an agent of the Soviet Union and she had been assisted by me. She got much publicity, you know. (Interview with Mary Price Adamson, 122)

While Price admitted knowing Elizabeth Bentley, she denied any involvement in espionage or the CPUSA:

I knew her on the basis that I had met her casually in New York as one does, and when she found out that I lived in Washington, and again, as I do, I had a bed in my apartment and said, “Look, if you haven’t got a place to stay, you can sleep over at my apartment.” I just didn’t think about it at all. So, she never asked to sleep there but she would call up and say she was on an expense account and how would I like to have dinner? Well, I just didn’t see anything in it but a casual business. (Interview with Mary Price Adamson, 122-3)

3. Price, Bentley, and Venona: Post Cold War Revelations

For many years, scholars tended to take Price’s denials at face value. Historian Mary Frederickson, who conducted the 1976 oral history interview, never asked if the charges were true, asking instead “Did you ever consider suing Bentley for libel?” (Interview with Mary Price Adamson, 125) Similarly, Sayoko Uesugi, in a 2002 article, stated that Bentley’s “charge was absurd.” (Uesugi, “Gender, Race, and the Cold War,” 305)  Starting in 1995, however, revelations from both American and Soviet archives have challenged this verdict and forced historians to reassess the question of Price’s guilt.

In 1995, the National Security Agency released the records of a 1940s program called Venona, which involved intercepting and decoding Soviet intelligence communications between Moscow and NKVD officers in the U.S. Among other revelations, the documents intercepted via Venona have greatly substantiated the truth of Elizabeth Bentley’s 1948 testimony and largely confirmed that those she identified were, in fact, engaged in espionage on behalf of the CPUSA and USSR, including Mary Price. Additional archival confirmation was provided by Russian journalist Alexander Vassiliev, who was briefly permitted to research Soviet intelligence archives in the mid-1990s and recorded extensive summaries of the documents he found.

The materials found in the Venona and Vassiliev files show that Mary Price, along with her sister Mildred, were both secret members of the CPUSA. Mary worked for the NKVD from 1941-1944, passing along information from Lippmann’s files. Lippmann had extensive connections with the highest levels of the U.S. government, and his files contained a great deal of sensitive information that never went into his columns. The NKVD thus greatly valued Price’s work. In addition to her own espionage, Price also recruited Duncan Lee, an officer with the OSS, forerunner of the CIA, as a Soviet source. Price served as his contact and handler, a relationship greatly complicated by the fact that the two had an affair.

The strain of espionage took a toll on Mary Price and was likely one of the main reasons she quit her job with Lippmann. In 1944, she asked CPUSA head Earl Browder to reassign her to “political work,” and her relationship with the NKVD ended. She was likely still a CPUSA member when she ran for governor. In the end, the Progressive Party campaign fared poorly in North Carolina, as it did nationwide. Mary Price eventually moved to California, where she died in 1980.

The case of Mary Price, beyond being a fascinating piece of North Carolina history, also has interesting historiographical implications. It is a good example of how new archival revelations can indeed occasionally overturn established historical interpretations. It also adds context to the longstanding debate between traditionalist and revisionist historians on the nature of the American Communist Party. Traditionalist scholars have emphasized the doctrinaire, conspiratorial nature of the CPUSA, as well as its subservience to the Soviet Union. Revisionists have focused on the genuine commitment of many CPUSA members to labor rights and ending racial discrimination. The life of Mary Price embodies both aspects of the CPUSA and shows the difficulty of disentangling them.

CWIS Sources:

Export Policy and Loyalty. Hearings before the Investigations Subcommittee of the Committee on Expenditures, United States Senate, Eightieth Congress, Second Session. Part 1, July 30, 1948. (Not yet part of CWIS Collection: Available in ProQuest Congressional; ECU users only)

Hearings Regarding Communist Espionage in United States Government. Hearings Before the Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, Eightieth Congress, Second Session. July 31-Sept. 9, 1948. (Joyner Docs CWIS: Y 4.Un 1/2:C 73/6)

Report on Southern Conference for Human Welfare. Committee on Un-American Activities, U.S. House of Representatives, Eightieth Congress, First Session. June 16, 1947. (Joyner Docs CWIS: Y 4. Un 1/2: Un 1/RPT. 592)

Other Original Sources:

Cold War International History Project: Venona Project and Vassiliev Notebooks Index and Concordance

Documenting the American South: Interview with Mary Price Adamson, April 19, 1976

Wilson Center Digital Archive: Vassiliev Notebooks 

Secondary Sources:

Bradley, Mark A. A Very Principled Boy: The Life of Duncan Lee, Red Spy and Cold Warrior. New York: Basic Books, 2014. (On order for Joyner Library)

Devine, Thomas W. Henry Wallace’s 1948 Presidential Campaign and the Future of Postwar Liberalism. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013. (Joyner Stacks: E748 .W23 D48 2013)

Haynes, John Earl, Harvey Klehr and Alexander Vassiliev. Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009. (Joyner Stacks: UB271.R9 H389 2009)

Olmsted, Kathryn S. Red Spy Queen: A Biography of Elizabeth Bentley. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002. (Joyner Stacks:HX84.B384 O45 2002)

Uesugi, Sayoko. “Gender, Race and the Cold War: Mary Price and the Progressive Party in North Carolina, 1945-1948.” The North Carolina Historical Review, 77 (3), 2000.