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Wine:
Spy
Story CLEVER GIRL: ELIZABETH BENTLEY, THE SPY WHO USHERED IN THE MCCARTHY ERA by Lauren Kessler. Harper Collins, 2003. Hardcover, $26.95. "Clever Girl" was the code name the Soviets gave American spy Elizabeth Bentley in cablegrams sent from Russian embassies in the U.S. back to Mother Russia before and during WWII. U.S. Army intelligence cracked the top-secret Venona codes in the early 1940s, although the project did not become publicly known until the mid-1990s. Beginning in 1945, the FBI used information gleaned from the decoded cables to verify Bentley's testimony concerning the two large, Communist espionage networks she ran. Much to its surprise, the FBI learned through Venona that Bentley was telling the truth.
In far-reaching, voluntary testimony, Bentley named 80 American citizens, some in highly placed governmental positions, who were active in her spy rings. She testified about individuals with Communist affiliations before congressional committees and grand juries well into the 1950s, even though she was much too good a spy to have kept any of the documents they passed her. True, her testimony led to the excesses of the McCarthy era, but Bentley's role was pivotal in explaining how the collection and distribution of classified documents worked. Eugene author and UO journalism Prof. Lauren Kessler tells Bentley's dramatic story in the light of Venona's evidence that the Soviets were spying on the U.S. government throughout the 1930s and '40s. There was a Communist conspiracy. There were actual spies in the government sending sensitive papers through U.S.S.R. operatives to Moscow. Venona, in turn, has also been corroborated by the post-Cold War release in Moscow of some document archives. Throughout Bentley's career as a former spy, she maintained the fiction that she was misled, taken advantage of by her older, well-connected lover, a senior Russian agent, and those he worked for. However, Kessler brings forward strong support for a different conclusion: Bentley was a devoted, idealistic Communist, who knew what she was doing when she came forward on her own to volunteer as a spy. After her lover's death, the KGB people Bentley reported to took away the networks and contacts he had left in her care. In fear of the KGB — she was actually on an assassination list at one time — Bentley called the FBI and spilled the beans. As Kessler writes: "… her story is more complicated — and far more interesting — than the sum of her personal imperfections. It is a story of good intentions gone bad, of skewed loyalties, of a past that could not be outrun no matter how long the race. It is the story of a woman who lived a life much bigger than the one to which she was born — and who paid the price." Bentley's story is fascinating because she came from a New England family that all but guaranteed her membership in the Daughters of the American Revolution had she not turned out to be a notorious "Red Spy Queen." Liberally educated at Vassar to teach at elite private schools, Bentley spent 1933 in Italy, where both her sexuality and political awareness caught fire. Strongly influenced by the effects of Mussolini's fascism on ordinary Italians, Bentley was further distressed by her return to New York in 1934, when the Great Depression was in full swing. Unable to find work and without family to support her, Bentley fell enthusiastically into the arms of the American Communist Party, where she had many friends and lovers, for the only time in her life. Kessler shows the gradual unbending of this upright Puritan patrician into a woman whose superficial appearance belied the intense, secret life she led. Through her party activities, Bentley met powerful men, some of whom tried to recruit her as a spy. But she became active when an older man she knew only as Yasha, one of the movement's top men, told her to cut off her other friends, move to a different apartment, give up her party meetings and report solely to him. When they fell in love, Yasha recognized that Bentley had the energy he was lacking. He taught her to spy. This was all highly unprofessional and dangerous for him as a Soviet operative. As Kessler writes: "By being together, they were not just breaking society's code but also party regulations and espionage tradecraft. It was a heady combination. She was drunk on it. … They were living, as someone later put it, in bourgeois sin and Leninist bliss." Because Joe McCarthy, Roy Cohn, J. Edgar Hoover and Richard Nixon were such rabid anticommunist right-wingers, I find it startling to learn that allegations of Communists in the government spying for the Russians were not all bogus. In a recent interview, Kessler said some of the Communists Bentley named were not trying to undermine the U.S. government, per se. Some of them "saw that Great Britain was getting all this intelligence from the U.S., but the U.S.S.R., our World War II ally, was not." Kessler makes clear the multilayered context in which the fevered McCarthy Era thrived. She reports the exploits of the most powerful woman operative in the KGB but also shows Bentley as a flawed, lonely woman whose passions ran deep but whose survival depended on calm, calculated self-denial. Clever Girl is a brilliant portrait of this complicated personality. Kessler's complex understanding is based on extensive, careful research. She read from files available in a special FBI reading room in D.C. that holds a vast amount of data. She also collected as much oral history as she could, she said in a recent interview with EW. "I found almost everyone involved in Bentley's case who's still alive," she said, noting that some of the FBI guys "are pretty long-lived." Hearings at which Bentley testified are public records Kessler accessed through the UO. "There was lots of press coverage — Life, Time, Newsweek," Kessler said. "She was on 'Meet the Press' on radio, so I could hear her voice, and she was the first female guest on 'Meet the Press' on live television, before videotape." Something tragic clings to this woman who fell into history and shaped events that have come to define an entire American era. As Kessler said, "There were many consequences for Elizabeth Bentley of trying to lead a meaningful life." Kessler has written 10 books, including the Los
Angeles Times bestseller, The Happy Bottom Riding Club:
The Life and Times of Pancho Barnes. She directs the UO literary
nonfiction graduate program. Kessler reads and signs Clever
Girl at 7 pm Tuesday, Aug. 12 at the UO Browsing room. Kessler
is Alan Siporin's guest on KLCC's "Critical mass" on Sunday,
BOOK NOTES Aug. 7 – Sept. 28: Dean Van Leuven (Life Without Anger) reads and signs books at 7 pm. Aug. 7 at Barnes & Noble. …Safiya Bukhari (Lest We Forget; Soul of the BLA) and Ward Churchill (A Little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust and Denial in the Americas) speak at 8 pm Aug. 8 at the United Lutheran Church. For info, (541) 520-5401. …Poets Matthew Dickman, Michael Dickman, David Elsey and Nico Alvarado Greenwood read at 7 pm Aug. 10 at Mountain Writers Center, Portland, $3. (503) 236-4854. …Twenty-nine local authors discuss and sign books at the Oregon Authors Table at the Lane County Fair Aug. 12-17. …Elizabeth Engstrom reads from Black Leather and talks about writing the erotic thriller at 7 pm Aug. 14 at Barnes & Noble. …Suzanne Hansen (You'll Never Nanny in this Town Again!) reads at 7 pm Aug. 27 at Barnes & Noble. …Seattle author Dolly Mae reads from Choosing Joy in the Midst of Crisis at 7 pm Aug. 28 at Barnes & Noble. … Portland Arts and Lectures Series upcoming events include Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Jeffrey Eugenides Sept 30; novelist Sandra Cisneros Oct. 28; memoirist, novelist and short-story writer Tobias Wolff Dec. 2; U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins Jan. 14, 2004; cartoonists Matt Groening and Lynda Barry Mar. 18; and British novelist and screenwriter Ian McEwan April 1. All events at 7:30 pm in the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. Tickets: (503) 227-2583.
Thirsty
Grief I am bummed, heartsick, spirit hovering just above the Zero. I stare out the grit- and grime-streaked window of my office high above sweltering Eugene streets, and I can find no comfort even in shining vistas of glittering trees and erupting blooms under a cloudless cerulean sky. A brother is down, his thread clipped by the Morae, the Fates: Clotho the spinner, Lachesis the handmaiden of Chance, Atropos the inescapable. Rick Filloy would have known all their names and all the legends of their work in the weaving and unraveling of lives. I wonder if, in his last moments, in the clutches of the overwhelming pain in his heart, he might have had an instant when his fine, clear mind thought, as I have a hundred times over the last three days, that this must be some mistake, a slip of Clotho's scissors, too soon, wrong thread, an error that will leave a gaping hole in the tapestry of life. He was too young, only 54, too strong, athletic, played handball competitively, rode his bike, bore not an ounce of extra fat, didn't smoke or abuse drugs, clean dude, whip-smart, witty, honored by his students, respected by his colleagues and fellow teachers, beloved by Susan, his wife of more than 30 years, their son Nicholas and daughter Amanda. See: wrong guy, not time yet, had too much yet to do, too much yet to give, students still waiting in the classrooms of LCC, waiting for Rick, for the man who read Aristotle and Plato in the Greek and knew the fine distinctions of rhetoric from agnomination to zeugma, was master of paronomasia, enemy of pleonasms, rarely gripped by aporia. Sad am I, saddened in deed and in heart, sad to indulge prosopoedia, to convey in all humility what I know would be Rick's message to us all: "Fill the cantharus with good wine, drink deeply, and be of good mind." Thank you, my brother. We will miss you, and we will keep you. Rick Filloy's last gifts to me were two bottles of wine, retrieved on his vacation in Ontario, Canada. We will share them with his friends at Rick's celebration of life, then pass their message on to you. If Rick could have stayed with us this summer, our plan was to gather our families and eat good food and test stringently theories bearing on wine and its emotional appeals. In this fine heat, a good place to start would be with rosé — no, not insipid, sugary pink, schlock, but real rosé, perfect summer wine for those who like color, flavor and versatility with summer foods: good "Q," cold meats and cheeses, light Asian dishes, French-style patés and terrines, li'dat, li'dese: Territorial 2001 Rosé of Pinot Noir ($10), pretty peach-pink color, light and lively flavors of strawberries, good balance — and localboyz, Eugene winery (907 W. 3rd); Evesham Wood 2002 Rosé of Pinot Noir, Vin d'Une Nuit ($11), just classic rosé, flavorful, balanced, but also nuanced with typical pinot noir delicacy of red berry flavors; Jané Ventura 2002 Ull de Llebre Cariyena ($9), made from carignan, usually a hefty, dark used mostly in blends, this is deep, dusky pink and full-flavored, with just a touch of sweetness. Note: If you want to taste these wines, don't serve them too cold; chill to just above refrigerator temps, about 50ÿ F. In summer, when the air sizzles, I yearn for fresh
fish on the menu. We Eugeneans are blessed in access to the best
— locally-caught salmon, snapper, shellfish — and
native dry white wines to match. Our pinot gris has attracted
worldwide praise in recent years. Makes me mighty proud, but now
and then I crave sauvignon blanc, for crisp, citrusy Andrew Rich 2002 Croft Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc ($16) is brilliant: pale gold in color, bursting with flavors (sweet, ripe grapefruit), perfectly balanced, with just a trace of residual sugar that lends itself to creaminess in texture and a sensation of refreshment. We put it with some lightly grilled halibut, fresh tomato/basil salad and crusty baguette. If we don't get this in heaven, I don't wanna go. Best of all, Rich's fine sauvignon blanc comes with a screw-cap. Put away that funky broken opener, don't have to cut off the capsule, no cork to pull, no worries about cork taint (TCA in the trade; nasty little infection that makes wine taste like mildewed newspaper). Just twist off the cap, pour, slurp. Rich is not the first to make the leap away from cork, but he says, "I've been wanting to do it" and found the "perfect candidate." Oh, and the cap recycles easily. Watch for Andrew Rich's name on bottles; find his 2001 Syrah and 2001 Cabernet Franc, any wine he makes. Dude's got passion, puts it in his wines. So, friends, fill your glasses, mebbe dribble a drop on earth, think a kind thought for Dr. Richard (Rick) Filloy, the passing of a fine teacher and good man — and be, all of you, of good mind.
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