ABSTRACT
Her code name was Clever Girl, and Elizabeth Bentley was certainly smart. She graduated from Vassar College in the 1930s when many women never attended college. She traveled the world and learned to speak Italian and French and attended graduate school at Columbia University. Elizabeth sought out and received a job as a librarian at the Italian Library of Information in New York City. The library was actually used by the Italian government to promote their fascist or dictator-style regime—a government that the Communist Party despised. Elizabeth’s handler was Jacob Golos. Jacob had emigrated from Russia to the United States and had become a United States citizen. Jacob recruited Elizabeth to expand her work to spy for the Soviet Communist Party. Throughout Second World War, Elizabeth believed she was helping the brave Russians beat the Nazi war machine with her information. The Soviets considered her an important spy in their network.
