Elizabeth Bentley (1908-1963)

• Originally a KGB agent who spied for the Soviet Union for seven years.
• Codenamed “Good Girl” in Venona messages.
• While working undercover as a librarian, collected and passed information concerning pro-Fascist activity.
• Conducted low-level espionage for Jacob Golos, her handler and lover.
• Worked as a secretary for conservative businessman, Richard Waldo; became a valued “agent in place” as she secretly monitored his contacts, conversations, and movements.
• Copied and then supplied US government documents to other agents.
• Became convinced that her superiors wanted her terminated.
• In August 1945, Bentley approached the FBI field office in New Haven, CT, and became a “walk-in”—a defector who declares his or her intentions by walking into an official installation and asking for political asylum or volunteering to work in-place.
• Provided details of spy networks from New York City to Washington, D.C., including names of federal government officials.
• Her information was supported by Venona decrypts.
• Her defection precipitated changes in Soviet espionage techniques and created concern throughout America that communists had infiltrated the US government at every level.

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
Photo Credit: National Archives
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Ethel Greenglass Rosenberg (1915-1953)

• Agent for the KGB; operated with her husband.
• Recruited other agents and communist supporters in the US.
• Turned in by close relatives, David and Ruth Greenglass.
• Venona messages showed evidence of the Rosenbergs’ involvement in espionage activities targeting the Manhattan Project.
• Executed on June 19, 1953 in a Sing-Sing prison.
• The National Archives has twenty-five items relating to the case that can be viewed online, including more photos and pieces of evidence used in the trial.

Ethel Rosenberg's mug shots
Photo Credit: National Archives
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