138. The Defection of a Communist Spy Queen with Kathryn Olmsted

This week Justin sits down with Dr. Kathryn Olmsted.  Kathryn is a professor of history at the University of California, Davis, where she has taught since 2001. She's published five books and many journal articles focusing on the political and cultural history of the United States since World War I. Today she discusses the story of Elizabeth Bentley, a spy and agent handler for the Communist Party of the United States and for the Soviet Union from the late 1930s through World War II.  But in 1945, she broke ties with both organizations and walked into an FBI field office to alert them to the presence of a massive and almost completely unknown espionage ring that had penetrated the U.S. government at many different levels.  She became a media sensation and helped to alert Congress and the American public to the new Cold War that they found themselves in with the USSR.

Connect with Kathryn:
Check out her book, Red Spy Queen, here.

https://www.amazon.com/Red-Spy-Queen-Biography-Elizabeth/dp/0807827398

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