Wikipedia

Louise Bransten Berman

Louise Bransten Berman (October 9, 1908-August 1977) was a member of the Communist Party and a suspected Soviet spy.

Louise Bransten Berman in 1949

Biography

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Louise Rosenberg was born in Berkeley, the daughter of Abraham Rosenberg and Alice Greenbaum.[1] She inherited a fortune from her family's dried fruit importing business, which operated in sixty-five countries.[2] The family's business had previously been sold to a grocery chain for twenty million dollars.[3] She served on the board of The Rosenberg Foundation, a charity established by her family in 1937.[4]

In 1929 she married Richard Bransten, heir to the MJB Coffee fortune.[5] Their son Thomas was born in 1931 and later became a journalist for Ramparts and Fortune.[6] She became the lover of Soviet vice-consul Grigory Markovich Kheifets. J. Robert Oppenheimer met Kheifetz at a cocktail party hosted by Bransten.[7] Kheifets attempted to recruit Oppenheimer for Soviet espionage using Bransten's social connections with George Eltenton.[8] Her other friends involved in Communist Party activities included Nathan Silvermaster and Isaac Folkoff.[9]

In 1942, Bransten arranged a "Salute to Our Russian Ally" event at the San Francisco Opera House that was shut down by the mayor after protests by the American Legion.[10] Bransten worked with Bartley Crum to reverse the mayor's decision, later writing that the controversy showed "how strong the Fascist elements here are"[11]

She was the subject of intense surveillance by the FBI which described her pro-Communist activities as ranging from "mere membership in the Communist Party...to military and industrial espionage and political and propaganda activities".[12] Bransten was referred to in the Venona files by the code name "Map" and described as "a secret member of the CPUSA, a millionaire's daughter, doesn't work anywhere".[13]

Her second husband was Communist Party activist Lionel Berman (1906-1968).[14] He was in charge of the Cultural Section of the Communist Party.[15] Louise Berman and her husband were close friends of Vito Marcantonio, and she was a financial supporter of his campaigns with the American Labor Party.[16]

In 1948 she was questioned in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee about her links to Soviet espionage but refused to answer any questions on the grounds of the Fifth Amendment.[17] She testified again in front of the Committee in 1949 and stated that she had "never engaged in any espionage activity".[18] She defended her financial backing of left-wing causes to the press, stating "if I had $50,000,000 to offer for the perpetuation of racial segregation, some members of this committee might regard me quite favorably".[19] Due to her refusal to cooperate with the Committee, she was held in contempt of Congress.[20] She was acquitted of this charge in 1951.[21] She continued to be involved in politics through the 1960s, helping to raise funds for the Delano Grape strikers in 1963.[22]

Berman's papers are held at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.[23]

References

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  1. ^ Cogan, Sara G. (1973). The Jews of San Francisco & the Greater Bay Area, 1849-1919: An Annotated Bibliography. Western Jewish History Center. p. 35.
  2. ^ Lonelyhearts: The Screwball World of Nathanael West and Eileen McKenney. p. 351. ISBN 9780547488677.
  3. ^ Fariello, Griffin (2008). Red Scare: Memories of the American Inquisition. W.W. Norton. ISBN 9780393346411.
  4. ^ American Foundations and Their Fields. Raymond Rich Associates. 1948. p. 103.
  5. ^ Pfaff, Lilian; Davidson, Julius Ralph (2019). J. R. Davidson: a european contribution to California Modernism. Basel: Birkhäuser. p. 112. ISBN 978-3-0356-1937-9.
  6. ^ "Thomas Bransten '58". Reed Magazine | In Memoriam. Retrieved 2024-07-28.
  7. ^ Sibley, Katherine A. S. (2004). Red spies in America: stolen secrets and the dawn of the Cold War. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. p. 155. ISBN 978-0-7006-1351-9.
  8. ^ Stanley, Alessandra (2017-10-02). "Opinion | The Communist Party's Party People". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2024-07-28.
  9. ^ Haynes, John Earl (1999). Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America. Yale University Press. p. 232. ISBN 9780300129878.
  10. ^ Cherny, Robert W. San Francisco Reds: Communists in the Bay Area, 1919-1958,. p. 121.
  11. ^ Cherny, Robert W. (2017). Victor Arnautoff and the politics of art. The working class in American history. Urbana: University of Illinois press. ISBN 978-0-252-04078-8.
  12. ^ Haynes, John Earl (2009). Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America,. Yale University Press. p. 43. ISBN 9780300155723.
  13. ^ Herken, Gregg (Summer 2009). "Target Enormoz: Soviet Nuclear Espionage on the West Coast of the United States, 1942–1950". Journal of Cold War Studies. 11 (3): 68–90. doi:10.1162/jcws.2009.11.3.68. ISSN 1520-3972.
  14. ^ "Heiress Balks at Effort to Link Her to Spying". St. Louis Globe-Democrat. September 21, 1948. p. 19.
  15. ^ Fast, Howard (1990). Being red. Boston, (Mass.): Houghton Mifflin. p. 82. ISBN 978-0-395-55130-1.
  16. ^ Meyer, Gerald (1989). Vito Marcantonio: radical politician 1902-1954. SUNY series in American labor history. New York: State Univ. of New York Press. p. 106. ISBN 978-0-7914-0082-1.
  17. ^ "Louise Bransten Defies Spy Probe on 'Constitutional Right'". The Pomona Progress Bulletin. September 20, 1948. p. 1.
  18. ^ "California Heiress Balks at Communism Questions: Mrs. Louise Bransten Berman Stands on Constitutional Rights Before Congress Inquiry". The Times Leader. November 8, 1949. p. 1.
  19. ^ "Subversive heiress: She bought no yacht". The National Guardian. November 14, 1949. p. 3.
  20. ^ Beck, Carl (1959). Contempt of Congress; a study of the prosecutions initiated by the Committee on Un-American Activities, 1945-1957. Hauser Printing Company. p. 71.
  21. ^ "The 11th Hour of WIllie McGee". The National Guardian. May 9, 1951. p. 3.
  22. ^ Steinbacher, John (February 19, 1971). "Commies Make Move". Clovis News-Journal. p. 5.
  23. ^ "Archival Resources in Wisconsin: Descriptive Finding Aids: Summary Information". digicoll.library.wisc.edu. Retrieved 2024-07-28.
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