"Slut and stool pigeon"
In the late 40's and early 50's, Elizabeth Bentley and Whittaker Chambers were star performers during the hunt for Soviet spies in America. Chambers produced documents given to him by American government officials. But Bentley was more fun. She was a courier and the lover of a philandering Soviet agent. J. Edgar Hoover embraced her and then must have suffered massive headaches from his star informer's antics and stories. Her enemies called her a "slut and a stool pigeon," amid a flurry of uncomplimentary comments. Ultimately, Bentley's story stuck and has been buttressed over time as more and more information has come out about Soviet espionage, most notable through the Venona Project. A new biography (Red Spy Queen, Univ. of North Carolina,) by Kathryn S. Olmstead gets a good review from Michael J. Ybarra (The Wall Street Journal, November 20, 2002.)

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