Louise Bransten Berman

Louise Bransten Berman in 1949

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

Biography

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

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.