The FBI's Lesbian: Angela Calomiris and the American
Communist Party (a true story ripped from the headlines)
Dozens of articles like the one below from Hearst's NY Journal-American, plus letters, photographs, and papers detailing Angie's FBI career and participation in the 1949 Smith Act trial, are in the Lesbian Herstory Archives, Brooklyn. Like other informant/witnesses back then, she kept everything that recalled her celebrity--in her case for 45 years. It was her finest hour, and over too soon. Other primary sources for this 86,000-word MS include Angie's lengthy FBI file (1942-65), interviews with people who knew her in New York and Provincetown, and the complete transcript of the trial, five million words, 21,157 pp. Together these materials provide a unique look at the FBI's relationship with an informant--especially one like Angie, from a marginalized population--and her starring role within the anti-Communist Red Scare network.
Angie would never have made it into the history books (like Victor Navasky's Naming Names) if she had not broken her cover as a FBI "Confidential National Defense Informant" and testified for the prosecution (the only woman to do so) at the first Smith Act trial (Dennis v. US ) of the leadership of the American Communist Party. It is still the longest criminal trial in American history (Jan.-Oct. 1949). There were hundreds (possibly thousands) of informants, but not many would go public and testify at trials and committee hearings (HUAC, McCarran) during "the McCarthy era."
Because she was ambitious and expected the support she had been receiving from the FBI for seven years (1942-49) to continue, Angie took her chances on the witness stand. Numerous exchanges with local and national Bureau offices confirm that she wanted them to get her a good job in photography/photojournalism--Life magazine, Ford Motors, 20th Century Fox. Her first assignment as a spy had been the pioneering documentary photographers of the New York Photo League, where she had taken inexpensive photography courses. At the trial she denounced them from the witness stand as a "Communist front" organization, and one of their leaders as the man who had recruited her into the Communist Party. It was the end of the League, and the end of the career of Sid Grossman, the man she named. That was how the Red Scare worked.
While the FBI was making rather feeble attempts at getting her a job, Angie was more resourcefu
With the help of journalists, and especially Pulitzer prize recipient Fred Woltman (chief Red-baiter for the New York World-Telegram), she got a book written and published. She took to the radio and lecture circuit like a pro, then made a final push to get her story made into a film (like fellow informant/witness Matt Cvetic's I Was a Communist for the FBI, Warner Brothers, 1951) or a TV series (like fellow Smith Act trial witness Herb Philbrick's I Led Three Lives, 1953-56). But the (straight) men had all the luck, and Angie lost out on the big money.
And ultimately, it had all been about the money. Trying to live up to the image of all-American girl patriot, she had lied on the witness stand. "No compensation" she had insisted, and all her press supporters had followed suit. She had, in fact, been paid and well, better than most informants because, as a photographer, she could provide photos of Party rallies and personalities. It was worth more than just naming names.
But she had stirred up bad publicity for the Bureau, involving (once again) Eleanor Roosevelt, someone Hoover hated. And she had, of course, committed perjury on the witness stand, which could have jeopardized the convictions of the CPUSA leaders--if defense attorneys had known about it. Hoover certainly did not intend to tell them.
Only the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA, 1966) would expose the truth about that "Age of Surveillance" (Frank Donner)--which lacked the technical sophistication of our own, but had an army of off-beat characters like Angie in its employ.