Massing had been married from 1919 to 1923 to [[Gerhart Eisler]], who in the 1930s was the [[Comintern]] representative in the United States. Her second husband (from 1923 to 1928) was the then communist journalist and publisher Julian Gumperz. Massing and later her third husband [[Paul Massing]] were members of an [[OGPU]] apparatus and functioned under the direction of a Soviet illegal officer based in New York. Massing was assigned several duties, including that of a courier between the United States and Europe. However, her most important assignment was that of an agent recruiter, a task she apparently carried out with great skill. Massing was assigned targets for recruitment by her Soviet supervisor. She used appeals to ideology, especially preying on the strong anti-Nazi sentiments of [[New Deal]] liberals who dominated the Washington scene of the Roosevelt administration in the early 1930s. [[Laurence Duggan]] was among her recruits. In 1935 Massing at a Communist cell meeting in a private home argued with [[Alger Hiss ]] over whether [[Noel Field]], a State Department spy, should work with her group or with The [[GRU]]. | Massing had been married from 1919 to 1923 to [[Gerhart Eisler]], who in the 1930s was the [[Comintern]] representative in the United States. Her second husband (from 1923 to 1928) was the then communist journalist and publisher Julian Gumperz. Massing and later her third husband [[Paul Massing]] were members of an [[OGPU]] apparatus and functioned under the direction of a Soviet illegal officer based in New York. Massing was assigned several duties, including that of a courier between the United States and Europe. However, her most important assignment was that of an agent recruiter, a task she apparently carried out with great skill. Massing was assigned targets for recruitment by her Soviet supervisor. She used appeals to ideology, especially preying on the strong anti-Nazi sentiments of [[New Deal]] liberals who dominated the Washington scene of the Roosevelt administration in the early 1930s. [[Laurence Duggan]] was among her recruits. In 1935 Massing at a Communist cell meeting in a private home argued with [[Alger Hiss ]] over whether [[Noel Field]], a State Department spy, should work with her group or with The [[GRU]]. |