A well-researched biography on the United States’ first female foreign intelligence officer.
Staff
Author: Elizabeth Atwood
What They Say
In September 1918, World War I was nearing its end when Marguerite E. Harrison, a thirty-nine-year-old Baltimore socialite, wrote to the head of the U.S. Army’s Military Intelligence Division (MID) asking for a job. The director asked for clarification. Did she mean a clerical position? No, she told him. She wanted to be a spy.
Harrison, a member of a prominent Baltimore family, usually got her way. She had founded a school for sick children and wangled her way onto the staff of the Baltimore Sun. Fluent in four languages and knowledgeable of Europe, she was confident she could gather information for the U.S. government. The MID director agreed to hire her, and Marguerite Harrison became America’s first female foreign intelligence officer.
For the next seven years, she traveled to the world’s most dangerous places–Berlin, Moscow, Siberia, and the Middle East–posing as a writer and filmmaker in order to spy for the U.S. Army and U.S. Department of State. With linguistic skills and a knack for subterfuge, Harrison infiltrated Communist networks, foiled a German coup, located American prisoners in Russia, and probably helped American oil companies seeking entry into the Middle East. Along the way, she saved the life of King Kong creator Merian C. Cooper, twice survived imprisonment in Russia, and launched a women’s explorer society whose members included Amelia Earhart and Margaret Mead.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The title The Liberation of Marguerite Harrison can be interpreted in a couple of ways. Liberation can refer to the way Harrison bucked early twentieth-century social conventions to roam the world in her very unusual field of work. Liberation can also refer to the fact that Harrison got caught by the Soviets and had to be bailed out of a Russian prison – twice.
I haven’t studied spies or journalists, so I’d never heard of Margaret Harrison prior to this book. Her main claim to fame is that she was the United States’ first female foreign intelligence officer. Most of what is known about her comes from her 1935 biography (which is referenced repeatedly throughout this book). However, that work apparently omitted and distorted key aspects of her espionage activities. What the author Atwood has done is to delve into documents from the United States National Archives and the Russian Federal Security Bureau that are now available to researchers and use them to paint a different and often contradictory picture of Harrison’s life.
The initial chapters focus on Harrison’s family background, her upbringing and marriage as a Baltimore socialite, and her career as a journalist following her husband’s death. Most of these pages are based off Harrison’s autobiography and supplemented by details from newspaper social pages or newspaper articles Harrison wrote. The chapters establish that Harrison was a woman of privilege who was only able to accomplish what she did because of her connections. For instance, she was fluent in four languages because her family vacationed in Europe every summer. After her husband died, she immediately got a job as assistant society editor of the Baltimore Sun despite having no writing experience. She didn’t even know how to operate a typewriter. However, she got in through the door because she was a friend of one of the newspaper’s owners.
As a result of this opportunity, Harrison eventually got assigned to writing articles promoting America’s efforts in World War I, which was taking place at the time, and became interested in foreign affairs. She made up her mind that she wanted to be a spy, and thanks again to personal connections (this time her father-in-law), she got hired to be a Military Intelligence Division (MID) foreign agent and was sent to Europe shortly after the end of the war.
It should be noted that Harrison wasn’t the sort of spy who went in disguise under assumed names. Rather, she used her real name and social connections to obtain access to those in power and used her job as a journalist as an excuse to ask questions and conduct interviews. Some of this information went into newspaper articles; the rest went into MID reports. The chapters about Harrison’s espionage years lay out the details of her activities, and where records conflict, which they often do, the author offers conjectures for the discrepancies in details.
As with journalism, Harrison had no training in espionage, and in winging it, she made major mistakes. She blew her cover to her roommate, female British journalist Stan Harding, because she left scraps of reports around their apartment. She was indiscreet in the way she conducted herself and wound up caught by the Soviets and coerced into becoming a double agent. However, she managed that task so poorly the Soviets eventually threw her into prison. Even her claim to fame as the only American woman to survive the infamous Lubyanka Prison is a dubious compliment. One might argue she was the only American woman foolish enough to wind up there. Moreover, Stan Harding also survived detention there, and Harding only wound up there because Harrison fed the Soviets inaccurate information about Harding being a spy. Yet the narrative for some reason continually describes Harrison as a prized and valuable agent.
While Harrison definitely led a unique life, it reeks of privilege. She went into espionage because she was bored and wanted excitement. When she got caught, she had relatives in high political positions to petition for her release. Not even five years after she got out of Lubyanka, she wound up there a second time because she couldn’t give up playing at espionage, and again, she got out through the efforts of a distant relation with Russian connections.
Subsequent to her second release, she became part of a collaboration with Merian Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack, two men who would eventually go on to create the King Kong film. Harrison’s project with them, however, was Grass, a kind of docudrama about a Persian tribe’s search for pasture. While their footage was eventually turned into a feature film, the film project was also a cover for the three to gather intelligence for the United States at a time that Britain, America, and Russia were competing over control of Persia’s oilfields. This chapter draws from the writings of Harrison, Cooper, and Schoedsack, and as in the chapters about Europe, Atwood points out differences in their narratives and offers conjectures for discrepancies and omissions.
Harrison’s life after the release of Grass is quickly wrapped up in a single chapter. Although this period spans forty-two years, Atwood doesn’t offer many details about Harrison’s second marriage, her son and grandchildren, or how she died in possession of a sizable estate despite her inability to hold a steady job or manage finances. The focus of the book is Harrison’s time as an agent, an opportunity I can’t help but think should’ve gone to someone more capable and deserving.
The book includes several black-and-white photos of Harrison and the people in her life, footnotes, bibliography, and index.
In Summary
Despite being the first woman in her field, Marguerite Harrison isn’t exactly an inspiring trailblazer. Although the author continually presses the point that Harrison was an agent valued by her superiors, the anecdotes in the text paint her as a bored socialite who had all the right connections, but not necessarily the right skills. Still, Harrison did lead a unique life, and for those interested in how espionage was conducted by the United States in the early twentieth century, this book might prove valuable.
Content Grade: B
Packaging Grade: B
Released By: Naval Institute Press
Release Date: August 19th, 2020
MSRP: $32.95