The Liberation of Marguerite Harrison
America's First Female Foreign Intelligence Agent
Marguerite found it difficult to adjust to life back in Baltimore. Baltimore Sun Editor Frank Kent offered her her old job back at the newspaper, and she accepted, hoping to rediscover the pleasure she once had covering Baltimore’s music and theater scene. But as the weeks passed, Marguerite felt increasingly alienated from those people and …
Continue reading "Marguerite finds it difficult to go home again"
Appearing before newspaper reporters in Riga and Berlin, Marguerite presented an image of a woman who had been inadvertently caught up in an international scandal. She made no mention of being an intelligence agent, but told reporters she had been arrested for entering the Russia illegally, for supplying British and American prisoners with unauthorized aid, …
Continue reading "MID officials raise doubts about Marguerite"
Marguerite stepped off the train in Riga still dressed in the clothes she had worn in prison—the crumpled khaki suit she had on the night she was arrested, a man’s shirt that a Jewish aid worker had given her, a cap she had fashioned from a shirt, and men’s shoes that were many sizes too …
Continue reading "Crowds — and old friends–greet Marguerite"
In early June Marguerite’s case went to the highest authority in Soviet Russia—Vladimir Lenin. Maryland Sen. Joseph France wrote to Lenin asking permission to enter Russia to discuss the release of the American prisoners in exchange for food aid. France, who was facing reelection in the fall, was especially eager to free one of his …
Continue reading "Maryland senator arrives to rescue Marguerite"
Novinsky women’s prison, which had been built on the site of a former monastery seemed to Marguerite like a “terrestrial paradise.” The courtyard included grass plots with flowering shrubs and benches where women sat talking or sewing. Children of the inmates played in the dirt. In the middle of the courtyard was a small white …
Continue reading "Harrison encounters better conditions, but grows more ill"
Marguerite Harrison spent eight months in Lubyanka Prison while editors at the Baltimore Sun and Maryland Gov. Albert Ritchie worked frantically behind the scenes to exert pressure on the Russians to free her. Sun Managing Editor Frank Kent appealed to the Associated Press for help, and the wire agency asked the powerful London press baron …
Continue reading "Marguerite’s health fails; she’s transferred"
The Liberation of Marguerite Harrison 