accuse William Remington of being a communist without congressional protection, and she finally did so. When Remington was called before a Truman loyalty-review board, Joseph L. Rauh Jr. defended him. Remington's attorney, Richard Green, asked Bentley to withdraw the allegation by September 30. When she did not, Green filed a libel suit for $100,000 in damages on October 6, 1948 against Bentley, NBC and Meet the Press sponsor General Foods. Bentley failed to appear in court in October, and Green said on December 29 that he had personally served her with a summons. Trials and credibility Although most of those accused by Bentley invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to testify, a few denied her allegations. The most notable was Harry Dexter White, who had heart disease and died of a heart attack days after his HUAC testimony. Others who denied Bentley's charges were Lauchlin Currie, formerly President Roosevelt's economic affairs advisor; Remington and William Henry Taylor, mid-level government economists; Duncan Lee, formerly of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS); and Abe Brothman, a private-sector chemist who worked on defense projects. In October 1948, Remington sued Bentley and NBC for libel. Hoping to discredit her, Remington's attorneys hired private detectives to investigate her past. They produced evidence of alcoholism, periods of severe depression, and a suicide attempt as a student in Florence; alleged that her master's thesis had been written by someone else, and she had been sexually promiscuous (by the standards of the day) since college. Bentley did not testify at a Remington loyalty-board hearing, and NBC settled the libel suit out of court for $10,000. She testified in the trials of four accused spies: Remington's perjury trial, Abe Brothman's obstruction of justice trial, and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg's trials for conspiracy to commit espionage. Bentley, was peripherally involved in the Rosenberg case, used by the prosecution to develop two points: the actions of American communists in becoming spies for the Soviet Union, and establishing (if only vaguely) a connection between Julius Rosenberg and Golos. She testified that she received calls from a man who identified himself as Julius, after which Golos would meet him. After her contact with American authorities, Bentley's personal life became increasingly tumultuous. She continued to drink heavily, avoided several subpoenas, was involved in car accidents, and had a relationship with a man who severely beat her. These incidents and her generally-erratic behavior resulted in