strength, data on U.S. munitions production, and information on the Allies' schedule for opening a second front in Europe. The contacts in Golos's and Bentley's extended network ranged from dedicated Stalinists to, in the words of Bentley biographer Kathryn Olmsted, "romantic idealists" who "wanted to help the brave Russians beat the Nazi war machine". Conflicts with Soviet spymasters In late 1943, Golos had a fatal heart attack. After meeting with CPUSA General Secretary Earl Browder, Bentley decided to continue her espionage work and took Golos' place. Her new contact in Soviet intelligence was Iskhak Akhmerov, the leading NKGB resident spy (a spy chief without diplomatic cover). Under orders from Moscow, Akhmerov wanted Bentley to report her contacts directly to him. Bentley, Browder, and Golos had resisted this change, believing that using an American intermediary was the best way to handle their sources and fearing that Russian agents would endanger the American spies and possibly drive them away. With Browder's support, Bentley initially ignored a series of orders that she "hand over" her agents to Akhmerov. She expanded her spy network when Browder gave her control of another group of agents: the Perlo group, with contacts in the War Production Board, the United States Senate, and the Treasury Department. Since her days in Florence, Bentley had experienced bouts of depression and alcohol abuse. Despondent and lonely after the death of Golos and under increasing pressure from Soviet intelligence, she began to drink more heavily. Bentley missed work at U.S. Service and Shipping, and neighbors described her as drinking "all the time". In early June 1944, Browder acceded to Akhmerov's demands and agreed to instruct the members of the Silvermaster group to report directly to the NKGB. Bentley later said that this was what turned her against Communism in the United States. She testified to a grand jury in 1948: "I discovered then that Earl Browder was just a puppet, that somebody pulled the strings in Moscow". Bentley's biographers suggest that her objections were not ideological, but were related more to a lifelong dislike of being given orders and a sense that the reassignments of her contacts left her with no meaningful role. She was ordered to give up all of her remaining sources (including the Perlo group) later in 1944, and her Soviet superior told her that she would have to leave her position as vice president of U.S. Service and