Mary Jane Keeney (1898–1969) and her husband Philip Olin Keeney were librarians and charter members of the liberal The Progressive Librarians Council. She worked at the

Board of Economic Warfare The Office of Administrator of Export Control (also referred to as the Export Control Administration) was established in the United States by Presidential Proclamation 2413, July 2, 1940, to administer export licensing provisions of the act of July ...

in Washington D.C. during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. In November 1945, Keeney travelled to Europe to work with the Allied Staff on Reparations. She was alleged to be passing information to the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

through

Joseph Milton Bernstein Joseph Milton Bernstein (September 30, 1908 – July 1975) was an American accused of spying for the Soviet Union and later confirmed as a Soviet agent by the US intelligence program Venona. Background Joseph Milton Bernstein was born on Septe ...

. After the war Keeney worked at the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...

. Deciphered

Venona The Venona project was a United States counterintelligence program initiated during World War II by the United States Army's Signal Intelligence Service (later absorbed by the National Security Agency), which ran from February 1, 1943, until Octob ...

cables and her own diaries corroborate the fact that Keeney and her husband,

Philip Keeney Philip Olin Keeney (1891–1962), and his wife, Mary Jane Keeney, were librarians who became part of the Silvermaster spy ring in the 1940s.Rosalee McReynolds, Louise S. Robbins: ''The Librarian Spies: Philip and Mary Jane Keeney and Cold War Espi ...

, both worked for the

GRU The Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, rus, Гла́вное управле́ние Генера́льного шта́ба Вооружённых сил Росси́йской Федера́ци ...

. Keeney's diary details that Sergey Kurnakov became their new

KGB The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...

handler. In February 1950, Senator

Joseph McCarthy Joseph Raymond McCarthy (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visi ...

accused Keeney of being a member of the Communist Party, not an agent serving a foreign government. By the end of 1950, Keeney lost her position with the United Nations. She was convicted of

contempt of Congress Contempt of Congress is the act of obstructing the work of the United States Congress or one of its committees. Historically, the bribery of a U.S. senator or U.S. representative was considered contempt of Congress. In modern times, contempt of Co ...

. However, the decision was overturned upon appeal. The Keeneys then opened a theatre in

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...

called Club Cinema to air mostly foreign-language titles, with occasional live performances. Mary Jane died in 1969 at the age of seventy-one. She was preceded by her husband.

Sources

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Keeney, Mary Jane 1898 births 1969 deaths American spies for the Soviet Union American people in the Venona papers Espionage in the United States American librarianship and human rights