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Remer woman can tell tourists a real-life spy story (I think I have a new hero!)
Minneapolis Star-Tribune ^ | October 2, 2003 | Robert Franklin

Posted on 10/02/2003 12:25:59 PM PDT by jdege

Remer woman can tell tourists a real-life spy story

Robert Franklin, Star Tribune
Published October 2, 2003

REMER, MINN. -- Amid the national news about intelligence gathering and espionage, Ruth Masters has her own undercover stories to tell: about clandestine meetings in a Twin Cities basement, about the Communist who pressed a pistol to her stomach, about arranging meetings with a federal agent at her father's grave.

Today, the 76-year-old Masters quietly runs a gift shop on the main street of Remer, a northern Minnesota town of 370 people. But 50 years ago in Minneapolis, she was a Communist for the FBI, feeding notes to the feds, enduring the scorn of friends and trying to keep her child away from her former husband.

[...]

You won't see Masters' story in the bookstores alongside current offerings about World War I's Mata Hari, McCarthy-era Communist spy Elizabeth Bentley or the anonymous "terrorist hunter" who infiltrated U.S. radical Islamic groups.

But her life encompasses several classic stories: youngest of 10 children in a Swedish immigrant family whose father died when she was 7, married for a time to a famous Canadian wrestler, spartan living in the North Woods, becoming a small-town entrepreneur and community booster.

And, of course, working inside the Communist Party.

[...]

She was attracted by some professed communist ideals, such as fighting racism, but never saw that practiced, she said. And she didn't buy her husband's party line -- that the Berlin Wall went up to keep West Germans from overrunning the East and that "the dirty American capitalists" invaded North Korea.

They split after the Korean War broke out in 1950. He became an internationally acclaimed professional wrestler and then an artist. She returned to the United States, but feared he'd come and try to take their young son, Peter. She looked for law-enforcement help, she said, and "who's better to ask than the FBI?"

At the FBI's behest, she rejoined the Communist Party in the Twin Cities from 1952 to 1954 and, she said, there was talk in its meetings of bombing bridges, of taking over as "the United Soviet of America," of a nation where there would be no need for religion -- an idea that Masters said deeply offended her.

[...]

"You're on your own. You can't ask for help," Masters said she was told by an FBI official. And she wasn't paid, she said. She didn't want money -- plus any sign of affluence would have aroused suspicions, she said.

She drew suspicion anyway. One Communist pressed a pistol to her stomach and said he'd kill any stool pigeons. "Yeah, that's the same thing I'd do," she replied. And he fired off a warning shot.

She had to tell some lies, of course, and "it's difficult to lie and even worse to remember your lies and not get caught by it," she said.

But she drew strength from her "good Christian upbringing" -- and the pluck of having nine older siblings, she said. "I was so precocious. Once my father gave me a licking and nine kids stood by and cheered."

Masters told her extended family that she was working for the FBI, and they endured a lot of criticism after she was identified publicly as a Communist by another informant in 1954. She had trouble holding jobs and moved to Texas for a while, but "I was so proud of those people that accosted me."

Two years later, she came out publicly before the federal Security Activities Control Board in Washington, D.C., testifying about Twin Cities Communists. She also testified in the Twin Cities.

The board could force registration of "Communist front" groups, and was among Communist-hunting organizations that also included the House Un-American Activities Committee and the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee. Such forums "sometimes pushed too far but did a lot of good," Masters said recently.

Masters returned to work in Twin Cities flower shops and spoke to civic groups about her experiences.

[...]

She's seen a lot of changes over the years. Her husband and former husband died within the past couple of years. She gave up smoking a few years ago and gave up selling fresh flowers because the water buckets got too heavy for her to handle. Peter is building her a new house outside of town.

But she remains an unabashed conservative, a supporter of President Bush, wary of the United Nations and foreign entanglements, convinced the country is in moral decline. Government intelligence forces need to be strengthed, she said.

As for her own undercover intelligence?

"I wouldn't want to do it over again," she said, "but I would be willing to do it."

Robert Franklin is at rfranklin@startribune.com.

(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...


TOPICS: Activism/Chapters; Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Philosophy; US: Minnesota
KEYWORDS: communism; minnesota

1 posted on 10/02/2003 12:26:01 PM PDT by jdege
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To: jdege
Wow. This was printed in the Minneapolis Red Star??
2 posted on 10/02/2003 12:30:50 PM PDT by Eala (If used-car salesmen misrepresented cars the way the press does truth, they'd be jailed.)
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3 posted on 10/02/2003 12:32:15 PM PDT by Support Free Republic (Your support keeps Free Republic going strong!)
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To: jdege
"that the Berlin Wall went up to keep West Germans from overrunning the East "

Right. That's why so many were killed trying to get IN to East Germany.
4 posted on 10/02/2003 12:39:38 PM PDT by SendShaqtoIraq
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To: jdege
We used to visit my grandparents, cousins, etc. in Remer every summer.

I know the shop well.

5 posted on 10/02/2003 1:31:52 PM PDT by Drammach
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To: jdege
Oh my God! Another leak! Quick hire an independant inquisitor.
6 posted on 10/02/2003 1:49:43 PM PDT by sandydipper (Never quit - never surrender!)
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To: SendShaqtoIraq
Right. That's why so many were killed trying to get IN to East Germany.

I was in Washington a couple of weeks ago and took the opportunity to visit the International Espionage Museum. I believe it is at 7th Street and F. Anyway, in the history section they had a mock-up of an East German automobile, and dummies stuffed into the various places where people would hide to be smuggled across the border. It was horrifying - one of the hiding places was upside down, tucked between the front fender and the engine block! The lengths people would go to escape Communism were awe-inspiring.

7 posted on 10/02/2003 8:56:19 PM PDT by Zack Nguyen
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To: jdege
Good story - thanks.
8 posted on 10/03/2003 12:32:15 PM PDT by lodwick (I fear for our Republic.)
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To: jdege
the Berlin Wall went up to keep West Germans from overrunning the East

I wish I had a copy of that magazine cover photo (Life Magazine?) of the
East German soldier successfully leaping over some barbed-wire to make it
to freedom in West Berlin.
Talk about the term "I seen my chances and took 'em" put in a photograph!

IIRC, the term the East German Communists used for The Wall was "The Bulwark" (sp?).
9 posted on 10/03/2003 2:06:14 PM PDT by VOA
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bttt
10 posted on 10/03/2003 7:34:04 PM PDT by firewalk
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