Those familiar with the Alger Hiss case may remember Noel Field as one of the people Whittaker Chambers identified as a Soviet spy. Like his friend Hiss, Field was an upper-crust young man: He grew up at a lakeside villa in Switzerland, returning to the U.S. only to attend Harvard. In 1918, when Field was 14, he met his father’s friend Allen Dulles at a lunch held at the villa. Decades later, Dulles must have been stunned to learn that the young man he had turned to and asked “What do you plan to do with your life?” had grown up to become an agent of Stalin.
In her riveting page-turner, which includes information from previously unavailable archival manuscripts, Kati Marton offers us Field’s entire story, following him as he evolved from an idealist and pacifist to a committed Communist, willing to sacrifice literally everything for Stalin and the Party. Field was not alone. His pro-Soviet activities took place in the era described in Arthur Koestler’s novel Darkness at Noon (1940) and in the period immediately after its publication. Koestler’s protagonist, a committed Soviet police operative, willingly goes to his execution — not because he is guilty of anything, but because he believes it is necessary to serve the Party’s current line. Field would illustrate the truth of Koestler’s fictional character. Koestler’s novel had a major impact on his generation’s view of Stalinist barbarism; Marton’s biography of Field will acquaint a new generation with how the search for utopia ultimately led Field to sacrifice his own well-being and that of the people he loved for the Party’s needs.
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