North Beach, Neo-Con Bad Boy, Steven Schwartz, is at it again! Cover story in the June 11th, Weekly Standard www.weeklystandard.com/magazine/mag_6_37_01/schwartz_feat_6_37_01.asp , alleges that Benjamin was killed, not suicided, by agents of the OGPU. Along with other figures like Marx biographer, Otto Ruhle. Schwartz, back in the 80's alleged there was a Stalinist agent among the Freudian Psychonalytical Society, in the NY Times Book Review (Title, if memory serves, had the "word' "killerati" in the title. Theodore Draper, in the NYRB, demolished his sourcing and argumentation, in that expose.) This article, with the usual caveats one can easily make about some of his characterizations (like Adorno having any sympathies with Stalinism, ambivalent or not..., and the typing of the Neu Beginning group with a young Willy Brandt, having a Leninist, rather than far left version of socdem. set of positions), looks much better on that front. Even with the cite of Herbert Romerstein. (How Ken Lawrence would eviscerate me now...) One book that I've read a bit of that backs up Schwartz on this tangled tale, which even includes mention of Wilhelm Reich and the work of Jim Martin from Flatlands magazine), esp. on Otto Katz and legendary figure Willi Munzenberg, is, "Double Lives, " by Stephen Koch. http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~ideas/archives/disthread/koch.double.lives.html http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/12/nov93/koch.htm http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/12/feb94/letters.htm Michael Pugliese