Sylvia Caldwell was the secretary to the leader of the Socialist Workers Party at their headquarters in New York, and she was a Soviet spy. She had joined the Communist party in Chicago, married a man with last name Franklin who was also a Soviet spy, and was recruited by Indianapolis native Louis Budenz, himself a spy and a leader in the Communist party of the USA. Caldwell was the name she used in New York as she volunteered at the SWP, and soon became the key secretary. She had access to everything, member rosters, letters between the leaders, bank account figures, travel plans, relationships, and she turned it all over to her Soviet handlers. With that information, they were able to plan the assassination of Trotsky. Budenz left the communist party in 1945, became a key witness for prosecution of Soviet spies, and even went to the office of SWP leader James Cannon and told him Sylvia Caldwell was a spy, but it was called a slander. The U.S. government listed her as unindicted co-conspirator and had her sworn testimony as a Grand Jury witness in 1959, that she gave to avoid prison, that she was indeed a Russian GPU spy working undercover in America, but the government did not release it for more than 20 years until a SWP party member sued the government and the SWP.
