This was during the Spanish Civil War, and Bowler met Tom Wintringham, representative of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) in the city.
The CPGB was wary of Bowler as she was not a full US party member, and disapproved of her having been apprised by two of Wintrigham's friends, Sylvia Townsend Warner and Valentine Ackland, that she was unreliable and a distraction from Wintringham's organisational work in Spain.
Warner and Acland, who were in Spain at Wintringham's behest, were close friends of Wintingham's mistress Amelia Baruch, siding with her over his various other romantic interests, to Bowler's misfortune.
[3] Bowler returned to Spain and took on various journalistic assignments, sharing a hotel room in Valencia with Kate Mangan, who at that time was working in the Government Press Office.
However, the CPGB ordered Wintringham to stop associating with Bowler, and in July she was again expelled from Spain, on this occasion returning to the United States.
In the early 1960s, she took great pains to assemble, keep and order an archive of her own and Tom's writings, both public and private, and in the early 60s collaborated with Hugh Thomas on his history of the Spanish Civil war,[8] Hugh Ford on his study of the poetry of that war,[9] and Stewart Hall and Anthony Smith on their studies of mid-century political journalism, allowing access to these papers as a resource.