He testified before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee in 1955, detailing his espionage work for the Soviet Union in Europe and naming dozens of other party members.

[1][2][3] Burdett attended Harvard University graduating summa cum laude in three years,[4] leaving at age 19 in 1933.

[1] Burdett first joined the Communist Party in 1937 while working at the Eagle,[5] through a group there that was affiliated with the American Newspaper Guild (ANG).

Einhorn, a reporter and executive secretary of the New York ANG local, wanted Burdett to meet with Joseph North, the editor of New Masses, the Communist Party USAs journal.

[8] Burdett left the United States in February 1940, funded by CPUSA and using his press credentials to travel as a roving correspondent.

[2] Burdett was disillusioned by the party when he met the liaison for his work as a spy in Finland - a tough, crude and offensive KGB man.

[8] Three weeks later, Burdett was visiting Finnish troops in the field when Finland signed the Moscow peace treaty.

[2] Burdett detailed his involvement with the Communist Party and his work as a spy at a Senate Internal Security Subcommittee hearing in 1955.

[2] As a Murrow cohort he helped pioneer the field of broadcast journalism through radio reports that he and the other "Boys" filed.

[citation needed] While working out of Rome, Burdett, Joe Masraff, and a CBS cameraman from Cairo went into Yemen to cover a story.

[20] In the early 1950s he told the story of his wife's death, which he speculated was due to his refusal to spy for the Soviet Union any longer, to New York Municipal Judge Robert Morris.

[2][22] Of the first five journalists called from Burdett's testimony at a 1955 hearing before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, only one admitted affiliation with the Communist Party, Charles Grutzner of the New York Times.

[22] Another witness, Charles S. Lewis, who had moved on to become news director of WCAX radio and TV stations in Burlington, Vermont, was much more cooperative with the Senate panel.

[citation needed] This is a list of people named in Burdett's June 1955 testimony who subsequently testified in July before the subcommittee.