 Questioned, Field refused to answer on grounds of potential self-incrimination.The following year, former Soviet spy Whittaker Chambers testified before the McCarran Committee that NKVD "handler" J. Peters told him, in 1937, that Field was a member of the Communist underground.Herbert Romerstein, former head of the office to Counter Soviet Disinformation at the United States Information Agency, and the late Eric Breindel placed Field in the GRU "apparat", alleging that he "was an agent of Soviet military intelligence."