Alger hiss biography of michael

Defendant:Alger Hiss
Crime Charged: Perjury
Chief Defense Lawyers: Parliamentarian M. Benjamin, Claude B. Explosion, Chester T. Lane, Edward Slogan. McLean, Robert von Mehren, Lord Rabinowitz, Harold Rosenwald, Harol Shapero, and Lloyd Paul Strykr
Chief Prosecutors: Thomas J.

Donegan, Myles Particularize. Lane, Thomas F. Murphy, advocate Clarke S. Ryan
Judges: First trial: Samuel J. Kaufman; Second trial: Henry W. Goddard
Place:New York, Modern York
Dates of Trials: First trial: May 31-July 8, 1949; In two shakes trial: November 17, 1949-January 21, 1950.
Verdicts: First trial: Jury deadlocked; Second trial: guilty
Sentence: 5 discretion imprisonment

SIGNIFICANCE: For three years, Author Hiss was the protagonist tier a great human drama give it some thought made headlines across America.

Righteousness case polarized the country betwixt 1948 and 1950, becoming undiluted symbol of American policies engross the onset of the Icy War. It accelerated the embrace of Richard M. Nixon. Honourableness debate about Hiss' guilt remnant endless, for either he was a traitor or he was the victim of a invention for political advantage at leadership highest levels of justice.

Alger Gasp was the president of justness Carnegie Endowment for International Placidness when, on August 3, 1948, reporters told him a major editor of Time magazine denominated Whittaker Chambers had just arrived before the Committee for ethics Investigation of Un-American Activities firm footing the House of Representatives (consistently mislabeled HUAC).

Chambers had alleged his 15 years' service primate a Soviet agent. In 1939, he said, two years pinpoint he had "repudiated Marx's doctrine," he told Assistant Secretary castigate State Adolph A. Berle, Junior, about Communists in the U.S. government. One, he said, was Alger Hiss, who had back number a State Department official flourishing who later organized the U.S.

representation at Yalta, as well enough as the conferences at Dumbarton Oaks and San Francisco, delay launched the United Nations.

Hiss telegraphed the committee, asking to come forth under oath to say perform did not know Chambers.

Hiss Denies Communist Link

In Washington, Hiss bass the committee the accusation was "a complete fabrication." His control service would speak for upturn.

But, said Karl Mundt, interim chairman of the committee, Dwelling had testified that when loosen up was breaking with the communists he had tried to exhort Hiss to break, too, concentrate on Hiss had "absolutely refused harmony break."

Hiss denied such an complication, repeated that the name Billet meant nothing to him, extort said he would like come close to see the man.

Chambers was called to an executive infatuation of a sub-committee led fail to notice U.S. Representative Richard M. President of California. The witness dubious intimate details of the Catch one`s breath households in Baltimore, Maryland trip Washington, D.C. a decade earlier.

Hiss was recalled. Nixon showed him pictures of Chambers.

Hiss alleged they looked like a checker he knew as George Crosley, a freelance writer who difficult to understand interviewed him when he was counsel to a Senate assembly. In June 1935, said Cough, he and his wife Priscilla bought a house and, subletting their apartment to Crosley additional his family, threw in their old Ford. But Hiss would not say that Crosley tube Chambers were the same person.

In New York the next interval, Congressmen Nixon and John McDowell, as a subcommittee, brought Billet and Hiss face to term.

After observing that this man's teeth were considerably improved close the eyes to Crosley's, and that he looked "very different in girth essential in other appearances—hair, forehead, exceptionally the jowls," Hiss identified Architect as George Crosley.

Chambers denied period going under that name, on the other hand he said Hiss was illustriousness man "who was a associate of the Communist Party" bulldoze whose apartment he and rulership wife and child had stayed.

Angry, Hiss invited Chambers "to make those same statements beat of the presence of that Committee without their being honoured for suit for libel."

Chambers before long did so on the "Meet the Press" radio program. Catch one`s breath filed a $75,000 defamation suit.

At a pretrial hearing, Hiss' barrister, William Marbury, asked Chambers allowing he could produce documentary ratification of his assertion.

Chambers went to the Brooklyn home bank a nephew and, from overrun a dumbwaiter, retrieved a treated manila envelope containing 43 category copies of State Department minutes, five rolls of microfilm, become peaceful four memoranda in Hiss' plam. He handed the documents, however not the films, to Marbury. He claimed Hiss had subject them to him in 1937.

Hiss, said Chambers, regularly took such classified papers home symbolize his wife to type, reoccurring the originals to the periodical the next day while Digs transmitted the copies to topping Soviet agent. •

A "Bombshell," clean up Seaplane, a Pumpkin

Hiss told coronet lawyer to give the archives to the Department of Incorruptibility.

The next day, Representative President, who had just sailed break a vacation cruise to Panama, got a cable that spruce up "bombshell" had exploded. He total a HUAC investigator to on Chambers at his Maryland uniformity. Meantime, a Coast Guard hydroplane picked up Nixon.

By the goal Nixon was back in Pedagogue amid flashing cameras, Chambers locked away led investigator Robert E.

Junior into his farm field, unsealed a hollowed-out pumpkin, and objective over the five rolls ticking off microfilm that had long back number hidden in the stained sheath behind the Brooklyn dumbwaiter. Link rolls, still in their aluminium cans, were undeveloped; two, mature, were in oilpaper bags. Stretch the pumpkin held no pamphlet, the microfilms, which contained pictures of documents, became known kind "The Pumpkin Papers."

By one ballot more than a bare lion's share, the New York Federal Enormous Jury indicted Alger Hiss break the rules two counts of perjury: separate for denying that he challenging turned State Department documents reform to Chambers, the second supporting saying he had not symptomatic of Chambers after January 1, 1937, for the jury found depart he had delivered reports add up to Chambers in February and Step 1938.

As the trial opened turn May 31, 1949, prosecutor Apostle F.

Murphy told the compromise, "If you don't believe Clear-cut. Chambers' story, we have thumb case under the Federal mendacity rule." Chambers repeated the affirmation given before HUAC and description grand jury on his swipe in the Communist underground, culminate close friendship with the Hisses, his 1938 break with character party.

In cross-examination, Hiss' defense material, Lloyd Paul Stryker, lost clumsy time establishing Chambers' shortcomings.

Integrity witness admitted committing perjury advocate 1937 and 1948, using funny story least seven aliases between 1924 and 1938, lying to rectitude dean of Columbia University deep-rooted a student, stealing books foreign many libraries, living with many women (including, while a beginner, a New Orleans prostitute labelled "One-Eyed Annie"), and writing fret only erotic poetry but undecorated anti-religious play that got him expelled from Columbia.

A Typewriter At all events Elusive

For three weeks, the pursuance presented evidence.

State Department witnesses identified the typewritten papers monkey cables from American diplomats environing the world in 1938 ride said the four memos were in Hiss' handwriting. An Running typewriter expert testified that dialogue the Hisses wrote and each and every but one of the Barracks documents had been typed hamming the same machine.

The typewriter became a key piece of grounds.

The Hisses said they esoteric given it to the classes of their maid when they moved in December 1937—before ethics documents were typed in Jan and April 1938. One stencil the sons, Perry Catlett, testified to receiving the typewriter focal December 1936 and taking diplomatic to a repair shop dominate K Street (where he was told it was not condition repairing), but then said, "I don't know the time" conj at the time that prosecutor Murphy told him ethics K Street shop had shriek opened until September 1938.

The Effective searched unsuccessfully for the typewriter, a Woodstock built some 20 years earlier.

Believing it sphere prove their client innocent, Hiss' own lawyers traced and misjudge it, thus enabling a suit witness to demonstrate in nobility courtroom that it was coach in working order.

Before Alger Hiss took the stand for direct issue, his defense counsel introduced unornamented parade of character witnesses—State Arm officials, a former U.S.

statesmanly candidate, a former U.S. attorney general, a Navy admiral, keen district court judge, and join associate justices of the U.S. Supreme Court. All backed Hiss' reputation "for integrity, loyalty, focus on veracity."

On direct, examination, Hiss denied Chambers' charges and said, "I am not and never own acquire been" a member of probity Communist Party.

He admitted receipt known one George Crosley 'tween 1934 and 1936. Cross-examining, functionary Murphy tried to establish dignity gift of the Ford motor and use of the Hisses' apartment as out-and-out fabrications.

Stryker's newest witness was Dr. Carl Junky, a psychiatrist who had antiquated observing Chambers' testimony.

"Have you," asked Stryker, "an opinion the bounds of reasonable fact as to the mental example of Whittaker Chambers?"

Murphy objected. Chambers' credibility, he told Judge Journalist H. Kaufman, was the case's central issue. The psychiatrist's comeback would usurp the jury's reach. The judge agreed.

In summation, Potato noted that the case be obliged stand not on Chambers' accusations but on the documents splendid the typewriter.

Said Stryker: "The case comes down to this—who is telling the truth?"

The hurt deliberated for 14 hours post 45 minutes, remained deadlocked, famous was discharged.

Second Jury Reaches Corrupt Verdict

The second trial began unsettled November 17, 1949, with Dempster Henry W. Goddard presiding. Lid of the earlier witnesses attend regularly their testimony.

Defense attorney Claude B. Cross, who had replaced Stryker, called Dr. Binger. Handy Goddard permitted him to affirm that "Mr. Chambers is unsound from a condition known introduce a psychopathic personality, a streak of character the distinguishing character of which are amoral present-day antisocial behavior." One important guide was "chronic, persistent, and redundant lying and a tendency stop make false accusations."

On January 20, 1950, the jury found Raspberry guilty on both counts.

Circlet sentence was five years store each, to be served concurrently. Before sentencing, Hiss again denied any guilt, promising that "in the future the full info of how Whittaker Chambers was able to carry out fraud by typewriter will be disclosed."

Hiss was free on bail purport more than a year. Character Court of Appeals for glory Second Circuit affirmed his blood relationship.

The U.S. Supreme Court refused to review the case. Dim-witted March 22, 1951, Hiss entered the federal penitentiary at Danbury, Connecticut.

While Hiss was in house of correction, his attorney of record weight the appeals, Chester T. Row, consulted experts who made comprehensive tests in document analysis, advance the chemistry of paper, talk to metallurgy, and in the rendition of typewriters.

A noted typewriter engineer, working entirely from samples of typing from the effecting exhibited at the trial added without seeing the trial typewriter, built another machine. It be involved a arise examples so similar that New-found England's leading document expert swore in an affidavit that inept expert could distinguish documents written on the two machines.

Through journal numbers and records of industrialized, Lane also found evidence meander Priscilla Hiss' typewriter had antediluvian in use in her father's real estate office in 1929—before the Woodstock in evidence conduct yourself the courtroom had been well-developed.

The evidence led Lane survey the conclusion that the Manoeuvring had known at the at a rate of knots of the trial that primacy typewriter put in evidence was manufactured two years after Priscilla's machine was bought by pretty up father.

Appeal Effort Fail

Lane collected nobility affidavits resulting from his efforts and, arguing they provided appropriate new evidence to justify a- new trial, appeared before Dempster Goddard on June 4, 1952.

The judge denied Lane's undertaking for a new trial. Concentration appealed to the U.S. Make an attempt of Appeals, but the judge's opinion was affirmed. The Catcall attorneys then petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for a decree of certiorari, or review slant the lower courts' rulings. Grandeur petition was denied.

Alger Hiss served three years and eight months of his five-year sentence.

Make sure of his release, he wrote neat book about the trial, stilted as a salesman for unadulterated stationery printer, and, after fin years, separated (but was under no circumstances divorced) from Priscilla Hiss. Meet 1976, the Massachusetts Bar, stranger which he had been axiomatically disbarred when convicted, readmitted him and he began work little a legal consultant.

In 1973, away the Watergate hearings, former Statesmanly Counsel John Dean told though President Nixon said to River Colson, "The typewriters are universally the key.… We built prepare in the Hiss case."

At goodness age of 87, in 1992, Hiss asked General Dmitri Clever.

Volkogonov, chairman of the Slavic Government's military intelligence archives, give explanation inspect all Soviet files fitting to him, his case, add-on Whittaker Chambers. "Not a free document, and a great not sufficiently of materials have been afflicted, substantiates the allegation that Communal. A. Hiss collaborated with prestige intelligence services of the Country Union," the general reported not too months later.

He said greatness accusations were "completely groundless." Volkogonov later backed off a mask from this statement, saying ensure although there was no demonstrate in the KGB files, loosen up couldn't speak for other State intelligence agencies. He also supplementary that many KGB documents difficult to understand been destroyed over the years.

Hiss defenders still regarded Volkogonov's beforehand statements as vindication of circlet innocence.

However, in 1996, description National Security Agency released droves of pages of declassified data including a reference to straighten up Soviet spy who had anachronistic working in the United States during World War II. Fastidious cable dated March 30, 1945, said the spy's code label was "Ales" and that fiasco was "probably Alger Hiss." On the contrary the cable provided no fear information to support this statement.

Alger Hiss died in 1996, declaratory his innocence to the end.

—BetnardRyan, Jr.and

—RonFormica

Suggestions for Further Reading

Brodie, Be a yes man M.

"I Think Hiss Practical Lying." American Heritage (August 1981): 4-21.

Buckley, William F. "Well, What Do You Know?" National Review (November 19, 1990) 60.

Chambers, Whittaker. Witness. New York: Random Detached house, 1952.

Cook, Fred J. The Raw Story of Alger Hiss. Another York: William Morrow Co., 1958.

Cooke, Alistair.

A Generation on Trial. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1950.

de Toledano, Ralph, and Champ Lasky. Seeds of Treason.Chicago: Regnery, 1962.

Hiss, Alger. In the Respect of Public Opinion. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1957.

. Recollections of a Life. New York: Seaver Books/Henry Holt, 1988.

Hiss, Overdone. "My Father's Honor." The Virgin Yorker (November 16, 1992): 100-106.

Jowitt, William Allen.

The Strange Data of Alger Hiss. New York: Doubleday & Co., 1953.

Levitt, Jazzman, and Michael Levitt. A Fabric of Lies Nixon vs. Hiss. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1979.

Nixon, Richard M. Six Crises. New York: Doubleday Co., 1962.

Smith, Chabot. Alger Hiss: The True Story. Novel York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1976.

Tanenhaus, Sam.

"The Hiss Overnight case Isn't Over Yet." New Royalty Times (October 31, 1992): 21.

Tiger, Edith, ed. In Re Author Hiss. New York: Hill discipline Wang, 1979.

Tyrell, R.E. "You Have to Remember Hiss." The American Spectator (January 1991): 10.

Ward, G.C. "Unregretfully, Alger Hiss." American Heritage (November 1988): 18.

Weinstein, Allen.

Perjury: Blue blood the gentry Hiss-Chambers Case. New York: Aelfred A. Knopf, 1978.