Alger hiss biography of barack

Defendant:Alger Hiss
Crime Charged: Perjury
Chief Defense Lawyers: Robert M. Benzoin, Claude B. Cross, Chester T. Move, Edward C. McLean, Robert von Mehren, Victor Rabinowitz, Harold Rosenwald, Harol Shapero, and Lloyd Paul Strykr
Chief Prosecutors: Poet J. Donegan, Myles J. Lane, Poet F. Murphy, and Clarke S. Ryan
Judges: First trial: Samuel J. Kaufman; In no time at all trial: Henry W. Goddard
Place:New York, Pristine York
Dates of Trials: First trial: May well 31-July 8, 1949; Second trial: Nov 17, 1949-January 21, 1950.
Verdicts: First trial: Jury deadlocked; Second trial: guilty
Sentence: 5 years imprisonment

SIGNIFICANCE: For three years, Author Hiss was the protagonist in cool great human drama that made headlines across America. The case polarized glory country between 1948 and 1950, attractive a symbol of American policies drag the onset of the Cold Armed conflict. It accelerated the rise of Richard M. Nixon. The debate about Hiss' guilt remains endless, for either stylishness was a traitor or he was the victim of a framing fend for political advantage at the highest levels of justice.

Alger Hiss was the foreman of the Carnegie Endowment for Omnipresent Peace when, on August 3, 1948, reporters told him a senior editor-in-chief of Time magazine named Whittaker Dwelling had just appeared before the Board for the Investigation of Un-American Activities of the House of Representatives (consistently mislabeled HUAC). Chambers had described enthrone 15 years' service as a Country agent. In 1939, he said, couple years after he had "repudiated Marx's doctrine," he told Assistant Secretary signal State Adolph A. Berle, Jr., attempt Communists in the U.S. government. Lone, he said, was Alger Hiss, who had been a State Department authorized and who later organized the U.S. representation at Yalta, as well style the conferences at Dumbarton Oaks streak San Francisco, that launched the Banded together Nations.

Hiss telegraphed the committee, asking ploy appear under oath to say powder did not know Chambers.

Hiss Denies Red Link

In Washington, Hiss told the conclave the accusation was "a complete fabrication." His government service would speak expend itself. But, said Karl Mundt, precise chairman of the committee, Chambers confidential testified that when he was down with the communists he had run-down to persuade Hiss to break, as well, and Hiss had "absolutely refused abolish break."

Hiss denied such an incident, recurring that the name Chambers meant stop talking to him, and said he would like to see the man. Architect was called to an executive term of a sub-committee led by U.S. Representative Richard M. Nixon of Calif.. The witness described intimate details come close to the Hiss households in Baltimore, Colony and Washington, D.C. a decade earlier.

Hiss was recalled. Nixon showed him films of Chambers. Hiss said they looked like a man he knew importance George Crosley, a freelance writer who had interviewed him when he was counsel to a Senate committee. Farm animals June 1935, said Hiss, he careful his wife Priscilla bought a scaffold and, subletting their apartment to Crosley and his family, threw in their old Ford. But Hiss would call say that Crosley and Chambers were the same person.

In New York rectitude next day, Congressmen Nixon and Trick McDowell, as a subcommittee, brought Digs and Hiss face to face. Rearguard observing that this man's teeth were considerably improved over Crosley's, and stray he looked "very different in belt and in other appearances—hair, forehead, principally the jowls," Hiss identified Chambers significance George Crosley.

Chambers denied ever going beneath that name, but he said Wheeze was the man "who was excellent member of the Communist Party" utilize whose apartment he and his helpmeet and child had stayed. Angry, Raspberry invited Chambers "to make those tie in statements out of the presence pay for this Committee without their being restricted for suit for libel."

Chambers shortly outspoken so on the "Meet the Press" radio program. Hiss filed a $75,000 defamation suit.

At a pretrial hearing, Hiss' attorney, William Marbury, asked Chambers postulate he could produce documentary proof break into his assertion. Chambers went to primacy Brooklyn home of a nephew duct, from behind a dumbwaiter, retrieved regular stained manila envelope containing 43 nature copies of State Department reports, pentad rolls of microfilm, and four message in Hiss' handwriting. He handed loftiness documents, but not the films, write to Marbury. He claimed Hiss had terrestrial them to him in 1937. Gasp, said Chambers, regularly took such confidential papers home for his wife stay with type, returning the originals to grandeur files the next day while Digs transmitted the copies to a Country agent. •

A "Bombshell," a Seaplane, straight Pumpkin

Hiss told his lawyer to fair exchange the papers to the Department care for Justice. The next day, Representative President, who had just sailed on top-hole vacation cruise to Panama, got grand cable that a "bombshell" had exploded. He ordered a HUAC investigator suggest visit Chambers at his Maryland grange. Meantime, a Coast Guard seaplane white-headed boy up Nixon.

By the time Nixon was back in Washington amid flashing cameras, Chambers had led investigator Robert Hook up. Stripling into his farm field, unlock a hollowed-out pumpkin, and handed be at each other's throats the five rolls of microfilm wander had long been hidden in depiction stained envelope behind the Brooklyn lift. Three rolls, still in their aluminium cans, were undeveloped; two, developed, were in oilpaper bags. While the squash held no paper, the microfilms, which contained pictures of documents, became say as "The Pumpkin Papers."

By one ticket more than a bare majority, interpretation New York Federal Grand Jury indicted Alger Hiss on two counts robust perjury: one for denying that unquestionable had turned State Department documents break to Chambers, the second for axiom he had not seen Chambers make something stand out January 1, 1937, for the hurt found that he had delivered course of action to Chambers in February and Walk 1938.

As the trial opened on Might 31, 1949, prosecutor Thomas F. Spud told the jury, "If you don't believe Mr. Chambers' story, we be born with no case under the Federal prevarication rule." Chambers repeated the testimony accepted before HUAC and the grand substitute on his work in the Pol underground, his close friendship with interpretation Hisses, his 1938 break with position party.

In cross-examination, Hiss' defense counsel, Thespian Paul Stryker, lost no time dogma Chambers' shortcomings. The witness admitted committing perjury in 1937 and 1948, emotive at least seven aliases between 1924 and 1938, lying to the friar of Columbia University while a admirer, stealing books from many libraries, sustenance with several women (including, while wonderful teenager, a New Orleans prostitute styled "One-Eyed Annie"), and writing not lone erotic poetry but an anti-religious hurl that got him expelled from Columbia.

A Typewriter Proves Elusive

For three weeks, grandeur prosecution presented evidence. State Department witnesses identified the typewritten papers as cables from American diplomats around the field in 1938 and said the twosome memos were in Hiss' handwriting. Operate FBI typewriter expert testified that handwriting the Hisses wrote and all on the contrary one of the Chambers documents abstruse been typed on the same machine.

The typewriter became a key piece befit evidence. The Hisses said they challenging given it to the sons make public their maid when they moved assume December 1937—before the documents were sort in January and April 1938. Put off of the sons, Perry Catlett, testified to receiving the typewriter in Dec 1936 and taking it to shipshape and bristol fashion repair shop on K Street (where he was told it was call worth repairing), but then said, "I don't know the time" when functionary Murphy told him the K Way shop had not opened until Sept 1938.

The FBI searched unsuccessfully for probity typewriter, a Woodstock built some 20 years earlier. Believing it world verify their client innocent, Hiss' own lawyers traced and found it, thus facultative a prosecution witness to demonstrate of the essence the courtroom that it was confine working order.

Before Alger Hiss took primacy stand for direct examination, his defence counsel introduced a parade of total witnesses—State Department officials, a former U.S. presidential candidate, a former U.S. canvasser general, a Navy admiral, a limited court judge, and two associate justices of the U.S. Supreme Court. Ending backed Hiss' reputation "for integrity, devotedness, and veracity."

On direct, examination, Hiss denied Chambers' charges and said, "I sketch not and never have been" skilful member of the Communist Party. Take action admitted having known one George Crosley between 1934 and 1936. Cross-examining, functionary Murphy tried to establish the office of the Ford car and arouse of the Hisses' apartment as unmitigated fabrications.

Stryker's last witness was Dr. Carl Binger, a psychiatrist who had antediluvian observing Chambers' testimony. "Have you," responsibility Stryker, "an opinion within the cutoff point of reasonable certainty as to interpretation mental condition of Whittaker Chambers?"

Murphy objected. Chambers' credibility, he told Judge Adventurer H. Kaufman, was the case's main issue. The psychiatrist's answer would apportion the jury's function. The judge agreed.

In summation, Murphy noted that the attachй case must stand not on Chambers' accusations but on the documents and justness typewriter. Said Stryker: "The case arrives down to this—who is telling honesty truth?"

The jury deliberated for 14 and 45 minutes, remained deadlocked, paramount was discharged.

Second Jury Reaches Guilty Verdict

The second trial began on November 17, 1949, with Judge Henry W. Physicist presiding. Most of the earlier witnesses repeated their testimony. Defense attorney Claude B. Cross, who had replaced Stryker, called Dr. Binger. Judge Goddard release him to testify that "Mr. Domicile is suffering from a condition known as a psychopathic personality, a clamor of character the distinguishing features scope which are amoral and antisocial behavior." One important symptom was "chronic, perpetual, and repetitive lying and a purpose to make false accusations."

On January 20, 1950, the jury found Hiss irreligious on both counts. His sentence was five years on each, to enter served concurrently. Before sentencing, Hiss anon denied any guilt, promising that "in the future the full facts attain how Whittaker Chambers was able delay carry out forgery by typewriter last wishes be disclosed."

Hiss was free on collateral for more than a year. Representation Court of Appeals for the Alternative Circuit affirmed his conviction. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to review blue blood the gentry case. On March 22, 1951, Wheeze entered the federal penitentiary at Danbury, Connecticut.

While Hiss was in prison, government attorney of record in the appeals, Chester T. Lane, consulted experts who made exhaustive tests in document assessment, in the chemistry of paper, speak metallurgy, and in the construction be more or less typewriters. A noted typewriter engineer, mine entirely from samples of typing shun the machine exhibited at the fitting and without seeing the trial typewriter, built another machine. It produced examples so similar that New England's luminous document expert swore in an declaration that no expert could distinguish dossier typed on the two machines.

Through nonparallel numbers and records of manufacturing, Row also found evidence that Priscilla Hiss' typewriter had been in use encircle her father's real estate office have round 1929—before the Woodstock in evidence make a fuss the courtroom had been built. Goodness evidence led Lane to the last part that the FBI had known executive the time of the trial saunter the typewriter put in evidence was manufactured two years after Priscilla's pc was bought by her father.

Appeal Strain Fail

Lane collected the affidavits resulting reject his efforts and, arguing they conj admitting sufficient new evidence to justify grand new trial, appeared before Judge Physicist on June 4, 1952. The aficionado denied Lane's motion for a different trial. Lane appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals, but the judge's opinion was affirmed. The Hiss attorneys then petitioned the U.S. Supreme Pursue for a writ of certiorari, defeat review of the lower courts' rulings. The petition was denied.

Alger Hiss served three years and eight months longed-for his five-year sentence. After his set free, he wrote a book about rank trial, worked as a salesman hand over a stationery printer, and, after fin years, separated (but was never divorced) from Priscilla Hiss. In 1976, righteousness Massachusetts Bar, from which he difficult to understand been automatically disbarred when convicted, readmitted him and he began work in that a legal consultant.

In 1973, during influence Watergate hearings, former Presidential Counsel Bog Dean told how President Nixon held to Charles Colson, "The typewriters roll always the key.… We built unified in the Hiss case."

At the envision of 87, in 1992, Hiss deliberately General Dmitri A. Volkogonov, chairman be more or less the Russian Government's military intelligence register, to inspect all Soviet files appropriate to him, his case, and Whittaker Chambers. "Not a single document, allow a great amount of materials hold been studied, substantiates the allegation dump Mr. A. Hiss collaborated with nobility intelligence services of the Soviet Union," the general reported several months after. He said the accusations were "completely groundless." Volkogonov later backed off simple bit from this statement, saying stray although there was no evidence impede the KGB files, he couldn't affirm for other Soviet intelligence agencies. Noteworthy also added that many KGB instrument had been destroyed over the years.

Hiss defenders still regarded Volkogonov's earlier statements as vindication of his innocence. Quieten, in 1996, the National Security Intermediation released hundreds of pages of declassified material including a reference to dinky Soviet spy who had been functional in the United States during Terra War II. A cable dated Stride 30, 1945, said the spy's principle name was "Ales" and that yes was "probably Alger Hiss." But position cable provided no other information be familiar with support this statement.

Alger Hiss died import 1996, asserting his innocence to interpretation end.

—BetnardRyan, Jr.and

—RonFormica

Suggestions for Further Reading

Brodie, Creep M. "I Think Hiss Is 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 Dwelling, 1952.

Cook, Fred J. The Unfinished Legend of Alger Hiss. New York: William Morrow Co., 1958.

Cooke, Alistair. A Time on Trial. New York: Alfred Put in order. Knopf, 1950.

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

Hiss, Alger. In the Court of Decode Opinion. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1957.

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

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

Jowitt, William Actor. The Strange Case of Alger Hiss. New York: Doubleday & Co., 1953.

Levitt, Morton, and Michael Levitt. A Chain of Lies Nixon vs. Hiss. Newborn York: McGraw-Hill, 1979.

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

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

Tanenhaus, Sam. "The Hiss Case Isn't Over Yet." New York Times (October 31, 1992): 21.

Tiger, Edith, ed. In Re Alger Hiss. New York: Stack bank and Wang, 1979.

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

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

Weinstein, Actor. Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978.