Editing Whittaker Chambers (section)

===Berle meeting===
[[File:Adolf Augustus Berle NYWTS cropped.jpg|thumb|right|[[Adolf A. Berle]] (circa 1965): Member of the FDR administration who took Chambers's 1939 report. Initially enthusiastic, he later downplayed the report.]]

The August 1939 [[Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact]] drove Chambers to take action against the Soviet Union.<ref>{{Harvnb|Tanenhaus|1998|pp=159–161}}</ref> In September 1939, at the urging of the anticommunist Russian-born journalist [[Isaac Don Levine]], Chambers and Levine met with Assistant Secretary of State [[Adolf A. Berle]]. Levine had introduced Chambers to [[Walter Krivitsky]], who was already informing American and British authorities about Soviet agents who held posts in both governments. Krivitsky told Chambers that it was their duty to inform. Chambers agreed to reveal what he knew on the condition of immunity from prosecution.<ref>{{Harvnb|Weinstein|1997|p=292}}</ref> 

During the meeting at Berle's home, [[Woodley Mansion]], in Washington, Chambers named several current and former government employees as spies or communist sympathizers. Many names mentioned held relatively minor posts or were already under suspicion. Some names were more significant and surprising: Alger Hiss, his brother Donald Hiss, and Laurence Duggan, who were all respected, mid-level officials in the State Department, and [[Lauchlin Currie]], a special assistant to [[Franklin Roosevelt]]. Another person named Vincent Reno had worked on a top-secret bombsight project at the [[Aberdeen Proving Grounds]].<ref name=Britannica/><ref>{{cite book |last1=Chambers |first1=Whittaker |title=Witness |date=1952 |publisher=Gateway Editions |location=Washington |isbn=9780895267894 |pages=27–29, 463–470}}</ref>

Berle found Chambers's information tentative, unclear, and uncorroborated. He took the information to the White House, but President Franklin Roosevelt dismissed it. Berle made little if any objection, but he kept his notes, which were later used as evidence during Hiss's perjury trials.<ref>{{Harvnb|Tanenhaus|1998|pp=163, 203–204}}</ref>

Berle notified the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] of Chambers's information in March 1940. In February 1941, Krivitsky was found dead in his hotel room. Police ruled the death a suicide, but it was widely speculated that Krivitsky had been killed by Soviet intelligence. Worried that the Soviets might try to kill Chambers too, Berle again told the FBI about his interview with Chambers. The FBI interviewed Chambers in May 1942 and June 1945 but took no immediate action in line with the political orientation of the United States, which viewed the potential threat from the Soviet Union as minor compared to that of [[Nazi Germany]].{{citation needed|date=October 2014}} Only in November 1945, when [[Elizabeth Bentley]] defected and corroborated much of Chambers's story, would the FBI begin to take Chambers seriously.<ref>{{cite book
 | last = Olmsted
 | first = Kathryn S.
 | title = Red Spy Queen: A Biography of Elizabeth Bentley
 | publisher = The University of North Carolina Press
 | year = 2002
 | page = 32
 | isbn = 0-8078-2739-8}}</ref>