Editing Whittaker Chambers (section)

===Hiss case===
{{more citations needed|section|date=August 2018}}<!--several paragraphs without citations-->
[[File:Alger Hiss (1950).jpg|thumb|right|[[Alger Hiss]] (1948) denied Chambers's allegations but was convicted of perjury]]

On August 3, 1948, Chambers was called to testify before the [[House Un-American Activities Committee]] (HUAC), where he gave the names of individuals he said were part of the underground "[[Ware group]]" in the late 1930s, including [[Alger Hiss]]. He once again named Hiss as a member of the Communist Party but did not yet make any accusations of espionage. In subsequent sessions, Hiss testified and initially denied that he knew anyone by the name of Chambers, but on seeing him in person and after it became clear that Chambers knew details about Hiss's life, Hiss said that he had known Chambers under the name "George Crosley". 

Hiss denied that he had ever been a communist. Since Chambers still presented no evidence, the committee had initially been inclined to take the word of Hiss on the matter. However, a committee member, [[Richard Nixon]], received secret information from the FBI that had led him to pursue the issue. When it issued its report, HUAC described Hiss's testimony as "vague and evasive".<ref name=Britannica/>

Biographer [[Timothy Naftali]] describes the trial as "a battle between two queers", an allusion to the fact that both parties were supposedly homosexual. Additionally, Hiss's stepson, Timothy Hobson, alleged that Chambers's accusation was borne out of unrequited romantic feelings for Hiss.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.amny.com/news/at-alger-hiss-conference-gay-debate-gets-red-hot/ | title=At Alger Hiss conference, gay debate gets red hot &#124; amNewYork | date=April 17, 2007 }}</ref>

===="Red Herring"====
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-29645-0001, Potsdamer Konferenz, Stalin, Truman, Churchill.jpg|thumb|[[Harry S. Truman]] (center) with [[Joseph Stalin]] (left) and [[Winston Churchill]] (right) in 1945. Truman called Chambers's allegations a "red herring".]]

The country quickly became divided over Hiss and Chambers. President [[Harry S. Truman]], not pleased with the allegation that the man who had presided over the United Nations Charter Conference was a communist, dismissed the case as a "[[red herring]]".<ref name=Linder>{{cite web
 |last = Linder
 |first = Douglas
 |title = The Alger Hiss Trials
 |work = Famous Trials
 |publisher = University of Missouri–Kansas City School of Law
 |url = https://famous-trials.com/algerhiss/638-home
 |access-date = March 20, 2020
}}</ref>
In the atmosphere of increasing [[anticommunism]] that would later be termed [[McCarthyism]], many conservatives viewed the Hiss case as emblematic of what they saw as Democrats' laxity towards the danger of communist infiltration and influence in the State Department.{{citation needed|date=August 2020}} Many liberals, in turn, saw the Hiss case as part of the desperation of the Republican Party to regain the office of president since it had been out of power for 16 years.{{citation needed|date=July 2020}} Truman also issued [[Executive Order 9835]], which initiated a program of loyalty reviews for federal employees in 1947.<ref>{{cite web | url = https://trumanlibrary.org/executiveorders/index.php?pid=502 | title = Executive Order 9835 Prescribing Procedures For The Administration Of An Employees Loyalty Program In The Executive Branch Of The Government | last = Truman | first = Harry | date = March 21, 1947 | website = The Harry S. Truman Library and Museum | access-date = November 11, 2017 | archive-date = November 11, 2017 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20171111205553/https://trumanlibrary.org/executiveorders/index.php?pid=502 | url-status = dead }}</ref>

===="Pumpkin Papers"====
Hiss filed a $75,000 libel suit against Chambers on October 8, 1948.<ref name=Britannica/> Under pressure from Hiss's lawyers, Chambers finally retrieved his envelope of evidence and presented it to the HUAC after it had subpoenaed them. It contained four notes in Hiss's handwriting, 65 typewritten copies of State Department documents and five strips of microfilm, some of which contained photographs of State Department documents. The press came to call these the "[[Pumpkin Papers]]" since Chambers had briefly hidden the microfilm in a hollowed-out pumpkin. The documents indicated that Hiss knew Chambers long after mid-1936, when Hiss said he had last seen "Crosley", and also that Hiss had engaged in espionage with Chambers. Chambers explained his delay in producing the evidence as an effort to spare an old friend from more trouble than necessary. Until October 1948, Chambers had repeatedly stated that Hiss had not engaged in espionage, even when Chambers testified under oath. Chambers was forced to testify at the Hiss trials that he had committed perjury several times, which reduced his credibility in the eyes of his critics.

The five rolls of 35&nbsp;mm film known as the "pumpkin papers" were thought until late 1974 to be locked in HUAC files. The independent researcher [[Stephen Salant|Stephen W. Salant]], an economist at the University of Michigan, sued the U.S. Justice Department in 1975 when his request for access to them under the Freedom of Information Act was denied. On July 31, 1975, as a result of this lawsuit and follow-on suits filed by Peter Irons and by Alger Hiss and William Reuben, the Justice Department released copies of the "pumpkin papers" that had been used to implicate Hiss. One roll of film turned out to be totally blank because of overexposure, two others are faintly-legible copies of nonclassified Navy Department documents relating to such subjects as life rafts and fire extinguishers, and the remaining two are photographs of the State Department documents introduced by the prosecution at the two Hiss trials, relating to US-German relations in the late 1930s.<ref>{{cite news
 | first = Tom
 | last = Gold
 | title = U.S. Releases Copies of 'Pumpkin Papers'
 | url = https://www.nytimes.com/1975/08/01/archives/us-releases-copies-of-pumpkinpapers-copies-of-pumpkin-papers.html
 | newspaper = The New York Times
 | date = August 1, 1975
 | access-date = October 31, 2018
 | archive-date = July 28, 2019
 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20190728221418/https://www.nytimes.com/1975/08/01/archives/us-releases-copies-of-pumpkinpapers-copies-of-pumpkin-papers.html
 | url-status = live
 }}</ref>

That story, however, as reported by ''The New York Times'' in the 1970s, contains only a partial truth. The blank roll had been mentioned by Chambers in his autobiography, ''Witness''. However, in addition to innocuous farm reports, the documents on the other pumpkin patch microfilms also included "confidential memos sent from overseas embassies to diplomatic staff in Washington, D.C."<ref name="c-span.org video">{{cite web|last1=Tanenhaus|first1=Sam|title=c-cpan interview, 5/26/02|url=http://www.c-span.org/video/?170139-1%2Fwritings-whittaker-chambers|access-date=December 8, 2014|archive-date=October 31, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211031135124/https://www.c-span.org/video/?170139-1%2Fwritings-whittaker-chambers|url-status=live}}</ref> Worse, those memos had originally been transmitted in code, which, thanks to their presumable possession of both coded originals and the translations (claimed by Chambers, to be forwarded by Hiss), the Soviets now could easily understand.<ref name="c-span.org video" />

In taped recordings of President Nixon on July 1, 1971, he admitted that he had not checked the Pumpkin Papers prior to their use and he felt that the Justice Department was out to exonerate Hiss and a federal grand jury would indict Nixon's ally Chambers for perjury. The FBI continued investigating Hiss's innocence into 1953.<ref>{{cite news |last=Parry |first=Robert |author-link=Robert Parry (journalist) |url=http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/story50.html |title=The Tapes: Nixon's Long, Dark Shadow |work=[[Consortium News]] |date=February 8, 1999 |access-date=September 9, 2021 |archive-date=February 8, 1999 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/19990208225324/http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/story50.html}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Bird |first1=Kai |last2=Chervonnaya |first2=Svetlana |author1-link=Kai Bird |author2-link=Svetlana Chervonnaya (political historian)|url=https://theamericanscholar.org/the-mystery-of-ales-2/ |title=The Mystery of Ales (Expanded Version): The argument that Alger Hiss was a WWII-era Soviet asset is flawed. New evidence points to someone else |work=[[The American Scholar (magazine)|The American Scholar]] |date=June 1, 2007 |access-date=September 9, 2021 |archive-date=January 19, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230119185925/https://theamericanscholar.org/the-mystery-of-ales-2/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Haynes |first=John Earl |author-link=John Earl Haynes |url=http://www.johnearlhaynes.org/page63.html |title=Ales: Hiss, Foote, Stettinius? |work=johnearlhaynes.org |date=June 7, 2007 |access-date=September 9, 2021 |archive-date=May 18, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170518062412/http://www.johnearlhaynes.org/page63.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Lowenthal |first=John |author-link=John Lowenthal |year=2000 |title=The Alger Hiss Story: A Search for the Truth |volume=15 |work=[[The Times Literary Supplement]] |url=https://algerhiss.com/history/new-evidence-surfaces-1990s/the-venona-cables/john-lowenthal-i/ |access-date=September 9, 2021}}</ref>

====Perjury====
[[File:Marshall-courthouse1.jpg|right|thumb|The trials against Hiss took place at the Foley Square Courthouse (now [[Thurgood Marshall Courthouse]]) in New York City (here, 2009)]]
Hiss was indicted for two counts of [[perjury]] relating to testimony he had given before a federal [[grand jury]] the previous December. He had denied giving any documents to Chambers and testified that he had not seen Chambers after mid-1936.

Hiss was tried twice for perjury. The first trial, in June 1949, ended with the jury deadlocked 8–4 for conviction. In addition to Chambers's testimony, a government expert testified that other papers typed on a typewriter belonging to the Hiss family matched the secret papers produced by Chambers. An impressive array of [[character evidence|character witnesses]] appeared on behalf of Hiss: two Supreme Court justices, [[Felix Frankfurter]] and [[Stanley Forman Reed|Stanley Reed]], the former Democratic presidential nominee [[John W. Davis]], and the future Democratic presidential nominee [[Adlai Stevenson II|Adlai Stevenson]]. Chambers, on the other hand, was attacked by Hiss's attorneys as "an enemy of the Republic, a blasphemer of Christ, a disbeliever in God, with no respect for matrimony or motherhood".<ref name=Linder /> In the second trial, Hiss's defense produced a psychiatrist who characterized Chambers as a "[[psychopath]]ic personality" and "a [[pathological liar]]".<ref>{{Harvnb|Weinstein|1997|pp=487, 493}}</ref>

The second trial ended in January 1950 with Hiss being found guilty on both counts of perjury. He was sentenced to [[Alger Hiss#Incarceration|five years in prison]].<ref name=Britannica/>

Chambers had resigned from ''Time'' in December 1948. After the Hiss case, he wrote a few articles for ''[[Fortune (magazine)|Fortune]]'', ''[[Life (magazine)|Life]]'', and ''[[Look (American magazine)|Look]]'' magazines.<ref name="Witness" />

In 1951, during the HUAC hearings, William Spiegel of Baltimore identified a photo of "Carl Schroeder" as Chambers while Spiegel was describing his involvement with David Zimmerman, a spy in Chambers's network.<ref>{{cite news
| title = Hiss Accuser Cited in 'Black Box' Tale
| newspaper = The New York Times
| url = https://www.nytimes.com/1951/06/29/archives/hiss-accuser-cited-in-black-box-tale.html
| pages = 8
| date = June 29, 1951
| access-date = October 10, 2018
| archive-date = January 19, 2023
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20230119185927/https://www.nytimes.com/1951/06/29/archives/hiss-accuser-cited-in-black-box-tale.html
| url-status = live
}}</ref><ref>
{{cite news
| title = Whittaker Chambers Named Anew
| newspaper = [[The Washington Post]]
| page = 14
| date = June 29, 1951}}</ref>

====''Witness''====
In 1952, Chambers's book ''Witness'' was published to widespread acclaim.<ref name=Britannica/><ref>{{cite web
| title = Review – Kirkus
| publisher = WhittakerChambers.org
| url = http://whittakerchambers.org/books/witness/kirkus/
| date = May 21, 1952
| access-date = June 14, 2013
| archive-date = June 30, 2013
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20130630225805/http://whittakerchambers.org/books/witness/kirkus/
| url-status = live
}}</ref><ref>{{cite web
 |title = Review – New York Times (The Two Faiths of Whittaker Chambers)
 |publisher = WhittakerChambers.org
 |url = http://whittakerchambers.org/books/witness/new-york-times/
 |date = May 25, 1952
 |access-date = June 14, 2013
 |url-status = dead
 |archive-url = https://archive.today/20130615082121/http://whittakerchambers.org/books/witness/new-york-times/
 |archive-date = June 15, 2013
}}</ref><ref>{{cite web
| title = Review – Time (Books: Publican & Pharisee)
| publisher = WhittakerChambers.org
| url = http://whittakerchambers.org/books/witness/time/
| date = May 26, 1952
| access-date = June 14, 2013
| archive-date = January 19, 2023
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20230119185927/https://whittakerchambers.org/books/witness/time/
| url-status = live
}}</ref><ref>{{cite web
 |title = Review – BBC
 |publisher = WhittakerChambers.org
 |url = http://whittakerchambers.org/books/witness/review-bbc/
 |date = July 7, 1953
 |access-date = June 14, 2013
 |url-status = dead
 |archive-url = https://archive.today/20130615081954/http://whittakerchambers.org/books/witness/review-bbc/
 |archive-date = June 15, 2013
}}</ref> It was a combination of autobiography and a warning about the dangers of communism. [[Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.]] called it "a powerful book".<ref name=schlesinger>{{cite web
| first = Arthur
| last = Schlesinger, Jr.
| title = The Truest Believer
| newspaper = The New York Times
| url = https://www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/09/reviews/970309.09schlest.html
| date = March 9, 2013
| access-date = July 14, 2013
| archive-date = March 30, 2013
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20130330004559/http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/09/reviews/970309.09schlest.html
| url-status = live
}}</ref> [[Ronald Reagan]] credited the book as the inspiration behind his conversion from a New Deal Democrat to a conservative Republican.<ref name=Linder/> ''Witness'' was a bestseller for more than a year<ref name=schlesinger /> and helped to pay off Chambers's legal debts, but bills lingered ("as Odysseus was beset by a ghost").<ref name=odyssey>{{cite book
| first = Whittaker
| last = Chambers
| title = Odyssey of a Friend
| publisher = Putnam
| place = New York
| year = 1969
| page = 211 (bills), 249 (Koestler)}}</ref>

According to the commentator [[George Will]] in 2017:
<blockquote>''Witness'' became a canonical text of conservatism. Unfortunately, it injected conservatism with a sour, whiney, complaining, crybaby populism. It is the screechy and dominant tone of the loutish faux conservatism that today is erasing [William F.] Buckley's legacy of infectious cheerfulness and unapologetic embrace of high culture. Chambers wallowed in cloying sentimentality and curdled resentment about "the plain men and women"—"my people, humble people, strong in common sense, in common goodness"—enduring the "musk of snobbism" emanating from the "socially formidable circles" of the "nicest people" produced by "certain collegiate eyries".<ref>George F. Will, [https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/conservatism-is-soiled-by-scowling-primitives/2017/05/31/786317a8-4559-11e7-a196-a1bb629f64cb_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-a%3Ahomepage%2Fstory "Conservatism is soiled by scowling primitives"], ''The Washington Post'' May 31, 2017.</ref>
</blockquote>