Editing Whittaker Chambers (section)

===="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>