Editing Alger Hiss (section)

==Accusation of espionage==
On August 3, 1948, [[Whittaker Chambers]], a former Communist Party member, appeared before the [[House Un-American Activities Committee]] (HUAC) to denounce Alger Hiss. A senior editor at ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' magazine, Chambers had written a scathingly satirical editorial critical of the Yalta agreements.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20070401170428/http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,797136,00.html "The Ghosts on the Roof," ''Time'', March 5, 1945], reprinted in [https://web.archive.org/web/20130627221531/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,794026-1,00.html ''Time'', January 5, 1948]. See also Whittaker Chambers, ''The Ghosts on the Roof, Selected Essays'', edited by Terry Teachout, (Regnery, 1989, and Transaction Publishers, 1996). In 
{{Harvnb|Weinstein|1997}} pp. 5: pp. 316–317: pp 7: pp. 37, 46–47: pp. 153–157: pp. 163–170: pp. 499: pp. 502: pp. 519: pp. 512</ref>
The group, which Chambers called the "[[Ware Group]]," had been organized by agriculturalist [[Harold Ware]], an American communist intent on organizing black and white tenant farmers in the American South against exploitation and [[debt bondage|debt peonage]] by the cotton industry (Ware had died in 1935). According to Chambers, "the purpose of this group at that time was not primarily espionage. Its original purpose was the communist infiltration of the American government. But espionage was certainly one of its eventual objectives."<ref>{{cite web|author=Doug Linder |url=http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/hiss/8-3testimony.html |title=Testimony of Whittaker Chambers before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (August 3, 1948) |publisher=Law2.umkc.edu |access-date=February 9, 2013}}</ref> As journalist and author [[Tim Weiner]] points out, "This was a crucial point. Infiltration and invisible political influence were immoral, but arguably not illegal. Espionage was treason, traditionally punishable by death. The distinction was not lost on the cleverest member of HUAC, Congressman [[Richard Nixon]].... He had been studying the FBI's files for five months, courtesy of [[J. Edgar Hoover]]. Nixon launched his political career in hot pursuit of Hiss and the alleged secret Communists of the New Deal."<ref>See [[Tim Weiner]], ''Enemies: A History of the FBI'' (Allen Weiner, 2012), p. 159. Being the [[foreign agent|agent of a foreign government]], however repulsive, was only made illegal in 1938, with the passage of the [[Foreign Agents Registration Act]].</ref>

Rumors had circulated about Hiss since 1939, when Chambers, at the urging of anti-[[Joseph Stalin|Stalinist]] [[Isaac Don Levine]], went to Assistant Secretary of State [[Adolf A. Berle]] Jr. and accused Hiss of belonging to an underground communist cell at the [[United States Department of Agriculture|Department of Agriculture]].<ref>{{cite news |author=William Fitzgibbon |title=The Hiss-Chambers Case: A Chronology Since 1934 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/09/reviews/chambers-chronology.html |newspaper=The New York Times |date=June 12, 1949 |access-date=May 2, 2014}}</ref> In 1942, Chambers repeated this allegation to the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]]. In 1945, two other sources emerged to implicate Hiss. In September 1945, [[Igor Gouzenko]], a 26-year-old Ukrainian whose three-year tour as a cipher clerk stationed at the [[Soviet Embassy in Ottawa]] was coming to an end, defected from the Soviet Union and remained in Canada.<ref>[[Nigel West]], ''The A to Z of British Intelligence'' (Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 2009), p. 214</ref> In exchange for asylum, Gouzenko offered to Canadian authorities evidence about a Soviet espionage network actively working to acquire information about nuclear weapons,<ref>Bohdan S. Kordan, ''Canada and the Ukrainian Question, 1939-1945: A Study in Statecraft'' (Toronto: McGill-Queen's Press, 2001), p. 172.</ref> along with information that an unnamed assistant (or more precisely an "assistant to an assistant") to [[United States Secretary of State|US Secretary of State]] Stettinius was a Soviet agent. When informed of this, Hoover assumed Gouzenko was referring to Alger Hiss.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/venona-soviet-espionage-and-the-american-response-1939-1957/13.gif|title=13. Hoover to Matthew Conelly, 12 September 1945.|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071114214743/https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/venona-soviet-espionage-and-the-american-response-1939-1957/13.gif|url-status=dead|archive-date=2007-11-14|date=2007-11-14|access-date=2018-09-12}}</ref> Three months later (in December 1945), [[Elizabeth Bentley]], an American spy for the Soviet Union, who served also as a courier between communist groups,<ref>{{cite news |author=Joseph B. Treaster |title=Victor Perlo, 87, Economist For Communist Party in U.S. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1999/12/10/business/victor-perlo-87-economist-for-communist-party-in-us.html |newspaper=The New York Times |date=December 10, 1999 |access-date=May 2, 2014}}</ref> told the FBI, as documented in the [[FBI Silvermaster File]] that "At this time [[Charles Kramer (economist)|Kramer]] told me that the person who had originally taken [[Harold Glasser|Glasser]] away from [[Perlo group|Perlo's]] group was named Hiss and that he was in the U.S. State Department."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.education-research.org/PDFs/splitfiles/splitprocessed/Silvermaster006_Folder/Silvermaster006_page106.pdf |title=Statement of Elizabeth Terrell Bentley (Silvermaster file, Vol. 6), p. 105 (PDF p. 106), November 30, 1945 |access-date=February 9, 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120310003840/http://www.education-research.org/PDFs/splitfiles/splitprocessed/Silvermaster006_Folder/Silvermaster006_page106.pdf |archive-date=March 10, 2012 |df=mdy-all }}</ref> Bentley also said that the man in question, whom she called "Eugene Hiss" worked in the [[State Department]] and was an adviser to [[Dean Acheson]]. In both cases (Gouzenko and Bentley), the FBI decided that Alger Hiss was the likely match.<ref name = Weins>
{{Harvnb|Weinstein|1997}} pp. 5: pp. 316–317: pp 7: pp. 37, 46–47: pp. 153–157: pp. 163–170: pp. 499: pp. 502: pp. 519: pp. 512</ref><ref>James Barros, "Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter White: The Canadian Connection," ''[[Orbis (journal)|Orbis]]'' vol. 21 no. 3 (Fall 1977), pp. 593–605</ref> Hoover put a wiretap on Hiss's home phone and had him and his wife investigated and tailed for the next two years.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=Tu86exHKPvMC&q=Hiss+assistant Gentry, ''Hoover the Man and the Secrets'', p. 346].</ref>

In response to Chambers's accusations, Hiss protested his innocence and insisted on appearing before HUAC to clear himself. Testifying on August 5, 1948, he denied having ever been a communist or having personally met Chambers. Under fire from President Truman and the press, the Committee was reluctant to proceed with its investigation against so eminent a man.<ref>Rick Perlstein writes, "When [Hiss] first testified it seemed to work.... He talked circles around his hapless interrogators. The committee, awed by Hiss, sat and took it while he lectured them. He finished to thunderclaps of applause. Rankin of Mississippi led a procession of witnesses to the table to apologize.... Supportive journalists confided to HUAC members that unless they ignored Chambers, their committee, already weakened by the Hollywood 10 circus of the previous year, was finished. The members were ready to pack it in and spend the rest of the summer back home. Only one member thought differently." {{Cite book|last=Perlstein|first=Rick|author-link=Rick Perlstein|title=Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America|year=2008|publisher=Simon and Schuster|isbn=978-0-7432-4302-5|page=30|title-link=Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America}}</ref> Congressman Richard Nixon, who later described Hiss's demeanor that day as, "insolent," "condescending," and "insulting in the extreme," wanted to press on.<ref>Perlstein, ''Nixonland'', p. 31.</ref>
Nixon had received secret information about the FBI's suspicions from [[John Francis Cronin]], a [[Roman Catholic]] priest who had infiltrated labor unions in Baltimore during World War II to report on communist activities and had been given access to FBI files.<ref name = Weins/><ref>Cronin was the main author of ''Communists Within the Labor Movement: A Handbook on the Facts and Countermeasures'', published by the Chamber of Commerce in 1947. See John T. Donovan, ''Crusader in the Cold War: a Biography of Fr. John F. Cronin, S.S. (1908–1994)'' (Peter Lang Publishing, 2005), pp. 48, 88, and passim. In the 1950s, when Nixon was vice president, Cronin worked for him as his adviser and chief speech writer.</ref> Writing in a paper titled "The Problem of American Communism In 1945," Cronin wrote, "In the State Department, the most influential Communist has been Alger Hiss."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://mdhistory.net/hiss/cronin-report.pdf |title=John F. Cronin, S.S., "The Problem of American Communism in 1945," p. 49 (PDF p. 58) |access-date=February 9, 2013}}</ref>

With some reluctance, the Committee voted to make Nixon chair of a subcommittee that would seek to determine who was lying, Hiss or Chambers, at least on the question of whether they knew one another.<ref>[http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/hiss/hissaccount.html Douglas Linder, "The Trials of Alger Hiss: An Account," ''Famous Trials'' (University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, 2003)].</ref>

Shown a photograph of Chambers, Hiss conceded that the face "might look familiar" and asked to see Chambers in person. Confronted with him in person in a New York hotel where HUAC was holding session, Hiss admitted that he had indeed known Chambers, but under the name "George Crosley," a man who represented himself as a freelance writer. Hiss said that in the mid-1930s he had sublet his apartment to this "Crosley" and had given him an old car.<ref name = Weins/><ref name=whalen>
{{Cite news
  | last = Whalen
  | first = Robert G.
  | title = Hiss and Chambers: Strange Story of Two Men; The Drama Since 1934
  | newspaper = The New York Times
  | date = December 12, 1948
  | url = http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30F14F63D5B157A93C0A81789D95F4C8485F9
  | access-date = November 11, 2007 }}</ref>
Chambers, for his part, denied on the stand ever having used the alias Crosley, though he admitted to Hiss's lawyers in private testimony that it could have been one of his pen names.<ref>[[Samuel Roth]], a publisher of erotica who had accepted some of Chambers' poetry written under his own name, came forth with an [[affidavit]] that Chambers had also submitted poetry to him using the pen name of George Crosley. The Hiss defense did not to use this information, because Roth had been prosecuted for obscenity. Chambers, also, admitted in secret testimony to the FBI that it was "entirely possible" that he had used the name Crosley during the time he knew Hiss. See William Howard Moore, ''Two Foolish Men: The True Story of the Friendship Between Alger Hiss and Whittaker Chambers'', (Moorup, 1987), p. 32 and passim for an extended discussion of this issue, available in pdf form on the [http://homepages.nyu.edu/~th15/works.html Alger Hiss Story website] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101219011756/http://homepages.nyu.edu/~th15/works.html |date=December 19, 2010 }}. See also Anthony Summers, ''The Arrogance of Power: The Secret World of Richard Nixon'' (New York, London: Penguin-Putnam Inc, 2000), p. 490; and [https://books.google.com/books?id=3xawCAxSXbgC&pg=PA102 Gay Talese, ''Thy Neighbor's Wife'', (New York: Harper Perennial Book, 2009) p. 102].</ref> When Hiss and Chambers both appeared before a HUAC subcommittee on August 17, 1948, they had the following exchange:

:{{Hanging indent |text=HISS. Did you ever go under the name of George Crosley?}}
:{{Hanging indent |text=CHAMBERS. Not to my knowledge.}}
:{{Hanging indent |text=HISS. Did you ever sublet an apartment on Twenty-ninth Street from me?}}
:{{Hanging indent |text=CHAMBERS. No; I did not.}}
:{{Hanging indent |text=HISS. You did not?}}
:{{Hanging indent |text=CHAMBERS. No.}}
:{{Hanging indent |text=HISS. Did you ever spend any time with your wife and child in an apartment on Twenty-ninth Street in Washington when I was not there because I and my family were living on P Street?}}
:{{Hanging indent |text=CHAMBERS. I most certainly did.}}
:{{Hanging indent |text=HISS. You did or did not?}}
:{{Hanging indent |text=CHAMBERS. I did.}}
:{{Hanging indent |text=HISS. Would you tell me how you reconcile your negative answers with this affirmative answer?}}
:{{Hanging indent |text=CHAMBERS. Very easily, Alger. I was a Communist and you were a Communist.<ref>[http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/hiss/8-17testimony.html Hearing of August 17, 1948] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100721003156/http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/hiss/8-17testimony.html |date=July 21, 2010 }} Special Subcommittee of the Committee on Un-American Activities, US House of Representatives. (Transcript at "The Alger Hiss Trials: An Account," ''Famous Trials'', by Douglas Linder, University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law.) Retrieved July 15, 2009.</ref>}}

Chambers's statements, because they were made in a Congressional hearing, were privileged against [[defamation]] suits; Hiss challenged Chambers to repeat them without benefit of such protection. When, on the national radio program ''[[Meet the Press]]'', Chambers publicly called Hiss a communist, Hiss had attorney [[William L. Marbury Jr.]] file a [[libel]] lawsuit against him.

Chambers retaliated by claiming Hiss was not merely a communist, but also a spy, a charge he had not made earlier; and, on November 17, 1948, to support his explosive allegations he produced physical evidence consisting of sixty-five pages of re-typed State Department documents, the last of which was dated April 1, 1938, plus four notes in Hiss's handwriting summarizing the contents of State Department cables. These became known as the "Baltimore documents." Chambers claimed Hiss had given them to him in 1938 and that Priscilla had retyped them (Hiss could not type) on the Hisses' Woodstock typewriter for Chambers to pass along to the Soviets.<ref name = Weins/> One of the handwritten notes copied the contents of a telegram (received January 28, 1938)<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.documentstalk.com/wp/henderson-cable-january-28-1938|title=Scanned original of Henderson cable from January 28, 1938, at website ''Documents Talk''|access-date=February 21, 2014|archive-date=February 28, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140228174012/http://www.documentstalk.com/wp/henderson-cable-january-28-1938|url-status=dead}}</ref> related to the November and December 1937 arrest and disappearance in Moscow of a Latvian-born man and his wife, an American citizen.<ref>See: [https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1144&dat=19380107&id=eFIbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=6ksEAAAAIBAJ&pg=1657,2015004 United Press, "Robinson Case Leads to a Trail of Racketeers" and "Mrs. Robinson Reportedly Executed," ''Pittsburg Press'', January 7, 1938, p. 1]; and [https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1955&dat=19380109&id=RLMhAAAAIBAJ&sjid=x5sFAAAAIBAJ&pg=4422,1593223 Associated Press, "Passport Mystery Baffles Probers: Case of Robinson-Rubens linked to racket," ''Reading Eagle'', January 9, 1938, pages 1 & 16.]</ref> Under questioning, neither Hiss nor his superior, Francis Sayre, recollected the incident. Hiss initially denied writing the note, but experts confirmed it was his handwriting.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.documentstalk.com/wp/hiss-handwritten-note-to-mary-martin-12838|title=Scan of Hiss's January 28, 1938, handwritten note from website ''Documents Talk''.|access-date=February 22, 2014|archive-date=February 28, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140228170842/http://www.documentstalk.com/wp/hiss-handwritten-note-to-mary-martin-12838|url-status=dead}}</ref> Interrogated in 1949, Sayre stated that the telegram was unrelated to Hiss's duties, which concerned trade matters and told his questioners, "He could not understand why he was on the distribution list for this cable nor why the note would be made on it or especially why an exact copy should be made."<ref>FBI report, quoted by Weinstein (1978), p. 247.</ref>

In their previous testimony, both Chambers and Hiss had denied having committed espionage. By introducing the Baltimore documents, Chambers admitted he had previously lied, opening both Hiss and himself to perjury charges. Chambers also gave a new date for his own break with the Communist Party, an important point in his accusations against Hiss. For over nine years, beginning September 1, 1939, he had claimed to have quit the Party in 1937. Chambers now began to claim the actual date was sometime in early March 1938, the year of the "Baltimore documents," before finally settling during the trial, on April 15, 1938.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=5tICAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA10 Sidney Zion, "The Hiss Case, a mystery ignored," ''New York Magazine'', April 24, 1978, pp. 10–11].</ref><ref>{{Cite news
  | last = Navasky
  | first = Victor
  | title = The Case Not Proved Against Alger Hiss
  | date = April 8, 1978
  | work = [[The Nation]]
  | url = http://homepages.nyu.edu/~th15/navasky.html
  | access-date = October 25, 2007
  | archive-date = March 2, 2008
  | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080302202950/http://homepages.nyu.edu/~th15/navasky.html
  | url-status = dead
  }}</ref><ref name = Cook>
{{Cite book
  | last = Cook
  | first = Fred J.
  | title = The Unfinished Story of Alger Hiss
  | publisher = William Morrow Company
  | year = 1958
  | pages = 19: pp. 69–73: pp. 75–81 pp 155: pp. 126: pp. 147–151: pp. 156
  | isbn = 978-1-131-85352-9 }}</ref>

On December 2, Chambers led HUAC investigators to a pumpkin patch on his [[Maryland]] farm; from a hollowed-out pumpkin in which he had hidden them the previous day, he produced five rolls of 35&nbsp;mm film that he said came from Hiss in 1938, as well. While some of the film was undeveloped and some contained images of trivial content such as publicly available Navy documents concerning the painting of fire extinguishers, there were also images of State Department documents that were classified at the time. As a consequence of the revelation's dramatic staging, both the film and the Baltimore documents soon became known collectively as the "[[Pumpkin Papers]]."<ref name = Weins/>