By Allen Weinstein, 1978

This review pertains directly to the “Witness” review, but it also provides insight into the allignment of forces against Elizabeth Bentley. The American Civil Liberties Union helped Weinstein obtain FBI files about the Hiss case for use in a lawsuit, and the author began his investigations believing Hiss had been unfairly convicted. Those on the political left were absolutely convinced that Chambers was wrong about Hiss and, that Hiss was unfairly convicted of perjury. The book presents a very detailed description of the five years of research that led to the author’s conclusion, much to the dismay of Hiss supporters, that Hiss had indeed been guiltiy of perjury. The book also confirms the magnitude of Soviet espionage in the United State. ….Nadya Ulanovskaya has confirmed the substance of Chamber’s account of his underground activities from his recruitment up to the time when Ulrich…returned to Russia in 1934. Nadya Ulanovskaya, who confirmed the substance of Chamber’s accounts of his Communist activities in the 1930s “scoffed at the dangers involved in conducting an espionage in the United States.” Nadya said: “If you wore a sign saying ‘I am a spy,’ you might still not get arrested in America when we were there.”

Early parts of the book describe the depths reached by Hiss and his supporters to discredit Chambers. There were unproven allegations of homosexuality (which would have been called “homophobic” today), insanity (the term “psychopathic personality” was used by one of their psychiatrist in testimony), imposture, and criminal behavior. There is no question that Chambers had a checkered personal life. He did come from dysfunctional family life as a child, and his father abandoned the family to move in with a male lover. There also is no dispute that Chambers served as a dedicated Communist courier for Soviet espionage rings. There is also the practical matter that he was dowdy and rumpled in appearance while his was handsome and always presented himself in well-tailored fashions.

Chambers did commit perjury to the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) when he testified that Hiss had not engaged in espionage. He continued to think of Hiss as a friend, and wanted to protect him. The Justice Department had sufficient evidence to indict either Hiss or Chambers for perjury based on their conflicting testimony before HUAC. They also considered not pursuing either. The decision probably turned when Hiss demanded that Chambers produce physical evidence in his slander trial against Chambers. He produced the large cache of evidence know as the “Baltimore” and Pumpkin” papers, including reports typed on the Hiss typewriter and handwritten notes.

The Hiss Woodstock typewriter became the focus of intense investigation by the FBI and the Hiss defense team, and those investigations take up large segments of the book. The defense team spent enormous amounts of time an money to build a typewriter that matched the characteristics of the Hiss typewriter, but failed. The FBI concluded that the 65 typewritten pages included in the “Baltimore Papers,” were typed on the Hiss machine, and that the characteristics matched the typing of other papers by Mrs. Hiss. The originals of the microfilms in the “Pumpkin Papers,” which included technical information about military equipment, German-American trade relations, and films of State Department cables, had Hiss’s initials.

The defense used by Alger Hiss was verbatim from the Communist playbook for people accused of spying. Agents accused of espionage in England were directed to plead guilty. Agents in the United States were instructed to proceed in precisely in opposite way and deny everything. The Soviets, who were expert at what they called “espionage tradecraft,” understood that the legal system in the United States would make it very difficult to obtain a guilty verdict regardless of the evidence. As one example, Judith Coplin was caught handing classified documents to a Russian agent, and both of her convictions were turned over by courts of appeal. Hiss wasn’t convicted until his second trial. He was remarkably persistent if he was being loyal to the Communist playbook, because he proclaimed his innocence to his death. He said he had been convicted by “forgery by typewriter.”

There were members of the Hiss defense team so certain of his innocence that they suggested he let them “truth serum.” Hiss also rejected HUACs suggestion he submit to a lie detector. Those refusals might generate suspicion, but there are more ominous facts. Eleanor Roosevelt was inspired to issue a statement supporting Hiss after Laurence Duggan fell to his death from a 16th street floor of an office building at about the same time of the Hiss indictment. Mr. Duggan was later confirmed to be a communist spy in the State Department who probably would have been able to verify Hiss was also a spy.

Support to Hiss continued after his conviction and completion of his sentence. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court approved Hiss’s readmission to the bar unanimously in August 1975. He was the first lawyer ever readmitted to the Massachusetts bar following a major conviction. The court acknowledged Hiss was a convicted perjurer and did not deny that he was guilty as charged and convicted. Hiss and his supporters undoubtedly celebrated that as a victory, and also were probably ecstatic about the fall of Richard Nixon.

Mr. Weinstein summarizes his thoughts by writing, “…the body of available evidence proves that he (Hiss) did in fact perjure himself when describing his secret dealings with Chambers, so the jurors in the second trial made no mistake in finding Alger Hiss guilty as charged.” He adds, “There has yet to emerge, from any source, a coherent body of evidence that undermines the credibility of evidence against Alger Hiss.” This was written years before Venona was declassified. Analysis of one decoded cable found that the Soviet agent with Roosevelt at Yalta could have been no one other than Alger Hiss.