Alger Hiss Case

4 Pages 951 Words

In August 1948, Whittaker Chambers, charged that Alger Hiss, was a Communist spy. Chambers claimed that he and Hiss had belonged to the same spy group and that Hiss had given him secret State Department documents. This group was a network of American spies recruited by the Soviet Union to collect useful information for Moscow. Alger Hiss was a Harvard-educated lawyer. He had played a high role in the planning and the development of the United Nations. Whittaker Chambers, a senior editor of Time magazine and an ex-Communist, appeared as a witness before HUAC. (1)“Chambers testified that in the 1930's he had been attached as a messenger to a Communist organization formed in Washington, D.C. The group had been organized by Harold Ware, a well-known Communist, and its members included eight government officials.” Chambers confessed that spying had been one of the Ware Group's "eventual objectives" and identified its members. One of them was Alger Hiss, a former Assistant Secretary of State. He also had control over the founding conference of the United Nations in 1945. Alger Hiss constantly denied the allegations of Chambers's. Hiss also referred to Chambers as a "psychopathic liar." Hiss sued Chambers for slander. In November, Chambers handed over 65 typed pages of State Department documents, four pages of word-for-word copies of its cables in Hiss' handwriting, plus two strips of developed microfilm. The HUAC then accused Hiss of perjury in denying that he had given documents to Chambers. (2)“In the first trial, Hiss, and his lawyer got a hung jury by attacking Chambers personally and presenting his client as a symbol of the New Deal.” (3)“In the second trial, Hiss' new lawyer based his strategy on unsupported claims that the documents had been stolen by Chambers or by Julian Wadleigh, another member of the Ware Group.” However, Chambers's had another witness, Hede Massing, a former Soviet spy. The typewriting of the d...