Changes

==Scholarly consensus==

==Scholarly consensus==

Today, reports [[Oxford University]]'s ''Oxonian Review'', "the Hiss case is one issue upon which [http://www.oxonianreview.org/wp/who-killed-alger-hiss/ consensus transcends ideological divides]." After decades of debate, "[http://www.nybooks.com/articles/118 no serious scholar] of the subject any longer dismisses the voluminous and explicit claims by [[Whittaker Chambers]] and [[Elizabeth Bentley]]," writes [https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/summer00/art02.html Cold War specialist] Thomas Powers. Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Hiss's Harvard Law School, Cass Sunstein, former Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama administration, agrees, "Most of those who have carefully studied the case, and who have explored evidence emerging long after the trial itself, have concluded that Chambers was telling the truth and that [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-29/how-the-alger-hiss-case-explains-the-tea-party.html Hiss did indeed perjure himself]." By 2006, "[http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/apr/08/russia.davidsmith most historians] had come to the conclusion that Hiss was probably guilty," agrees Aldrich. "Those who have studied the Hiss case by and large believe that he was guilty of perjury and quite likely also guilty of espionage, that is, of passing government documents to the Soviets," concur Gilbert Geis [http://socialecology.uci.edu/faculty/ggeis of the University of California, Irvine] and Leigh B. Bienen [http://homicide.northwestern.edu/about/LeighBienen/ of Northwestern].<ref>Gilbert Geis and Leigh B. Bienen, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=FPRslbPnMjwC Crimes of the Century: From Leopold and Loeb to O.J. Simpson]'' (Lebanon, N.H.: UPNE, 1998), ISBN 1555533604, pp. 130-131</ref> [http://comminfo.rutgers.edu/~davidgr/ Rutgers historian] David Greenberg refers to "the [http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/16/technology/online-the-hiss-defense-doesn-t-rest.html?pagewanted=all dwindling band] of those who believe in Hiss"; "the majority of modern American historians today and particularly those specializing in domestic Cold War," concludes [http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NTk5Y2ZmNTQ3NWUyZGQwMTZhZjQxYTRkZjZhNGNmZDM liberal historian] David Oshinsky, "see evidence pointing overwhelmingly to Hiss being guilty as charged.”<ref>David Oshinsky, "[http://web.archive.org/web/20100604145006/http://www.nyu.edu/library/bobst/research/tam/hiss_david_oshinsky.pdf Alger Hiss and History]" (Center for the United States and the Cold War, New York University), April 5, 2007, p. 4 (Archive)</ref>

Today, reports [[Oxford University]]'s ''Oxonian Review'', "the Hiss case is one issue upon which [http://www.oxonianreview.org/wp/who-killed-alger-hiss/ consensus transcends ideological divides]." After decades of debate, "[http://www.nybooks.com/articles/118 no serious scholar] of the subject any longer dismisses the voluminous and explicit claims by [[Whittaker Chambers]] and [[Elizabeth Bentley]]," writes [https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/summer00/art02.html Cold War specialist] Thomas Powers. Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Hiss's ''alma mater'', Harvard Law School, Cass Sunstein, former Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama administration, agrees, "Most of those who have carefully studied the case, and who have explored evidence emerging long after the trial itself, have concluded that Chambers was telling the truth and that [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-29/how-the-alger-hiss-case-explains-the-tea-party.html Hiss did indeed perjure himself]." Even [http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-plank/reagan-appointee-and-recent-mccain-adviser-charles-fried-supports-obama Obama supporter] Charles Fried, another professor at Harvard Law School (and former Justice of the court that granted Hiss's petition for readmittance to the Massachusetts Bar), writes, "it is now clear to [http://www.amacad.org/publications/bulletin/winter2006/Winter2006Bulletin.pdf all but the most obdurate] that Alger Hiss was a Soviet agent."

 

By 2006, "[http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/apr/08/russia.davidsmith most historians] had come to the conclusion that Hiss was probably guilty," agrees Aldrich. "Those who have studied the Hiss case by and large believe that he was guilty of perjury and quite likely also guilty of espionage, that is, of passing government documents to the Soviets," concur Gilbert Geis [http://socialecology.uci.edu/faculty/ggeis of the University of California, Irvine] and Leigh B. Bienen [http://homicide.northwestern.edu/about/LeighBienen/ of Northwestern].<ref>Gilbert Geis and Leigh B. Bienen, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=FPRslbPnMjwC Crimes of the Century: From Leopold and Loeb to O.J. Simpson]'' (Lebanon, N.H.: UPNE, 1998), ISBN 1555533604, pp. 130-131</ref> [http://comminfo.rutgers.edu/~davidgr/ Rutgers historian] David Greenberg refers to "the [http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/16/technology/online-the-hiss-defense-doesn-t-rest.html?pagewanted=all dwindling band] of those who believe in Hiss"; "the majority of modern American historians today and particularly those specializing in domestic Cold War," concludes [http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NTk5Y2ZmNTQ3NWUyZGQwMTZhZjQxYTRkZjZhNGNmZDM liberal historian] David Oshinsky, "see evidence pointing overwhelmingly to Hiss being guilty as charged.”<ref>David Oshinsky, "[http://web.archive.org/web/20100604145006/http://www.nyu.edu/library/bobst/research/tam/hiss_david_oshinsky.pdf Alger Hiss and History]" (Center for the United States and the Cold War, New York University), April 5, 2007, p. 4 (Archive)</ref>

"In the end, the publication of the Venona intercepts settled the matter," observes Stanley Kutler [http://www.law.wisc.edu/profiles/sikutler@wisc.edu of the University of Wisconsin Law School]. "[T]o [http://writ.lp.findlaw.com/books/reviews/20040806_kutler.html all but the truest of believers], 'Ales' could only be Alger Hiss." The Soviet agent "Ales" is assumed by "[http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/hiss/hissvenona.html most scholars] to be Alger Hiss," agrees Douglas O. Linder [http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTrials/linder.htm of the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law]. "For the [http://microformguides.gale.com/Data/Download/9100000C.rtf majority of scholars], the critical ALES transmission puts to rest any doubt about Hiss’s complicity in the Soviet underground," concurs R. Bruce Craig, a [http://www.upei.ca/history/bcraig specialist in Cold War history] and [http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/116899.html author of a forthcoming Hiss biography].

"In the end, the publication of the Venona intercepts settled the matter," observes Stanley Kutler [http://www.law.wisc.edu/profiles/sikutler@wisc.edu of the University of Wisconsin Law School]. "[T]o [http://writ.lp.findlaw.com/books/reviews/20040806_kutler.html all but the truest of believers], 'Ales' could only be Alger Hiss." The Soviet agent "Ales" is assumed by "[http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/hiss/hissvenona.html most scholars] to be Alger Hiss," agrees Douglas O. Linder [http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTrials/linder.htm of the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law]. "For the [http://microformguides.gale.com/Data/Download/9100000C.rtf majority of scholars], the critical ALES transmission puts to rest any doubt about Hiss’s complicity in the Soviet underground," concurs R. Bruce Craig, a [http://www.upei.ca/history/bcraig specialist in Cold War history] and [http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/116899.html author of a forthcoming Hiss biography].

Even [http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-plank/reagan-appointee-and-recent-mccain-adviser-charles-fried-supports-obama Obama supporter] Charles Fried, a professor at Hiss's ''alma mater'', Harvard Law School (and former Justice of the court that granted Hiss's petition for readmittance to the Massachusetts Bar), writes, "it is now clear to [http://www.amacad.org/publications/bulletin/winter2006/Winter2006Bulletin.pdf all but the most obdurate] that Alger Hiss was a Soviet agent." "Since the publication in 1978 of Allen Weinstein’s definitive ''Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case'', only partisans of the far left have continued to insist that Alger Hiss was innocent,"<ref>Ronald Radosh, "[http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/guilty-man_634890.html Guilty Man: Posterity ponders the Hiss case]," ''The Weekly Standard'', Vol. 17, No. 29 (April 9, 2012)</ref> writes Ronald Radosh, [http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-radosh17-2008sep17,0,864776.story emeritus professor of history at City University of New York], a former leader of the Communist Party youth group.<ref>Radosh was leader of the Madison, Wisconsin, chapter of the Labor Youth League, as the Young Communist League was then known. Ronald Radosh, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=NgGsGwB74WkC Commies: a journey through the old left, the new left and the leftover left]'' (Encounter Books, 2001) ISBN 1893554058, pp. 68-82</ref> Historians John Earl Haynes [http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/10012/haynes.html of the Library of Congress] and Harvey Klehr [http://polisci.emory.edu/faculty%20pages/klehr.htm of Emory University] sum up:

"Since the publication in 1978 of Allen Weinstein’s definitive ''Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case'', only partisans of the far left have continued to insist that Alger Hiss was innocent,"<ref>Ronald Radosh, "[http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/guilty-man_634890.html Guilty Man: Posterity ponders the Hiss case]," ''The Weekly Standard'', Vol. 17, No. 29 (April 9, 2012)</ref> writes Ronald Radosh, [http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-radosh17-2008sep17,0,864776.story emeritus professor of history at City University of New York], a former leader of the Communist Party youth group.<ref>Radosh was leader of the Madison, Wisconsin, chapter of the Labor Youth League, as the Young Communist League was then known. Ronald Radosh, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=NgGsGwB74WkC Commies: a journey through the old left, the new left and the leftover left]'' (Encounter Books, 2001) ISBN 1893554058, pp. 68-82</ref> Historians John Earl Haynes [http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/10012/haynes.html of the Library of Congress] and Harvey Klehr [http://polisci.emory.edu/faculty%20pages/klehr.htm of Emory University] sum up:

{{cquote|Any reasonable person will conclude that the new documentation of Hiss’s assistance to Soviet espionage, along with the massive weight of prior accumulated evidence, closes the case. Given the fervour exhibited by his loyalists, it is unlikely that anything will convince the remaining diehards. But to serious students of history, continued claims for Hiss’s innocence are akin to a terminal form of [http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/article6731654.ece ideological blindness].}}

{{cquote|Any reasonable person will conclude that the new documentation of Hiss’s assistance to Soviet espionage, along with the massive weight of prior accumulated evidence, closes the case. Given the fervour exhibited by his loyalists, it is unlikely that anything will convince the remaining diehards. But to serious students of history, continued claims for Hiss’s innocence are akin to a terminal form of [http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/article6731654.ece ideological blindness].}}

Robert J. Goldstein, [http://catalog.oakland.edu/preview_entity.php?catoid=11&ent_oid=231&returnto=494 professor emeritus of Political Science at Michigan's Oakland University], admits that his "political views" are "at odds with" Klehr's, but concedes that Klehr and Haynes "quite reasonably" conclude that Hiss was "[http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/91718.html unquestionably]" an espionage agent. The Hiss case "is a controversy that should have died 30 years ago and hasn't only because of the efforts of [http://hnn.us/articles/106101.html a small, vocal group] that is absolutely convinced that Hiss was an innocent victim," agrees Steven T. Usdin, author of Yale University Press' ''Engineering Communism''. "No amount of documentation, including the fact that documents Vassiliev copied unambiguously identify him as a Soviet agent, can persuade these true believers otherwise." [http://www.bu.edu/ir/faculty/bacevich.html Boston University professor] Andrew J. Bacevich concurs, "Diehards will still contend that Hiss was innocent." But, he adds:

Robert J. Goldstein, [http://catalog.oakland.edu/preview_entity.php?catoid=11&ent_oid=231&returnto=494 professor emeritus of Political Science at Michigan's Oakland University], admits that his "political views" are "at odds with" Klehr's, but concedes that Klehr and Haynes "quite reasonably" conclude that Hiss was "[http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/91718.html unquestionably]" an espionage agent. The Hiss case "is a controversy that should have died 30 years ago and hasn't only because of the efforts of [http://hnn.us/articles/106101.html a small, vocal group] that is absolutely convinced that Hiss was an innocent victim," agrees Steven T. Usdin, author of Yale University Press' ''Engineering Communism''. "No amount of documentation, including the fact that documents Vassiliev copied unambiguously identify him as a Soviet agent, can persuade these true believers otherwise." [http://www.bu.edu/ir/faculty/bacevich.html Boston University professor] Andrew J. Bacevich concurs, "Diehards will still contend that Hiss was innocent." But, he adds: