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→Scholarly consensus: mv Schrecker, Isserman
"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''.
Yeshiva University Professor Ellen Schrecker [http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~hpcws/comment16.htm defends American Communist spies] as demurring from "[http://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/28/magazine/cold-war-without-end.html?sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all traditional forms of patriotism]"<ref>Ellen Schrecker, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=gaZrQgAACAAJ Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America]'' (Boston: Little, Brown, 1998), p. 188</ref> (though critics object that their patriotism was entirely traditional—toward the Soviet Union);<ref>The Rosenbergs, for example, were "loyal unto death [http://www.reason.com/news/show/29095.html to the Soviet Union]."</ref> but even she concedes, "There is now [http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~hpcws/comment15.htm too much evidence from too many different sources] for anyone but the most die-hard loyalists to argue convincingly for the innocence of Hiss." Hiss is "among those whose long-suspected involvement in such Soviet espionage seems to be [http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/05/09/reviews/990509.09issermt.html confirmed by the Venona cables]," writes Hamilton College history professor Maurice Isserman, probably the best regarded of the left-wing scholars of Communism. "Let's face it," concludes Isserman, "[http://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/28/magazine/cold-war-without-end.html?pagewanted=all the debate just ended]."
"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:
{{cquote|At some point, the accumulation of evidence permits us to dismiss such people [http://www.firstthings.com/article/2007/01/venona-decoding-soviet-espionage-in-america-and-the-haunted-wood-soviet-espionage-in-america-the-stalin-era-30 as crackpots]. We are now well past that point with regard to the most controversial spy cases of the 1940s and 1950s."}}
{{cquote|At some point, the accumulation of evidence permits us to dismiss such people [http://www.firstthings.com/article/2007/01/venona-decoding-soviet-espionage-in-america-and-the-haunted-wood-soviet-espionage-in-america-the-stalin-era-30 as crackpots]. We are now well past that point with regard to the most controversial spy cases of the 1940s and 1950s."}}