Changes

===U.S. Government===

===U.S. Government===

Twenty years after Weinstein's book was published, the bipartisan [[Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy|Moynihan commission]] (which had access to previously-classified [[Venona project|Venona]] decrypts unavailable to Weinstein) went further&mdash;not just on perjury, but on espionage&mdash;the commission's unanimous [http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/commissions/secrecy/ Final Report] finding, "The complicity of Alger Hiss of the State Department seems settled," adding that the [[USSR|Soviet]] agent "Ales" (pronounced "Alles") "could only be Alger Hiss."<ref>Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy, ''Secrecy'' (Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1997), [http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/commissions/secrecy/pdf/12hist1.pdf Appendix A - Secrecy: A Brief Account of the American Experience], pp. A-37, A-34 (PDF pp. 39, 36)</ref> The commission's chairman, Senator [[Daniel Patrick Moynihan]], a [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9907E5DC103EF930A15751C0A961958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all liberal Democrat], wrote, "Hiss was indeed a [[USSR|Soviet]] agent and appears to have been regarded by [[Moscow]] as its most important."<ref>Daniel Patrick Moynihan, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=FWq-5a5tqH0C Secrecy: The American Experience]'' (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998) ISBN 0300077564, p. 146</ref> "Alger Hiss was eventually convicted of perjury rather than espionage," concurs Michael J. Sulick, former chief of CIA counterintelligence and former director of the National Clandestine Service, "but the declassified VENONA decrypts and documents from the Soviet archives eventually proved without a doubt that Hiss had been a spy."<ref>Michael J. Sulick, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=tUsUAAAAQBAJ Spying In America: Espionage from the Revolutionary War to the Dawn of the Cold War]'' (Georgetown University Press, 2012), ISBN 162616066X, p. 167</ref> A comprehensive [[Department of Defense]] review concludes that Hiss was among the "well-placed Americans" who "gradually drifted into service as Soviet agents," thus beginning "careers as spies for the Soviets."<ref>Katherine L. Herbig and Martin F. Wiskoff, "[http://www.dhra.mil/perserec/reports/tr02-05.pdf Espionage Against the United States by American Citizens]," Defense Personnel Security Research Center (PERSEREC) Technical Report 02-5 (July 2002), p. 4 (PDF p. 25)</ref>

Twenty years after Weinstein's book was published, the bipartisan [[Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy|Moynihan commission]] (which had access to previously-classified [[Venona project|Venona]] decrypts unavailable to Weinstein) went further&mdash;not just on perjury, but on espionage&mdash;the commission's unanimous [http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/commissions/secrecy/ Final Report] finding, "The complicity of Alger Hiss of the State Department [in Soviet espionage] seems settled."<ref>Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy, ''Secrecy'' (Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1997), [http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/commissions/secrecy/pdf/12hist1.pdf Appendix A - Secrecy: A Brief Account of the American Experience], p. A-37 (PDF p. 39)</ref> The commission's chairman, Senator [[Daniel Patrick Moynihan]], a [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9907E5DC103EF930A15751C0A961958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all liberal Democrat], wrote, "Hiss was indeed a [[USSR|Soviet]] agent and appears to have been regarded by [[Moscow]] as its most important."<ref>Daniel Patrick Moynihan, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=FWq-5a5tqH0C Secrecy: The American Experience]'' (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998) ISBN 0300077564, p. 146</ref> "Alger Hiss was eventually convicted of perjury rather than espionage," concurs Michael J. Sulick, former chief of CIA counterintelligence and former director of the National Clandestine Service, "but the declassified VENONA decrypts and documents from the Soviet archives eventually proved without a doubt that Hiss had been a spy."<ref>Michael J. Sulick, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=tUsUAAAAQBAJ Spying In America: Espionage from the Revolutionary War to the Dawn of the Cold War]'' (Georgetown University Press, 2012), ISBN 162616066X, p. 167</ref> A comprehensive [[Department of Defense]] review concludes that Hiss was among the "well-placed Americans" who "gradually drifted into service as Soviet agents," thus beginning "careers as spies for the Soviets."<ref>Katherine L. Herbig and Martin F. Wiskoff, "[http://www.dhra.mil/perserec/reports/tr02-05.pdf Espionage Against the United States by American Citizens]," Defense Personnel Security Research Center (PERSEREC) Technical Report 02-5 (July 2002), p. 4 (PDF p. 25)</ref>

Regarding "Ales," the FBI reported, "It would appear likely that this individual is Alger Hiss..."<ref>FBI memo: Belmont to Ladd, May 15, 1950 ([http://education-research.org/PDFs/VENONA.pdf FBI file: Venona]), p. 8 (PDF p. 11); Herbert Romerstein and Eric Breindel, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=mVpWH51F7toC The Venona Secrets: Exposing Soviet Espionage and America's Traitors]'' (Washington: Regnery Publishing, 2001) ISBN 0895262258, p. 137</ref> "Venona cables confirmed that Alger Hiss (Ales) of the State Department was a GRU agent," agrees [http://intellit.muskingum.edu/alpha_folder/p_folder/peake.html Hayden Peake], curator of the [[CIA]]’s [https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/historical-intelligence-collection.html Historical Intelligence Collection].<ref>Hayden B. Peake, "[http://web.archive.org/web/20061212003123/http://www.nwc.navy.mil/press/Review/2000/summer/re2-Su0.htm The Venona Progeny]," ''Naval War College Review'', Vol. 53, no. 3 (Summer 2000) (Archive)</ref> Analysts at the [[National Security Agency]] have also gone on record that [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/venona/dece_hiss.html Ales could only have been Alger Hiss]. John R. Schindler, professor of strategy at the Naval War College and himself a former NSA analyst, agrees, calling this identification "[http://www.johnearlhaynes.org/page61.html exceptionally solid]" and the evidence "compelling." The [http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=vx&list=H-War&month=0906&week=b&msg=aCgDqWbKqMTj/XUkqzkSAw&user=&pw= late] [[U.S. Air Force]] historian [http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=vx&list=H-Diplo&month=0906&week=b&msg=nGh672LlDx94PGFwC3UDMw&user=&pw= Eduard Mark] called this conclusion "eminently reasonable," concurring that the evidence showed that "ALES was ''very probably'' Hiss."<ref>Eduard Mark, "[http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a714040012 Who was 'Venona's' 'Ales'? Cryptanalysis and the Hiss Case]," ''Intelligence and National Security'' Vol. 18 Issue 3 (Autumn 2003), pp. 54–55, 57–88, 62, 64 (italics in original)</ref> [https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol46no4/article09.html#author1 John Ehrman] of the [[CIA]]'s [https://www.cia.gov/offices-of-cia/intelligence-analysis/index.html Directorate of Intelligence] concludes, "it is clear that [https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol51no4/pdf-files/Ehrman_Alger_Hiss_Again-Web%20(U).pdf Hiss alone remains the best candidate to be ALES]."

The Moynihan commission added that the [[USSR|Soviet]] agent "Ales" (pronounced "Alles") "could only be Alger Hiss."<ref>Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy, ''Secrecy'' (Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1997), [http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/commissions/secrecy/pdf/12hist1.pdf Appendix A - Secrecy: A Brief Account of the American Experience], p. A-34 (PDF p. 36)</ref> The FBI had come to the same conclusion 47 years earlier: "It would appear likely that this individual [Ales] is Alger Hiss..."<ref>FBI memo: Belmont to Ladd, May 15, 1950 ([http://education-research.org/PDFs/VENONA.pdf FBI file: Venona]), p. 8 (PDF p. 11); Herbert Romerstein and Eric Breindel, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=mVpWH51F7toC The Venona Secrets: Exposing Soviet Espionage and America's Traitors]'' (Washington: Regnery Publishing, 2001) ISBN 0895262258, p. 137</ref> "Venona cables confirmed that Alger Hiss (Ales) of the State Department was a GRU agent," agrees [http://intellit.muskingum.edu/alpha_folder/p_folder/peake.html Hayden Peake], curator of the [[CIA]]’s [https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/historical-intelligence-collection.html Historical Intelligence Collection].<ref>Hayden B. Peake, "[http://web.archive.org/web/20061212003123/http://www.nwc.navy.mil/press/Review/2000/summer/re2-Su0.htm The Venona Progeny]," ''Naval War College Review'', Vol. 53, no. 3 (Summer 2000) (Archive)</ref> Analysts at the [[National Security Agency]] have also gone on record that [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/venona/dece_hiss.html Ales could only have been Alger Hiss]. John R. Schindler, professor of strategy at the Naval War College and himself a former NSA analyst, agrees, calling this identification "[http://www.johnearlhaynes.org/page61.html exceptionally solid]" and the evidence "compelling." The [http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=vx&list=H-War&month=0906&week=b&msg=aCgDqWbKqMTj/XUkqzkSAw&user=&pw= late] [[U.S. Air Force]] historian [http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=vx&list=H-Diplo&month=0906&week=b&msg=nGh672LlDx94PGFwC3UDMw&user=&pw= Eduard Mark] called this conclusion "eminently reasonable," concurring that the evidence showed that "ALES was ''very probably'' Hiss."<ref>Eduard Mark, "[http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a714040012 Who was 'Venona's' 'Ales'? Cryptanalysis and the Hiss Case]," ''Intelligence and National Security'' Vol. 18 Issue 3 (Autumn 2003), pp. 54–55, 57–88, 62, 64 (italics in original)</ref> [https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol46no4/article09.html#author1 John Ehrman] of the [[CIA]]'s [https://www.cia.gov/offices-of-cia/intelligence-analysis/index.html Directorate of Intelligence] concludes, "it is clear that [https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol51no4/pdf-files/Ehrman_Alger_Hiss_Again-Web%20(U).pdf Hiss alone remains the best candidate to be ALES]."

===Academic opinions===

===Academic opinions===