Changes

[[Image:Hiss2.png|thumb|300px|right|Alger Hiss.<br>''Photo courtesy U.S. Bureau of Prisons'']]

[[Image:Hiss2.png|thumb|300px|right|Alger Hiss.<br>''Photo courtesy U.S. Bureau of Prisons'']]

'''Alger Hiss''' (November 11, 1904 &ndash; November 15, 1996) was a high-ranking [[U.S. State Department]] official<ref>"Alger Hiss, a former [https://www.archives.gov/press/press-releases/2000/nr00-02.html high-ranking State Department official]"; and "[[#refBogdanor08|one of America's leading diplomats]]..."</ref> and Secretary-General of the [[United Nations]] founding conference.<ref>"The Secretary-General of the Conference was Alger Hiss... Secretary-General: Alger Hiss" [[#refUN46|UN 1946-47]]: 14, 48 (PDF 15, 49)</ref> He was [[#refHissAppellate|convicted of perjury]] in 1950 after [[#refBentleyGJ|denying involvement]] in [[USSR|Soviet]] [[espionage]]. Hiss partisans and many on the [[ideological]] [[left]] for many years hotly disputed the jury’s verdict in the case,<ref>Francis P. Sempa, "[http://www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/archives_roll/2001_07-09/sempa_chambers/sempa_chambers.html Whittaker Chambers: A Centenary Reflection]," ''American Diplomacy'', July 2001. Hiss portrayed himself as a "liberal" rather than a communist, referring to "[http://homepages.nyu.edu/~th15/liberalism.html liberals like myself]," writing that he had acquired a "liberal outlook" as a student, which was "strengthened and given focus at the Harvard Law School"; his work for Justice Holmes "increased my liberal convictions"; etc. He also had "[[#refBogdanor08|strong ties]] to the [http://encyclopedia.farlex.com/Alger+Hiss Democratic Party]." Thus for decades, many [[liberals]] and [[Democratic Party|Democrats]] portrayed Hiss as an [http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/HistoryAmerican/Since1945/?view=usa&ci=9780195182552 innocent victim of McCarthyism], the victim of an [http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/terrorists_spies/spies/hiss/11.html elaborate frame-up], railroaded by [http://homepages.nyu.edu/~th15/history.html the demagoguery] of [[Richard Nixon]] and the [[House Committee on Un-American Activities]]. Cf. Tony Judt, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=qjPwuBv-0PUC Reappraisals: Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century]'' (Penguin Group, 2008), ISBN 1594201366, p. 301</ref> putting forward a variety of conspiracy theories.<ref>For an overview of these (mutually-contradictory) conspiracy theories see the appendix, "Conspiracy Theories," in [[#refWeinstein78|Weinstein 1978]].</ref> The '''[[Legacy of Alger Hiss#Scholarly consensus|overwhelming consensus]]''' among historians today is that Hiss was guilty, as confirmed by the unanimous report of the bipartisan Moynihan Commission on Government Secrecy in 1997.<ref>"The complicity of Alger Hiss of the State Department [in Soviet espionage] seems settled." (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]) 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."(Daniel Patrick Moynihan, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=FWq-5a5tqH0C Secrecy: The American Experience]'' [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998] ISBN 0300077564, p. 146)</ref>

'''Alger Hiss''' (November 11, 1904 &ndash; November 15, 1996) was a high-ranking [[U.S. State Department]] official<ref>"Alger Hiss, a former [https://www.archives.gov/press/press-releases/2000/nr00-02.html high-ranking State Department official]"; and "[[#refBogdanor08|one of America's leading diplomats]]..."</ref> and Secretary-General of the [[United Nations]] founding conference.<ref>"The Secretary-General of the Conference was Alger Hiss... Secretary-General: Alger Hiss" [[#refUN46|UN 1946-47]]: 14, 48 (PDF 15, 49)</ref> He was [[#refHissAppellate|convicted of perjury]] in 1950 after [[#refBentleyGJ|denying involvement]] in [[USSR|Soviet]] [[espionage]]. Hiss partisans and many on the [[ideological]] [[left]] for many years hotly disputed the jury’s verdict in the case,<ref>Francis P. Sempa, "[http://www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/archives_roll/2001_07-09/sempa_chambers/sempa_chambers.html [[Whittaker Chambers]]: A Centenary Reflection]," ''American Diplomacy'', July 2001. Hiss portrayed himself as a "liberal" rather than a communist, referring to "[http://homepages.nyu.edu/~th15/liberalism.html liberals like myself]," writing that he had acquired a "liberal outlook" as a student, which was "strengthened and given focus at the Harvard Law School"; his work for Justice Holmes "increased my liberal convictions"; etc. He also had "[[#refBogdanor08|strong ties]] to the [http://encyclopedia.farlex.com/Alger+Hiss Democratic Party]." Thus for decades, many [[liberals]] and [[Democratic Party|Democrats]] portrayed Hiss as an [http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/HistoryAmerican/Since1945/?view=usa&ci=9780195182552 innocent victim of McCarthyism], the victim of an [http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/terrorists_spies/spies/hiss/11.html elaborate frame-up], railroaded by [http://homepages.nyu.edu/~th15/history.html the demagoguery] of [[Richard Nixon]] and the [[House Committee on Un-American Activities]]. Cf. Tony Judt, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=qjPwuBv-0PUC Reappraisals: Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century]'' (Penguin Group, 2008), ISBN 1594201366, p. 301</ref> putting forward a variety of conspiracy theories.<ref>For an overview of these (mutually-contradictory) conspiracy theories see the appendix, "Conspiracy Theories," in [[#refWeinstein78|Weinstein 1978]].</ref> The '''[[Legacy of Alger Hiss#Scholarly consensus|overwhelming consensus]]''' among historians today is that Hiss was guilty, as confirmed by the unanimous report of the bipartisan Moynihan Commission on Government Secrecy in 1997.<ref>"The complicity of Alger Hiss of the State Department [in Soviet espionage] seems settled." (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]) 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."(Daniel Patrick Moynihan, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=FWq-5a5tqH0C Secrecy: The American Experience]'' [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998] ISBN 0300077564, p. 146)</ref>

==Early life==

==Early life==

===Harvard Law School===

===Harvard Law School===

After graduating in 1926, Hiss went on to [[Harvard Law School]], along with [[Noel Field]] and [[Laurence Duggan]]. There he resumed his friendship with boyhood friend [[Henry Collins]] and served on the ''[[Harvard Law Review]]'' with editor [[Lee Pressman]].<ref>[[#refHUAC48|HUAC 1948]]: 643 (PDF 153). Pressman would eventually [[testify]] that he had been a member of the "[[Ware group]]," an underground group of [[Communist]]s in the Federal government. ([[#refHUAC50.2|HUAC 1950, pt. 2]]: 2850 [PDF 16]; cf. [[#refIPR52|S. Rpt. 2050]], Appendix: 5503 [Exhibit No. 1402]); Pressman would also corroborate Chambers' identification of [[Nathan Witt|Witt]], [[John Abt]] and [[Charles Kramer]] as members of this [[Communist]] cell ([[#refChambers52|Chambers 1952]]: 612), and admit under oath that he recognized Chambers. ([[#refGall99|Gall 1999]]: 553)</ref> Hiss became a protégé of [[Felix Frankfurter]], who was at the time the [https://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/flashbks/oj/frankff.htm leading champion] of the [[conviction|convicted]] [[murder]]ers [[Sacco and Vanzetti]],<ref>Felix Frankfurter, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=GiV9cR6277UC The Case of Sacco and Vanzetti: A Critical Analysis for Lawyers and Laymen]'' (Buffalo: Wm. S. Hein & Co., 2003) ISBN 157588805X</ref> [[revolution]]ary [[terrorist]]s who had become a Communist<ref>Stephen Koch, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=YIoFAQAAIAAJ&pgis=1 Double Lives: Stalin, Willi Munzenberg and the Seduction of the Intellectuals]'' (New York: Enigma Books, rev. ed. 2004) ISBN 1929631200, pp. 31-39, 373 n. 23</ref> ''cause célèbre'',<ref>John F. Neville, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=PXn7LbZRK2IC Twentieth-Century Cause Celebre: Sacco, Vanzetti, and the Press, 1920-1927]'' (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004) ISBN 0275977838 p. 101</ref> and whom Alger Hiss would reportedly [http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2278 emulate] (and to whom he would later [https://web.archive.org/web/20120507180857/https://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/1996/11/24/an-american-melodrama.html compare himself]). Explaining how he had become a "militant communist," Hiss's Harvard classmate, fellow State Department official and [[#refFieldUK|Soviet intelligence source]] Noel Field would later write, "The shock of the Sacco-Vanzetti executions drove me leftward."<ref>[[#refWeinstein78|Weinstein 1978]]: 174. N.B. New evidence [http://hnn.us/articles/4527.html suggests] that Sacco and Vanzetti were [https://web.archive.org/web/20090510093435/http://www.cbc.ca/arts/story/2006/01/28/uptonsinclair-boston.html guilty]. [[#refAvrich05|Avrich 2005]]: 133</ref>

After graduating in 1926, Hiss went on to [[Harvard Law School]], along with [[Noel Field]] and [[Laurence Duggan]]. There he resumed his friendship with boyhood friend [[Henry Collins]] and served on the ''[[Harvard Law Review]]'' with editor [[Lee Pressman]].<ref>[[#refHUAC48|HUAC 1948]]: 643 (PDF 153). Pressman would eventually [[testify]] that he had been a member of the "[[Ware group]]," an underground group of [[Communist]]s in the Federal government. ([[#refHUAC50.2|HUAC 1950, pt. 2]]: 2850 [PDF 16]; cf. [[#refIPR52|S. Rpt. 2050]], Appendix: 5503 [Exhibit No. 1402]); Pressman would also corroborate Chambers' identification of [[Nathan Witt|Witt]], [[John Abt]] and [[Charles Kramer]] as members of this [[Communist]] cell ([[#refChambers52|Chambers 1952]]: 612), and admit under oath that he recognized Chambers. ([[#refGall99|Gall 1999]]: 553)</ref> Hiss became a protégé of [[Felix Frankfurter]], who was at the time the [https://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/flashbks/oj/frankff.htm leading champion] of the [[conviction|convicted]] [[murder]]ers [[Sacco and Vanzetti]],<ref>Felix Frankfurter, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=GiV9cR6277UC The Case of Sacco and Vanzetti: A Critical Analysis for Lawyers and Laymen]'' (Buffalo: Wm. S. Hein & Co., 2003) ISBN 157588805X</ref> [[revolution]]ary [[terrorist]]s who had become a Communist<ref>Stephen Koch, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=YIoFAQAAIAAJ&pgis=1 Double Lives: Stalin, Willi Munzenberg and the Seduction of the Intellectuals]'' (New York: Enigma Books, rev. ed. 2004) ISBN 1929631200, pp. 31-39, 373 n. 23</ref> ''cause célèbre'',<ref>John F. Neville, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=PXn7LbZRK2IC Twentieth-Century Cause Celebre: Sacco, Vanzetti, and the Press, 1920-1927]'' (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004) ISBN 0275977838 p. 101</ref> and whom Alger Hiss would reportedly [http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2278 emulate] (and to whom he would later [https://web.archive.org/web/20120507180857/https://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/1996/11/24/an-american-melodrama.html compare himself]). Explaining how he had become a "militant communist," Hiss's Harvard classmate, fellow State Department official and [[#refFieldUK|Soviet intelligence source]] Noel Field would later write, "The shock of the [[Sacco-Vanzetti]] executions drove me leftward."<ref>[[#refWeinstein78|Weinstein 1978]]: 174. N.B. New evidence [http://hnn.us/articles/4527.html suggests] that Sacco and Vanzetti were [https://web.archive.org/web/20090510093435/http://www.cbc.ca/arts/story/2006/01/28/uptonsinclair-boston.html guilty]. [[#refAvrich05|Avrich 2005]]: 133</ref>

==Early career==

==Early career==

[[Image:Woman Child.jpg|thumb|200px|left|Propaganda photograph taken [http://pjmedia.com/eddriscoll/2014/06/01/interview-forgotten-man-graphic-novel/?singlepage=true to justify federal spending] by the Resettlement Administration, brainchild of Rexford Tugwell,<ref>"...the most left-wing member of Roosevelt's brain trust," who "was frank about his admiration for the Soviet planned economy..." Wolfgang Schivelbusch, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=Z3GV5_n1h04C Three New Deals: Reflections on Roosevelt's America, Mussolini's Italy, and Hitler's Germany, 1933-1939]'' (Macmillan, 2006) ISBN 080507452X, p. 31-32</ref> 1936. ''[http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/list/128_migm.html Farm Security Administration Collection], Library of Congress'']]At the peak of [[Stalin]]'s [[Holodomor|Terror Famine]] (which killed some 14 million<ref>[[#refConquest91|Conquest 1991]]: 306</ref> people through [https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/26/AR2008042602039_pf.html collectivization of agriculture]), the AAA [https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/9551/Agricultural-Adjustment-Administration curtailed U.S. farm production] in order to [http://econbrowser.com/archives/2007/01/the_new_deal_an drive up food prices]—at a time when (according to FDR) one in three Americans was already "[http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5105/ ill-nourished]."<ref>“During the Great Depression of the 1930s, agricultural price support programs led to vast amounts of food being deliberately destroyed at a time when malnutrition was a serious problem in the United States.... For example, the federal government bought 6 million hogs in 1933 alone and destroyed them. Huge amounts of farm produce were plowed under, in order to keep it off the market and maintain prices at the officially fixed level, and vast amounts of milk were poured down the sewers for the same reason. Meanwhile, many American children were suffering from diseases caused by malnutrition.” (Thomas Sowell, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=gbfTLG_HmGEC Basic Economics]'' [New York: Basic Books, 2007] 3rd Ed., ISBN 0465002609, p. 56) As Gene Smiley, emeritus professor of economics at Marquette University, writes in ''[http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/GreatDepression.html The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics]'': "Reduced production, of course, is what happens in depressions, and it never made sense to try to get the country out of depression by reducing production further. In its zeal, the administration apparently did not consider the elementary impossibility of raising all real wage rates and all real prices."

[[Image:Woman Child.jpg|thumb|200px|left|Propaganda photograph taken [http://pjmedia.com/eddriscoll/2014/06/01/interview-forgotten-man-graphic-novel/?singlepage=true to justify federal spending] by the Resettlement Administration, brainchild of Rexford Tugwell,<ref>"...the most left-wing member of Roosevelt's brain trust," who "was frank about his admiration for the Soviet planned economy..." Wolfgang Schivelbusch, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=Z3GV5_n1h04C Three New Deals: Reflections on Roosevelt's America, Mussolini's Italy, and Hitler's Germany, 1933-1939]'' (Macmillan, 2006) ISBN 080507452X, p. 31-32</ref> 1936. ''[http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/list/128_migm.html Farm Security Administration Collection], Library of Congress'']]At the peak of [[Stalin]]'s [[Holodomor|Terror Famine]] (which killed some 14 million<ref>[[#refConquest91|Conquest 1991]]: 306</ref> people through [https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/26/AR2008042602039_pf.html collectivization of agriculture]), the AAA [https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/9551/Agricultural-Adjustment-Administration curtailed U.S. farm production] in order to [http://econbrowser.com/archives/2007/01/the_new_deal_an drive up food prices]—at a time when (according to FDR) one in three Americans was already "[http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5105/ ill-nourished]."<ref>“During the Great Depression of the 1930s, agricultural price support programs led to vast amounts of food being deliberately destroyed at a time when malnutrition was a serious problem in the United States.... For example, the federal government bought 6 million hogs in 1933 alone and destroyed them. Huge amounts of farm produce were plowed under, in order to keep it off the market and maintain prices at the officially fixed level, and vast amounts of milk were poured down the sewers for the same reason. Meanwhile, many American children were suffering from diseases caused by malnutrition.” (Thomas Sowell, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=gbfTLG_HmGEC Basic Economics]'' [New York: Basic Books, 2007] 3rd Ed., ISBN 0465002609, p. 56) As Gene Smiley, emeritus professor of economics at Marquette University, writes in ''[http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/GreatDepression.html The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics]'': "Reduced production, of course, is what happens in depressions, and it never made sense to try to get the country out of depression by reducing production further. In its zeal, the administration apparently did not consider the elementary impossibility of raising all real wage rates and all real prices."

"In two separate studies of the plight of southern tenant farmers in the 1930s, the historians David Eugene Conrad and Donald H. Grubbs have blamed not the banks but the agricultural policies of the New Deal itself. In the early 1930s, some sixty percent of farms in Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Texas were operated by tenants. However, during the Depression they found themselves victims of Franklin Roosevelt’s 1933 Agricultural Adjustment Act, which required landlords to reduce their cotton acreage. Fortified by AAA subsidies, the landlords evicted their tenants and consolidated their holdings. It was [https://web.archive.org/web/20021112222619/http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/20/jun02/steinbeck.htm government handouts, not bank demands, that led these landlords to buy tractors and decrease their reliance on tenant families]." "[https://web.archive.org/web/20080227033237/http://www.economics.hawaii.edu/research/seminars/02-03/02-21.pdf One] [http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/421169 study] found that such [[New Deal]] policies prolonged the [[Great Depression]] by about [http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/FDR-s-Policies-Prolonged-Depression-5409.aspx seven years].</ref>

"In two separate studies of the plight of southern tenant farmers in the 1930s, the historians David Eugene Conrad and Donald H. Grubbs have blamed not the banks but the agricultural policies of the New Deal itself. In the early 1930s, some sixty percent of farms in Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Texas were operated by tenants. However, during the [[Depression]] they found themselves victims of Franklin Roosevelt’s 1933 Agricultural Adjustment Act, which required landlords to reduce their cotton acreage. Fortified by AAA subsidies, the landlords evicted their tenants and consolidated their holdings. It was [https://web.archive.org/web/20021112222619/http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/20/jun02/steinbeck.htm government handouts, not bank demands, that led these landlords to buy tractors and decrease their reliance on tenant families]." "[https://web.archive.org/web/20080227033237/http://www.economics.hawaii.edu/research/seminars/02-03/02-21.pdf One] [http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/421169 study] found that such [[New Deal]] policies prolonged the [[Great Depression]] by about [http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/FDR-s-Policies-Prolonged-Depression-5409.aspx seven years].</ref>

In response to a query about candidates for employment at AAA, [[Lee Pressman|Pressman]] wrote, "I have talked to Alger Hiss and [fellow IJA member]<ref>Martin Dies, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=bIVCVinv63AC The Trojan horse in America]'' (Ayer Publishing, 1977) ISBN 0405099452, p. 92</ref> [[Nathan Witt|Nat Witt]] who are considering" taking posts at AAA. Hiss would later deny under oath that he had discussed the position with Pressman,<ref>[[#refWeinstein78|Weinstein 1978]]: 133</ref> but he soon got a position as assistant general counsel to the AAA. There he met [[#refBC07|the Communist]]<ref>[[#refHK06|Haynes, Klehr 2006]]: 94</ref> [[Harold Ware]],<ref>[[#refHUAC48|HUAC 1948]]: 652 (PDF 162)</ref> son of [http://asteria.fivecolleges.edu/findaids/sophiasmith/mnsss8_bioghist.html American Communist Party founder] [[Ella Reeve Bloor|"Mother" Bloor]]. Ware had recently returned from several years in the [[Soviet Union]], where he had been instrumental in the organization of [http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/archives/ukra.html collective farms].<ref>James C. Scott, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=PqcPCgsr2u0C Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition have Failed]'' (Yale University Press, 1998) ISBN 0300078153, pp. 200-201. [[Harold Ware|Ware]] reportedly "tricked" [[USSR|Soviet]] peasants into collective farms. (Deborah Kay Fitzgerald, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=nQMNb6nGmPsC Every Farm a Factory: The Industrial Ideal in American Agriculture]'' [New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003] ISBN 0300088132, p. 161). "As the Soviet archives reveal, the experiment was a dystopian nightmare. Ware and [[Jessica Smith|Smith]] lured a group of unenthusiastic peasants into their grasp and proceeded to abuse them in a [http://www.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=14209 brutal fashion]." (C.f. Sean McMeekin, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=uvDBIpHZAE8C The Red Millionaire: A Political Biography of Willi Münzenberg, Moscow's Secret Propaganda Tsar in the West]'' [Yale University Press, 2003] ISBN 0300130090, pp. 130-141) For this Ware received a [http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/oct/20b.htm commendation from Lenin], praise repeated by [[Stalin]] (J.V. Stalin, ''[http://www.marx2mao.com/PDFs/StWorks11.pdf Works, Vol. 11: 1928-March 1929]'' [Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1954], pp. 195-196.) Back in the U.S., he founded the [[#refBerle|Communist-front]] Farm Research Incorporated, which published ''[[Facts for Farmers]]'',  a [[List of Communist publications|communist publication]] intended to influence decision makers in the Agricultural Department. [[#refTanenhaus97|Tanenhaus 1997]]: 92-93</ref> Ware recruited Hiss<ref>[[#refWhite04|White 2004]]: 30</ref> into a secret Communist Party cell within AAA<ref>[[#refHUAC50.2|HUAC 1950, pt. 2]]: 2850 (PDF 16)</ref> known as the [[Ware group]].<ref>Harvey Klehr, John Earl Haynes and Fridrikh Igorevich Firsov, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=MBHSY0bCFWoC The Secret World of American Communism]'' (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996) ISBN 0300068557, p. 96</ref>

In response to a query about candidates for employment at AAA, [[Lee Pressman|Pressman]] wrote, "I have talked to Alger Hiss and [fellow IJA member]<ref>Martin Dies, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=bIVCVinv63AC The Trojan horse in America]'' (Ayer Publishing, 1977) ISBN 0405099452, p. 92</ref> [[Nathan Witt|Nat Witt]] who are considering" taking posts at AAA. Hiss would later deny under oath that he had discussed the position with Pressman,<ref>[[#refWeinstein78|Weinstein 1978]]: 133</ref> but he soon got a position as assistant general counsel to the AAA. There he met [[#refBC07|the Communist]]<ref>[[#refHK06|Haynes, Klehr 2006]]: 94</ref> [[Harold Ware]],<ref>[[#refHUAC48|HUAC 1948]]: 652 (PDF 162)</ref> son of [http://asteria.fivecolleges.edu/findaids/sophiasmith/mnsss8_bioghist.html American Communist Party founder] [[Ella Reeve Bloor|"Mother" Bloor]]. Ware had recently returned from several years in the [[Soviet Union]], where he had been instrumental in the organization of [http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/archives/ukra.html collective farms].<ref>James C. Scott, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=PqcPCgsr2u0C Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition have Failed]'' (Yale University Press, 1998) ISBN 0300078153, pp. 200-201. [[Harold Ware|Ware]] reportedly "tricked" [[USSR|Soviet]] peasants into collective farms. (Deborah Kay Fitzgerald, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=nQMNb6nGmPsC Every Farm a Factory: The Industrial Ideal in American Agriculture]'' [New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003] ISBN 0300088132, p. 161). "As the Soviet archives reveal, the experiment was a dystopian nightmare. Ware and [[Jessica Smith|Smith]] lured a group of unenthusiastic peasants into their grasp and proceeded to abuse them in a [http://www.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=14209 brutal fashion]." (C.f. Sean McMeekin, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=uvDBIpHZAE8C The Red Millionaire: A Political Biography of Willi Münzenberg, Moscow's Secret Propaganda Tsar in the West]'' [Yale University Press, 2003] ISBN 0300130090, pp. 130-141) For this Ware received a [http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/oct/20b.htm commendation from Lenin], praise repeated by [[Stalin]] (J.V. Stalin, ''[http://www.marx2mao.com/PDFs/StWorks11.pdf Works, Vol. 11: 1928-March 1929]'' [Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1954], pp. 195-196.) Back in the U.S., he founded the [[#refBerle|Communist-front]] Farm Research Incorporated, which published ''[[Facts for Farmers]]'',  a [[List of Communist publications|communist publication]] intended to influence decision makers in the Agricultural Department. [[#refTanenhaus97|Tanenhaus 1997]]: 92-93</ref> Ware recruited Hiss<ref>[[#refWhite04|White 2004]]: 30</ref> into a secret Communist Party cell within AAA<ref>[[#refHUAC50.2|HUAC 1950, pt. 2]]: 2850 (PDF 16)</ref> known as the [[Ware group]].<ref>Harvey Klehr, John Earl Haynes and Fridrikh Igorevich Firsov, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=MBHSY0bCFWoC The Secret World of American Communism]'' (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996) ISBN 0300068557, p. 96</ref>

...

...

Mr. Hebert. ...Now, why do you refuse to say whether you know Alger Hiss or not?...

Mr. Hebert. ...Now, why do you refuse to say whether you know Alger Hiss or not?...

Mr. Collins. I refuse to answer that question, sir, on the grounds that my answer might tend to incriminate me. [[#refHUAC48|HUAC 1948]]: 802-810 (PDF 312-320)</ref> but another AAA official, [[Nathaniel Weyl]], would later testify that he attended [[#refGuttenplan09|Communist cell meetings with Hiss]]<ref>Mr. COHN. Did you know Alger Hiss to be a member of the Communist party?

Mr. Collins. I refuse to answer that question, sir, on the grounds that my answer might tend to incriminate me. [[#refHUAC48|HUAC 1948]]: 802-810 (PDF 312-320)</ref> but another AAA official, [[Nathaniel Weyl]], would later testify that he attended [[#refGuttenplan09|Communist cell meetings with Hiss]]<ref>Mr. COHN. Did you know Alger Hiss to be a member of the [[Communist party]]?

Mr. WEYL. Yes, I did.

Mr. WEYL. Yes, I did.

Mr. COHN. Were you in the same Communist cell with Alger Hiss at one time?

Mr. COHN. Were you in the same Communist cell with Alger Hiss at one time?