Changes

==Early life==

==Early life==

Alger Hiss was born in Baltimore, Maryland, November 11, 1904,<ref>[http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/hiss/8-5testimony.html Testimony of Alger Hiss before the House Committee on Un-American Activities] (August 5, 1948)</ref> to a financially comfortable upper-middle-class Presbyterian family.<ref>Denise Noe, "[http://www.crimelibrary.com/terrorists_spies/spies/hiss/ The Alger Hiss Case]," TruTV Crime Library</ref> When Alger was two years old, his father, an executive with a dry goods firm,<ref>Janny Scott, "[http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/09/reviews/hiss-obit.html Alger Hiss, 92, Central Figure in Long-Running Cold War Controversy]," ''New York Times'', November 16, 1996</ref> committed suicide by slashing his throat with his own razor.<ref>Lance Morrow, "[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,985608,00.html Fred Astaire Meets the Sad-Sack Dostoevskian Pudge]," ''Time'', November 25, 1996</ref> When Alger was 25, his sister Mary Ann also committed suicide, by drinking a bottle of Lysol.<ref>G. Edward White, ''Alger Hiss's Looking-glass Wars: The Covert Life of a Soviet Spy'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) ISBN 0195182553, p. 5</ref> Hiss’s older brother Bosley had died two and a half years before from Bright’s disease, a kidney disorder aggravated by his excessive alcohol consumption.<ref>Denise Noe, "[http://www.crimelibrary.com/terrorists_spies/spies/hiss/ The Alger Hiss Case]," TruTV Crime Library</ref>

Alger Hiss was born in Baltimore, Maryland, November 11, 1904,<ref>[http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/hiss/8-5testimony.html Testimony of Alger Hiss before the House Committee on Un-American Activities] (August 5, 1948)</ref> to a financially comfortable upper-middle-class<ref>Denise Noe, "[http://www.crimelibrary.com/terrorists_spies/spies/hiss/ The Alger Hiss Case]," TruTV Crime Library</ref> WASP family.<ref>Murray Friedman, ''The Neoconservative Revolution: Jewish Intellectuals and the Shaping of Public Policy'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006) ISBN 0521836565), p. 62</ref> When Alger was two years old, his father, an executive with a dry goods firm,<ref>Janny Scott, "[http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/09/reviews/hiss-obit.html Alger Hiss, 92, Central Figure in Long-Running Cold War Controversy]," ''New York Times'', November 16, 1996</ref> committed suicide by slashing his throat with his own razor.<ref>Lance Morrow, "[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,985608,00.html Fred Astaire Meets the Sad-Sack Dostoevskian Pudge]," ''Time'', November 25, 1996</ref> When Alger was 25, his sister Mary Ann also committed suicide, by drinking a bottle of Lysol.<ref>G. Edward White, ''Alger Hiss's Looking-glass Wars: The Covert Life of a Soviet Spy'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) ISBN 0195182553, p. 5</ref> Hiss’s older brother Bosley had died two and a half years before from Bright’s disease, a kidney disorder aggravated by his excessive alcohol consumption.<ref>Denise Noe, "[http://www.crimelibrary.com/terrorists_spies/spies/hiss/ The Alger Hiss Case]," TruTV Crime Library</ref>

As a boy, Alger Hiss was friends with [[Henry Collins]].<ref>[http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/hiss/8-5testimony.html Testimony of Alger Hiss before the House Committee on Un-American Activities] (August 5, 1948)</ref> After graduation from Baltimore City College and a year at Powder Point Academy, a private prep school in Duxbury, Massachusetts,<ref>Ivan Chen, "[http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=ivan_chen Alger Hiss, 1926-1929]," p. 3 (PDF p. 4)</ref> Hiss attended Baltimore's Johns Hopkins University.

As a boy, Alger Hiss was friends with [[Henry Collins]].<ref>[http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/hiss/8-5testimony.html Testimony of Alger Hiss before the House Committee on Un-American Activities] (August 5, 1948)</ref> After graduation from Baltimore City College and a year at Powder Point Academy, a private prep school in Duxbury, Massachusetts,<ref>Ivan Chen, "[http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=ivan_chen Alger Hiss, 1926-1929]," p. 3 (PDF p. 4)</ref> Hiss attended Baltimore's Johns Hopkins University.

As an undergraduate, Hiss' favorite instructors included the [[Socialist]] [[Broadus Mitchell]]<ref>Alger Hiss, Draft of a Chapter Written By Alger Hiss on the Foundations For His Liberalism (unpublished manuscript, on file with the Harvard Law School Special Collections)</ref> (a former [[Socialist Party]] candidate for Governor of Maryland)<ref>Matthew Richer, "[http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-126505548.html The ongoing campaign of Alger Hiss: the sins of the father]," ''Modern Age'',  Fall, 2004</ref> and [[José Robles]], a committed [[Stalinist]].<ref>Jason Powell, "[http://ehistory.osu.edu/osu/reviews/reviewview.cfm?id=2 Review: ''The Breaking Point: Hemingway, Dos Passos, and the Murder of Jose Robles'']," eHistory (Ohio State University), January 2006</ref> Hiss apparently knew Robles well enough to spend time at his home.<ref>Tony Hiss, ''Laughing Last: Alger Hiss by Tony Hiss'' (Boston: Haughton Mifflin, 1977), ISBN 039524899X, pp. 37-38</ref> Robles would go on to serve in the [[Spanish Civil War]] as interpreter for General [[Jānis Bērziņš]], head of [[GRU|Soviet military intelligence]],<ref>Hugh Thomas, ''The Spanish Civil War'' (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994) ISBN 0671758764, pp. 705-706</ref> but was never seen again<ref>George Packer,  "[http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/10/31/051031crbo_books The Spanish Prisoner]," ''The New Yorker'', October 31, 2005</ref> after Bērziņš was shot in a Stalinist purge in 1938.<ref>David J. Nordlander, "Origins of a Gulag Capital: Magadan and Stalinist Control in the Early 1930s," ''Slavic Review'', Vol. 57, No. 4 (Winter, 1998), pp. 791-812</ref> Hiss would later say he too considered going to Spain to fight for the Soviet-backed Loyalist cause.<ref>John Chabot Smith, ''Alger Hiss: The True Story'' (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1976), ISBN 0030137764, p. 104</ref>

As an undergraduate, Hiss' favorite instructors included the [[Socialist]] [[Broadus Mitchell]]<ref>Alger Hiss, Draft of a Chapter Written By Alger Hiss on the Foundations For His Liberalism (unpublished manuscript, on file with the Harvard Law School Special Collections)</ref> (a former [[Socialist Party]] candidate for Governor of Maryland)<ref>Matthew Richer, "[http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-126505548.html The ongoing campaign of Alger Hiss: the sins of the father]," ''Modern Age'',  Fall, 2004</ref> and [[José Robles]], a committed [[Stalinist]].<ref>Jason Powell, "[http://ehistory.osu.edu/osu/reviews/reviewview.cfm?id=2 Review: ''The Breaking Point: Hemingway, Dos Passos, and the Murder of Jose Robles'']," eHistory (Ohio State University), January 2006</ref> Hiss apparently knew Robles well enough to spend time at his home.<ref>Tony Hiss, ''Laughing Last: Alger Hiss by Tony Hiss'' (Boston: Haughton Mifflin, 1977), ISBN 039524899X, pp. 37-38</ref> Robles would go on to serve in the [[Spanish Civil War]] as interpreter for General [[Jānis Bērziņš]], head of [[GRU|Soviet military intelligence]],<ref>Hugh Thomas, ''The Spanish Civil War'' (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994) ISBN 0671758764, pp. 705-706</ref> but was never seen again<ref>George Packer,  "[http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/10/31/051031crbo_books The Spanish Prisoner]," ''The New Yorker'', October 31, 2005</ref> after Bērziņš was recalled<ref>Roy Aleksandrovich

Shriver) (New York: Columbia University Press, 1989) ISBN 0231063504, p. p428</ref> and shot in a Stalinist purge in 1938.<ref>David J. Nordlander, "Origins of a Gulag Capital: Magadan and Stalinist Control in the Early 1930s," ''Slavic Review'', Vol. 57, No. 4 (Winter, 1998), pp. 791-812</ref> Hiss would later say he too considered going to Spain to fight for the Soviet-backed Loyalist cause.<ref>John Chabot Smith, ''Alger Hiss: The True Story'' (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1976), ISBN 0030137764, p. 104</ref>

After graduating in 1926, Hiss went on to Harvard Law School, where he resumed his friendship with [[Henry Collins]] (who was attending Harvard Business School) and served on the ''Harvard Law Review'' with his classmate [[Lee Pressman]].<ref>[http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/hiss/8-5testimony.html Testimony of Alger Hiss before the House Committee on Un-American Activities] (August 5, 1948)</ref> Hiss became the protégé of one instructor, future Supreme Court Justice [[Felix Frankfurter]]—whom former [[President of the United States]] [[William Howard Taft]], Chief Justice of the [[Supreme Court of the United States]], said "seems to be closely in touch with every [[Bolshevik|Bolshevist]], [[Communist]] movement in this country."<ref>"[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,870087.html Felix Frankfurter]," ''Time'',  September 7, 1962</ref> When Hiss graduated from law school in 1929, Frankfurter got him a job as law clerk to Supreme Court Justice [[Oliver Wendell Holmes]].<ref>"[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,888531,00.html Your Witness, Mr. Murphy]," ''Time,'' July 4, 1949</ref> The same year, Hiss married the former Mrs. Priscilla Fansler Hobson.

After graduating in 1926, Hiss went on to Harvard Law School, where he resumed his friendship with [[Henry Collins]] (who was attending Harvard Business School) and served on the ''Harvard Law Review'' with his classmate [[Lee Pressman]].<ref>[http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/hiss/8-5testimony.html Testimony of Alger Hiss before the House Committee on Un-American Activities] (August 5, 1948)</ref> Hiss became the protégé of one instructor, future Supreme Court Justice [[Felix Frankfurter]]—whom former [[President of the United States]] [[William Howard Taft]], Chief Justice of the [[Supreme Court of the United States]], said "seems to be closely in touch with every [[Bolshevik|Bolshevist]], [[Communist]] movement in this country."<ref>"[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,870087.html Felix Frankfurter]," ''Time'',  September 7, 1962</ref> When Hiss graduated from law school in 1929, Frankfurter got him a job as law clerk to Supreme Court Justice [[Oliver Wendell Holmes]].<ref>"[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,888531,00.html Your Witness, Mr. Murphy]," ''Time,'' July 4, 1949</ref> The same year, Hiss married the former Mrs. Priscilla Fansler Hobson.

Hiss went on to a law firm in Boston, then to another in New York where, by 1930, his wife Priscilla had joined the Morningside Heights branch of the [[Socialist Party]].<ref> G. Edward White, ''Alger Hiss's Looking-glass Wars: The Covert Life of a Soviet Spy'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) ISBN 0195182553, p. 27</ref> By 1932, Priscilla Hiss was an active member of [[American Labor Associates]], and Hiss was becoming "radicalized,"<ref>Douglas Linder, [http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/hiss/hisschronology.html The Trials of Alger Hiss: A Chronology], Famous Trials: The Alger Hiss Trials, 1949-50 (University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, 2003)</ref> joining the [[International Juridical Association]] (IJA), along with his Harvard Law classmate Lee Pressman<ref> G. Edward White, ''Alger Hiss's Looking-glass Wars: The Covert Life of a Soviet Spy'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) ISBN 0195182553, p. 27</ref> and [[Nathan Witt]].<ref>Martin Dies, ''The Trojan Horse in America'' (New York: Arno Press, 1977) ISBN 0405099452, p. 92</ref>

Hiss went on to a law firm in Boston, then to another in New York where, by 1930, his wife Priscilla had joined the Morningside Heights branch of the [[Socialist Party]].<ref> G. Edward White, ''Alger Hiss's Looking-glass Wars: The Covert Life of a Soviet Spy'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) ISBN 0195182553, p. 27</ref> By 1932, Priscilla Hiss was an active member of [[American Labor Associates]], and Hiss was becoming "radicalized,"<ref>Douglas Linder, [http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/hiss/hisschronology.html The Trials of Alger Hiss: A Chronology], Famous Trials: The Alger Hiss Trials, 1949-50 (University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, 2003)</ref> joining the [[International Juridical Association]] (IJA) (which "consistently followed the Communist Party line"<ref>"[http://ia360638.us.archive.org/2/items/reportonnational1950unit/reportonnational1950unit.pdf Report on the National Lawyers Guild, legal bulwark of the Communist Party]," United States Congress. House Committee on Un-American Activities (1950), p. 12</ref>), along with his Harvard Law classmate Lee Pressman<ref> G. Edward White, ''Alger Hiss's Looking-glass Wars: The Covert Life of a Soviet Spy'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) ISBN 0195182553, p. 27</ref> and [[Nathan Witt]].<ref>Martin Dies, ''The Trojan Horse in America'' (New York: Arno Press, 1977) ISBN 0405099452, p. 92</ref>

During this period, Hiss' letters to his wife reflected his increasing radicalism. In 1930, he made a coy reference to the [[International Workers of the World]], writing to Priscilla, "[D]id thee call thyself a Wobbly with an I.W.W. tongue in thy socialistic (I couldn't bring myself to write “Communistic”) cheek." Suggesting that an article questioning the legitimacy of the existing “capitalist order”<ref>Archibald MacLeish, “To the Young Men of Wall Street,” ''Saturday Review'', January 16, 1932</ref> did not go far enough, Hiss wrote to Priscilla in 1932, “Has thee seen Archibald MacLeish's article on capitalism in last week's ''Saturday Review''? Felix [Frankfurter] says it is soft thinking after Wilson.”<ref>Tony Hiss, ''The View From Alger's Window'' (New York: Vintage Books, 2000) ISBN 0375701281, pp. 140-141</ref>

During this period, Hiss' letters to his wife reflected his increasing radicalism. In 1930, he made a coy reference to the [[International Workers of the World]], writing to Priscilla, "[D]id thee call thyself a Wobbly with an I.W.W. tongue in thy socialistic (I couldn't bring myself to write “Communistic”) cheek." Suggesting that an article questioning the legitimacy of the existing “capitalist order”<ref>Archibald MacLeish, “To the Young Men of Wall Street,” ''Saturday Review'', January 16, 1932</ref> did not go far enough, Hiss wrote to Priscilla in 1932, “Has thee seen Archibald MacLeish's article on capitalism in last week's ''Saturday Review''? Felix [Frankfurter] says it is soft thinking after Wilson.”<ref>Tony Hiss, ''The View From Alger's Window'' (New York: Vintage Books, 2000) ISBN 0375701281, pp. 140-141</ref>

==New Deal==

==New Deal==

In 1933, Frankfurter sent Hiss a telegram urging him to join President [[Franklin Delano Roosevelt]]'s [[New Deal]] under Secretary of Agriculture [[Henry A. Wallace]] as an attorney with the new [[Agricultural Adjustment Administration]] (AAA).<ref>Dan Cryer, "[http://www.salon.com/books/feature/1999/06/01/hiss/index.html We're a long way from the end of this]," Salon.com, June 1, 1999</ref> At AAA, Hiss reunited with his boyhood friend [[Henry Collins]], Harvard Law School classmate [[Lee Pressman]] and IJA colleague [[Nathan Witt]], and became acquainted with [[Harold Ware]].<ref>[http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/hiss/8-5testimony.html Testimony of Alger Hiss before the House Committee on Un-American Activities] (August 5, 1948)</ref> Ware would be identified six years later<ref>[http://www.johnearlhaynes.org/page100.html Berle’s Notes on his Meeting with Whittaker Chambers]</ref> as head of an underground apparatus of the [[Communist Party]] by confessed former Soviet courier [[Whittaker Chambers]], who would identify Hiss, Pressman and Witt, among others, as members of the "Ware group,"<ref>"[http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,811892,00.html The Case of Alger Hiss]," ''Time'', February 13, 1950</ref> and name Collins as the group's treasurer.<ref>[http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/hiss/8-3testimony.html Testimony of Whittaker Chambers before the House Committee on Un-American Activities] (August 3, 1948)</ref> Collins would refuse to answer whether he was a member of the Communist Party (citing grounds of potential self-incrimination),<ref>Hearings of the Senate Internal Security subcommittee, October 8, 1957, pp. 1855-56</ref> as would Witt.<ref>"[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,859933,00.html Mr. Smith Went to Washington]," ''Time'', June 1, 1953</ref> Pressman would eventually admit having been a Communist and member of the Ware group, identifying Witt, among others, as a fellow member.<ref>"[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,856648,00.html The Road Back]," ''Time'', September 4, 1950</ref> Rather than taking the [[Fifth Amendment]], Hiss would deny membership, but [[Nathaniel Weyl]], another confessed former member of the Ware group, would testify that he attended secret Communist meetings with Alger Hiss, and saw Hiss pay his party dues.<ref>“[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,890230,00.html Another Witness],” Time, March 3, 1952</ref>

In 1933, Frankfurter sent Hiss a telegram urging him to join President [[Franklin Delano Roosevelt]]'s [[New Deal]] under Secretary of Agriculture [[Henry A. Wallace]] as an attorney with the new [[Agricultural Adjustment Administration]] (AAA).<ref>Dan Cryer, "[http://www.salon.com/books/feature/1999/06/01/hiss/index.html We're a long way from the end of this]," Salon.com, June 1, 1999</ref> At AAA, Hiss reunited with his boyhood friend [[Henry Collins]], Harvard Law School classmate [[Lee Pressman]] and IJA colleague [[Nathan Witt]], and became acquainted with [[Harold Ware]].<ref>[http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/hiss/8-5testimony.html Testimony of Alger Hiss before the House Committee on Un-American Activities] (August 5, 1948)</ref>

In 1934, Hiss was appointed General Counsel for the [[U.S. Senate]] [[Special Committee Investigating the Munitions Industry|Nye committe]],<ref>[http://www.mdhs.org/library/Mss/ms002504.html Biographical Sketch. Alger Hiss Collection, 1934-1979] (Maryland Historical Society)</ref> which investigated charges of "warmongering" and "profiteering" by the munitions industry in World War I.<ref>[http://www.archives.gov/legislative/guide/senate/chapter-18-1921-1946.html#18D-4 Special Committee Investigating the Munitions Industry] (April 12, 1934). Guide to the Records of the U.S. Senate at the National Archives</ref> The following year, Hiss transferred into the [[Justice Department]] as special assistant to the [[Solictor General]], where he tried unsuccessfully to defend the [[Agricultural Adjustment Act]] before the [[United States Supreme Court]]<ref>[http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/hiss/8-5testimony.html Testimony of Alger Hiss before the House Committee on Un-American Activities] (August 5, 1948)</ref> (which ruled the AAA unconstitutional in 1936).<ref>[http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct-cgi/get-us-cite?297+1 United States v. Butler, 297 U.S. 1 (1936)]</ref>

During the early and middle thirties, Hiss was a source of agent information for a Soviet spy ring in Washington, the [[Silvermaster group]], according to a former GRU ''rezident'' in London and New York, as reported by [[Pavel Sudoplatov]], former deputy director of Foreign Intelligence for the [[USSR]].<ref>Anatoli Sudoplatov, Pavel Sudoplatov, Leona P. Schecter and Jerrold L. Schecter, ''Special Tasks'' (New York: Back Bay Books, 1995) ISBN 0316821152, p. 228</ref>

In 1936, together with his brother [[Donald Hiss|Donald]], Alger Hiss joined the [[State Department]] as special assistant to Assistant Secretary of State for Trade Agreements [[Francis B. Sayre]], son-in-law of [[Woodrow Wilson]].

 

 

In 1936, together with his brother [[Donald Hiss|Donald]], Alger Hiss joined the [[State Department]], as special assistant to Assistant Secretary of State for Trade Agreements [[Francis B. Sayre]], son-in-law of [[Woodrow Wilson]].<ref>[http://www.woodrowwilsonhouse.org/timeline/ImageDisplay.asp?ID=37 Francis Bowes Sayre (April 30, 1885 -- March 29, 1972)], Woodrow Wilson House</ref>

The year before, at the funeral of Marshal [[Jozsef Pilsudski]] in [[Warsaw]], U.S. Ambassador to [[Moscow]] [[William C. Bullitt]] had confidentially assured the Polish government that the United States would stand by Poland in the event of a [[Nazi]] invasion. But when he reported back to the State Department that he had done so, someone there passed this information to the [[Kremlin]], which in turn transmitted it to German intelligence (with which Soviet intelligence had maintained liaison since the time of [[Lenin]]). Nazi propaganda minister [[Joseph Goebbels]] exploited this information to portray the United States as a warmonger. According to reporter Ralph de Toledano, who covered the Hiss trial for ''Newsweek'', the State Department source who passed this information to the NKVD was Alger Hiss.<ref>[http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_n3_v13/ai_19048238 Ralph de Toledano, “Embarrassment aided and abetted the Top Soviet spy - Alger Hiss,” ''Insight on the News'', January 27, 1997]</ref>

The year before, at the funeral of Marshal [[Jozsef Pilsudski]] in [[Warsaw]], U.S. Ambassador to [[Moscow]] [[William C. Bullitt]] had confidentially assured the Polish government that the United States would stand by Poland in the event of a [[Nazi]] invasion. But when he reported back to the State Department that he had done so, someone there passed this information to the [[Kremlin]], which in turn transmitted it to German intelligence (with which Soviet intelligence had maintained liaison since the time of [[Lenin]]). Nazi propaganda minister [[Joseph Goebbels]] exploited this information to portray the United States as a warmonger. According to reporter Ralph de Toledano, who covered the Hiss trial for ''Newsweek'', the State Department source who passed this information to the NKVD was Alger Hiss.<ref>[http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_n3_v13/ai_19048238 Ralph de Toledano, “Embarrassment aided and abetted the Top Soviet spy - Alger Hiss,” ''Insight on the News'', January 27, 1997]</ref>

Hiss later became assistant to Secretary of State [[Edward Stettinius, Jr.]]. Hiss became special assistant to the Director of the Office of Far Eastern Affairs, then in 1944 special assitant to the Director of the Office of Special Political Affairs (OSPA), a policy-making office that concentrated on postwar planning for international organization and later became its director. As such he was executive secretary at the [[Dumbarton Oaks Conference]], which drafted plans for the organization that would become the [[United Nations]].

By 1937, Hiss was delivering packets of documents to [[Whittaker Chambers]] at intervals of a week or ten days, according to [[Oleg Gordievsky]], the KGB London ''rezident'' who defected in 1985<ref>Peter B. Niblo, " Influence: The Soviet Task Leading to Pearl Harbor, the Iron Curtain, and the Cold War'' (Oakland, OR: Elderberry Press, 2002) ISBN 1930859147, p. 65</ref>

 

In 1938, French Premier [[Edouard Daladier]] informed Bullitt that two brothers named Hiss, both in the U.S. government, were Soviet agents,<ref>[http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_n3_v13/ai_19048238 Ralph de Toledano, “Embarrassment aided and abetted the Top Soviet spy - Alger Hiss,” ''Insight on the News'', January 27, 1997]</ref> but Bullitt “laughed it off as a tall tale, never having heard their names.”<ref>Ralph De Toledano, “The Last Word,” ''Insight on the News'', December 17, 2001</ref>

 

The following year, Hiss became personal aide to [[Stanley Hornbeck]], the State Department's adviser on Far Eastern Affairs. When news of the [[Hitler-Stalin pact]] broke on August 23, 1939, NKVD defector [[Walter Krivitsky]] warned his ''Saturday Evening Post'' ghostwriter, [[Isaac Don Levine]], "Everything that went on in the [U.S.] embassy [in Moscow], especially the major communications between Washington and Bullitt, were quickly relayed to the Soviet secret police."<ref>Isaac Don Levine, ''Eyewitness To History: Memoirs and Reflections of a Foreign Correspondent for Half a Century'' (Stroud, Glos.: Hawthorn Books, 1973) ASIN B000ONBAW0, p. 191</ref>

 

 

{{cquote|Saturday night [September 2] ... Isaac Don Levine ... brought a Mr. X around to my house ... Through a long evening, I slowly manipulated Mr. X to a point where he had told some of the ramifications hereabout; and it becomes necessary to take a few simple measures.  I expect more of this kind of thing, later. A good deal of the Russian espionage was carried on by Jews; we know now that they are exchanging information with Berlin; and the Jewish units are furious to find out they are, in substance, working for the Gestapo... <ref>Isaac Don Levine, ''Eyewitness To History: Memoirs and Reflections of a Foreign Correspondent for Half a Century'' (Stroud, Glos.: Hawthorn Books, 1973) ASIN B000ONBAW0, pp. 55-58)</ref>}}

 

After Berle relayed this information to President [[Franklin Roosevelt]], Levine asked Berle how FDR responded. In his 1973 memoir, Levine wrote, “To the best of my recollection, the President dismissed the matter rather brusquely with an expletive remark on this order: ‘Oh, forget it, Adolf.’”<ref>Isaac Don Levine, ''Eyewitness To History: Memoirs and Reflections of a Foreign Correspondent for Half a Century'' (Stroud, Glos.: Hawthorn Books, 1973) ASIN B000ONBAW0, pp. 197-8</ref>

 

In 1940, after Levine informed Bullitt of what Chambers had told him about Hiss, Bullitt relayed to Hiss' superior, [[Stanley Hornbeck]], what Daladier had told him. Bullitt advised [[Alice Roosevelt Longworth]] and de Toledano that he also took this information directly to FDR.<ref>Ralph De Toledano, “The Last Word,” ''Insight on the News'', December 17, 2001</ref>

 

Levine also told [[David Dubinsky]], president of the [[International Ladies Garment Workers Union]], about Chambers' revelations. Dubinsky, wrote Levine, "took up the Chambers matter with the President at the first opportunity and was brushed off with an amiable slap on the back." Levine wrote that he told fellow journalist Walter Winchell of "a ring of six Soviet agents operating within the State Department alone. In his broadcast of December 12, Winchell announced that he had carried my information to President Roosevelt. Still there was no action."<ref>Isaac Don Levine, ''Eyewitness To History: Memoirs and Reflections of a Foreign Correspondent for Half a Century'' (Stroud, Glos.: Hawthorn Books, 1973) ASIN B000ONBAW0, pp. 197-9</ref> Winchell's posthumously published memoir confirms Levine's story.<ref>Allan Weinstein, ''Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978), ISBN 0394495462, p. 331</ref>

 

Hiss was now among a handful of the Soviets' most important agents, who were run individually and not through spy networks, according to [[Oleg Gordievsky]]. Hiss' wartime controller, wrote Gordievsky, was the leading NKVD illegal in the United States, [[Iskhak Abdulovich Akhmerov]].<ref>Douglas O. Linder, [http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/hiss/hissvenona.html The VENONA Files and the Alger Hiss Case]," Famous Trials: The Alger Hiss Trials, 1949-50 (University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law)</ref>

 

In 1941, the [[Dies committee]] obtained the membership list of the [[Washington Committee for Democratic Action]], which would eventually be listed on Attorney General [[Tom Clark]]'s [[list of subversive organizations]] as a Communist front, per [[President Truman]]'s [[executive order 9835]]. Included was the name of Priscilla Hiss.<ref>Allen Weinstein, ''Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case'' (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978), ISBN 0394495462, p. 329</ref><ref>G. Edward White, Alger Hiss's Looking-glass Wars: The Covert Life of a Soviet Spy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) ISBN 0195182553, p. 48</ref> In 1942, the FBI interviewed Alger Hiss, per the [[Hatch Act]]. Hiss denied all knowledge of the group.<ref>[http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/hiss/8-16testimony.html Testimony of Alger Hiss before the House Committee on Un-American Activities] (August 16, 1948)</ref>

 

The same year, the Bureau interviewed Chambers for the first time.<ref>Douglas Linder, [http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/hiss/hisschronology.html The Trials of Alger Hiss: A Chronology], Famous Trials: The Alger Hiss Trials, 1949-50 (University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, 2003)</ref>, who repeated his identification of Hiss, among others, as a Communist. In 1943, the FBI obtained the notes Berle had taken during his dinner four years earlier with Chambers and Levine.<ref>John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, ''Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America'' (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999) ISBN 0300077718, p. 92</ref>

The following year, Hiss was promoted to become deputy director of the State Department's [[Office of Special Political Affairs]],<ref>[http://www.gpo.gov/congress/commissions/secrecy/pdf/12hist1.pdf Report of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy (Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1997), Appendix A]</ref> a policy-making office for postwar planning and international organization.<ref>Douglas Linder, [http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/hiss/hisschronology.html The Trials of Alger Hiss: A Chronology], Famous Trials: The Alger Hiss Trials, 1949-50 (University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, 2003)</ref> In August 1944, he organized the Dumbarton Oaks Conference,<ref>Doug Linder, The Trials of Alger Hiss: A Commentary], Famous Trials: The Alger Hiss Trials, 1949-50 (University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, 2003)</ref> where he served as executive secretary<ref>Robert G. Whalen, "[http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/09/reviews/chambers-strange.html Hiss and Chambers: Strange Story of Two Men]," ''The New York Times'', December 12, 1948</ref><ref>"[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,811892.html The Case of Alger Hiss]," ''Time'', February 13, 1950</ref>, presiding over the drafting of the proposed United Nations Charter.<ref>[http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/history/dumbarton.shtml History of the Charter of the United Nations: Dumbarton Oaks and Yalta]</ref>

Hiss, now an agent of [[Soviet Military Intelligence]] (GRU), on the recommendation [[Lee Pressman]] was appointment General Counsel for the [[U.S. Senate]] [[Special Committee Investigating the Munitions Industry]], or Nye Committe as it came to be known.

== Yalta and the United Nations ==

== Yalta and the United Nations ==

[[Image:Hisstruman.jpg|thumb|300px|right|President Truman at the rostrum of the [[United Nations]] Charter Meeting with Secretary General of the Conference Alger Hiss seated second from Truman's left.]]

[[Image:Hisstruman.jpg|thumb|300px|right|President Truman at the rostrum of the [[United Nations]] Charter Meeting with Secretary General of the Conference Alger Hiss seated second from Truman's left.]]

In 1945 he went with the president to the meeting of Roosevelt, [[Joseph Stalin|Stalin]], and [[Winston Churchill|Churchill]] in [[Yalta conference|Yalta]], which precipitated the [[Western betrayal]] of Eastern Europe to the Soviet Union and its client states behind the [[Iron Curtain]].  At Yalta, Hiss negotiated the final agreement to give the Soviet Union three seats in the United Nations. <ref>Ralph de Toledano and Victor Lasky, [http://www.americandeception.com/index.php?action=downloadpdf&photo=/PDFsml_AD/Seeds_Of_Treason-Ralph_de_Toledano_and_Victor_Lasky-1950-278pgs-POL.sml.pdf&id=343&PHPSESSID=b964065077a1de19538c4c7b1cf9e825 ''Seeds of Treason''], (NY: Funk and Wagnalls, 1950), pgs. 107-109.</ref>  After the Yalta conference Hiss traveled on to Moscow with Secretary of State Stettinius, [[Venona project]] transcript #1822 dated 30 March 1945 reads in part

In 1945, with the backing of Secretary of State [[Edward Stettinius, Jr.]], Hiss was appointed a Presidential adviser, in which capacity accompanied FDR to his meeting with [[Joseph Stalin|Stalin]] and [[Winston Churchill|Churchill]] in [[Yalta conference|Yalta]], which precipitated the [[Western betrayal]] of Eastern Europe to the Soviet Union and its client states behind the [[Iron Curtain]].  At Yalta.<ref>Ralph de Toledano and Victor Lasky, [http://www.americandeception.com/index.php?action=downloadpdf&photo=/PDFsml_AD/Seeds_Of_Treason-Ralph_de_Toledano_and_Victor_Lasky-1950-278pgs-POL.sml.pdf&id=343&PHPSESSID=b964065077a1de19538c4c7b1cf9e825 ''Seeds of Treason: The True Story of the Hiss-Chambers Tragedy''], (NY: Funk and Wagnalls, 1950), ASIN B0007DS43A pp. 107-109.</ref>  After the Yalta conference Hiss traveled on to Moscow with Secretary of State Stettinius, [[Venona project]] transcript #1822 dated 30 March 1945 reads in part

:"For some years past he has been the leader of a small group of probatiners (STAZhERY), for the most part consisting of his relations.

:"For some years past he has been the leader of a small group of probatiners (STAZhERY), for the most part consisting of his relations.