| | 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 also 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>Allen Weinstein, ''Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case'' (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978), ISBN 0394495462, p. 331</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 also 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>Allen 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 [[Akhmerov]], the leading [[NKVD]] illegal in the United States,<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> who, in a lecture before a [[KGB]] audience, identified Hiss as a Soviet agent during World War II.<ref>Christopher Andrew and Oleg Gordievsky, ''KGB: The Inside Story of Its Foreign Operations from Lenin to Gorbachev'' (New York: Harpercollins, 1990) ISBN 0060166053, p. 287</ref> | + | That September, the [[Nazi]] and [[Soviet]] armies staged a joint victory parade through the streets of occupied Brest-Litovsk, Poland.<ref>Olaf Groehler, ''Selbstmorderische Allianz: Deutsch-russische Militarbeziehungen, 1920-1941'' (Berlin: Vision Verlag 1993), pp. 21-22, 123-124; Aleksandr M. Nekrich, ''Pariahs, Partners, Predators: German-Soviet Relations, 1922-1941'' (Columbia University Press, 1997), both cited in Benjamin B. Fischer, "[https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/winter99-00/art6.html The Katyn Controversy: Stalin's Killing Field]," ''Studies in Intelligence'', Winter 1999–2000</ref> Hiss was at this time 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 [[Akhmerov]], the leading [[NKVD]] illegal in the United States,<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> who, in a lecture before a [[KGB]] audience, identified Hiss as a Soviet agent during World War II.<ref>Christopher Andrew and Oleg Gordievsky, ''KGB: The Inside Story of Its Foreign Operations from Lenin to Gorbachev'' (New York: Harpercollins, 1990) ISBN 0060166053, p. 287</ref> |
| | In 1941, during the [[Nazi-Soviet pact]], the [[House Committee on Un-American Activities|Dies committee]] obtained the membership list of the [[Washington Committee for Democratic Action]], which would be confirmed as a Communist front the following year by Roosevelt's Attorney General [[Francis Biddle]].<ref>M. Stanton Evans, ''Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies'' (New York: Crown Forum, 2007) ISBN 978-1-4000-8105-9, p. 55, n. 6 (p. 610)</ref> Included on the roster 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> with the notation appended, "Husband with State Department."<ref>[http://ultra-secret.info/PDFs/splitfiles/splitprocessed/Silvermaster082_Folder/Silvermaster082_page120.pdf FBI Report: Underground Soviet Espionage Organization (NKVD) in Agencies of the United States Government, p. 109 (PDF p. 120)]</ref> In 1941-42 the FBI conducted a [[Hatch Act]] investigation of Hiss, in the course of which one of Hiss' former colleagues at the AAA told investigators that Hiss and his circle were fellow travelers, if not Communists. Hiss denied everything, although he said he thought his wife might have been a member of the [[League of Women Shoppers]], a [[Popular Front]] group<ref>Michael Denning, ''The Cultural Front: The Laboring of American Culture in the Twentieth Century'' (New York: Verso, 1998) ISBN 1859841708, p. 410</ref> identified as a Communist front by the committee in 1939.<ref>Meg Jacobs, ''Pocketbook Politics: Economic Citizenship in Twentieth-century America'' (Princeton University Press, 2005) ISBN 0691086648, p. 171</ref> In 1942, the FBI sent a report of this investigation to the Secretary of State,<ref>FBI memorandum: Ladd to Hoover, January 28, 1949, p. 2 (FBI file: Hiss-Chambers, Vol. 44)</ref> the first of what would become a veritable avalanche of FBI memos and reports on Hiss disseminated to the State Department, Attorney General and White House over the ensuing five years. | | In 1941, during the [[Nazi-Soviet pact]], the [[House Committee on Un-American Activities|Dies committee]] obtained the membership list of the [[Washington Committee for Democratic Action]], which would be confirmed as a Communist front the following year by Roosevelt's Attorney General [[Francis Biddle]].<ref>M. Stanton Evans, ''Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies'' (New York: Crown Forum, 2007) ISBN 978-1-4000-8105-9, p. 55, n. 6 (p. 610)</ref> Included on the roster 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> with the notation appended, "Husband with State Department."<ref>[http://ultra-secret.info/PDFs/splitfiles/splitprocessed/Silvermaster082_Folder/Silvermaster082_page120.pdf FBI Report: Underground Soviet Espionage Organization (NKVD) in Agencies of the United States Government, p. 109 (PDF p. 120)]</ref> In 1941-42 the FBI conducted a [[Hatch Act]] investigation of Hiss, in the course of which one of Hiss' former colleagues at the AAA told investigators that Hiss and his circle were fellow travelers, if not Communists. Hiss denied everything, although he said he thought his wife might have been a member of the [[League of Women Shoppers]], a [[Popular Front]] group<ref>Michael Denning, ''The Cultural Front: The Laboring of American Culture in the Twentieth Century'' (New York: Verso, 1998) ISBN 1859841708, p. 410</ref> identified as a Communist front by the committee in 1939.<ref>Meg Jacobs, ''Pocketbook Politics: Economic Citizenship in Twentieth-century America'' (Princeton University Press, 2005) ISBN 0691086648, p. 171</ref> In 1942, the FBI sent a report of this investigation to the Secretary of State,<ref>FBI memorandum: Ladd to Hoover, January 28, 1949, p. 2 (FBI file: Hiss-Chambers, Vol. 44)</ref> the first of what would become a veritable avalanche of FBI memos and reports on Hiss disseminated to the State Department, Attorney General and White House over the ensuing five years. |