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That March, in a bid to steal the [[GOP]]'s thunder,<ref>[[#refOlmstead02|Olmstead 2002]]: 114</ref> Truman enacted a "[http://www.trumanlibrary.org/executiveorders/index.php?pid=502 loyalty program]"&mdash;despite which, according to [[State Department]] security files, there were still [http://www.johnearlhaynes.org/page62.html 108 cases] there the following autumn.  

That March, in a bid to steal the [[GOP]]'s thunder,<ref>[[#refOlmstead02|Olmstead 2002]]: 114</ref> Truman enacted a "[http://www.trumanlibrary.org/executiveorders/index.php?pid=502 loyalty program]"&mdash;despite which, according to [[State Department]] security files, there were still [http://www.johnearlhaynes.org/page62.html 108 cases] there the following autumn.  

Even before the [[#refBentleyGJ|grand jury]] convened, the [[FBI]] learned that the [[Harry S. Truman|Truman]] administration was planning to subvert the grand jury process to cover up the [[USSR|Soviet]] penetration problem.<ref>One FBI memo would report that [[Harry S. Truman|Truman]] [[Department of Justice|Justice]] wanted the FBI to interview the [[Elizabeth Bentley|Bentley]] suspects, with an eye to “presenting the evidence to a grand jury with the idea of letting them [http://www.answers.com/topic/no-bill no bill] the case. Further that in the event [http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=T000175 Congressman Thomas] of the [[HUAC|Un-American Committee]] should ever [http://clerk.house.gov/art_history/highlights.html?action=view&intID=169 raise a question], it would be possible to answer by saying that the grand jury had considered the evidence and it had not deemed it sufficient to justify criminal action.” (FBI file: Hiss-Chambers, Vol. 96)</ref> The grand jury convened on July 22, but the Justice Department would not call Whittaker Chambers to testify. In 1948, the [[Republican]] 80th Congress began its own investigation of cases including [[Lauchlin Currie]], [[Harry Dexter White]] and Hiss. The [[Democrat]] Truman stonewalled, issuing a Presidential Directive that cut Congress off from all access to FBI and other information on loyalty or security cases:

Even before the [[#refBentleyGJ|grand jury]] convened, the [[FBI]] learned that the [[Harry S. Truman|Truman]] administration was planning to subvert the grand jury process to cover up the [[USSR|Soviet]] penetration problem.<ref>One FBI memo would report that [[Harry S. Truman|Truman]] [[Department of Justice|Justice]] wanted the FBI to interview the [[Elizabeth Bentley|Bentley]] suspects, with an eye to “presenting the evidence to a grand jury with the idea of letting them [http://www.answers.com/topic/no-bill no bill] the case. Further that in the event [http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=T000175 Congressman Thomas] of the [[HUAC|Un-American Committee]] should ever [http://clerk.house.gov/art_history/highlights.html?action=view&intID=169 raise a question], it would be possible to answer by saying that the grand jury had considered the evidence and it had not deemed it sufficient to justify criminal action.” (FBI file: Hiss-Chambers, Vol. 96)</ref> The grand jury convened on July 22, 1947; nearly a year later, on July 20, 1948&mdash;without ever having heard Whittaker Chambers testify&mdash;it handed down indictments&mdash;not of any federal employees, but of the open leaders of the above-ground [[Communist Party]]&mdash;and not for espionage, but for violations of the [[Smith Act]].

 

The [[Republican]] Congress responded by opening its own investigation of cases including [[Lauchlin Currie]], [[Harry Dexter White]] and Hiss. The [[Democrat]] Truman stonewalled, issuing a Presidential Directive that cut Congress off from all access to FBI and other information on loyalty or security cases:

::"Any [http://www.nolo.com/definition.cfm/Term/BE45BC5C-A852-41E6-A9C1C267589E6C61/alpha/S/ subpena] or demand or request for information, reports, or files of the nature described, received from sources other than those persons in the executive branch of the Government... shall be [https://trumanlibrary.org/publicpapers/index.php?pid=1415&st=&st1=%2050. respectfully declined]..."<ref>Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, United States Congress, ''[http://ia360613.us.archive.org/3/items/annualreportfory1953unit/annualreportfory1953unit_bw.pdf Annual Report for the Year 1953]'' (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1954), pp. 186-187 (PDF pp. 194-195) Following Hiss' HUAC testimony on August 5, Truman would read to the press a statement amplifying this order:

::"Any [http://www.nolo.com/definition.cfm/Term/BE45BC5C-A852-41E6-A9C1C267589E6C61/alpha/S/ subpena] or demand or request for information, reports, or files of the nature described, received from sources other than those persons in the executive branch of the Government... shall be [https://trumanlibrary.org/publicpapers/index.php?pid=1415&st=&st1=%2050. respectfully declined]..."<ref>Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, United States Congress, ''[http://ia360613.us.archive.org/3/items/annualreportfory1953unit/annualreportfory1953unit_bw.pdf Annual Report for the Year 1953]'' (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1954), pp. 186-187 (PDF pp. 194-195) Following Hiss' HUAC testimony on August 5, Truman would read to the press a statement amplifying this order:

:"No information of any sort relating to the employee's loyalty, and no investigative data of any type, whether relating to loyalty or other aspects of the individual's record, shall be included in the material submitted [[#refTruman8.5.48|to a congressional committee]]."</ref>

:"No information of any sort relating to the employee's loyalty, and no investigative data of any type, whether relating to loyalty or other aspects of the individual's record, shall be included in the material submitted [[#refTruman8.5.48|to a congressional committee]]."</ref>

Cut off from investigative data, Congress interviewed witnesses itself. Following up on testimony given by [[Elizabeth Bentley|Bentley]], on August 3, the [[House Committee on Un-American Activities]] called [[Whittaker Chambers]]&mdash;whom the Justice Department had still not called to testify before the grand jury, though it had then been in session for over a year. He repeated under oath what he had been telling [[State Department]] security officials and the [[FBI]] about the [[Ware group]] for a decade:

Cut off from investigative data, Congress interviewed witnesses itself. Following up on testimony given by [[Elizabeth Bentley|Bentley]], on August 3, [[Whittaker Chambers]] finally was called upon to testify&mdash;not before the grand jury, but before the [[House Committee on Un-American Activities]]. He repeated under oath what he had been telling [[State Department]] security officials and the [[FBI]] about the [[Ware group]] for a decade:

{{cquote|I was a member of the Communist Party and a paid functionary of the party.... the apparatus to which I was attached…. was an underground organization of the United States Communist Party developed, to the best of my knowledge, by [[Harold Ware]]…. The head of the underground group at the time I knew it was [[Nathan Witt]]…. Later, [[John Abt]] became the leader. [[Lee Pressman]] was also a member of this group, as was Alger Hiss….The purpose of this group at that time was not primarily espionage. Its original purpose was the Communist infiltration of the American Government. But espionage was certainly one of its eventual objectives.<ref>[[#refHUAC48|HUAC 1948]]: 564 (PDF 74)</ref>}}

{{cquote|I was a member of the Communist Party and a paid functionary of the party.... the apparatus to which I was attached…. was an underground organization of the United States Communist Party developed, to the best of my knowledge, by [[Harold Ware]]…. The head of the underground group at the time I knew it was [[Nathan Witt]]…. Later, [[John Abt]] became the leader. [[Lee Pressman]] was also a member of this group, as was Alger Hiss….The purpose of this group at that time was not primarily espionage. Its original purpose was the Communist infiltration of the American Government. But espionage was certainly one of its eventual objectives.<ref>[[#refHUAC48|HUAC 1948]]: 564 (PDF 74)</ref>}}

[[Image:HissSig.png|thumb|300px|right|The name “Alger Hiss” in Cyrillic (Элджер Хисс) from Vassiliev's notes on the “[[Gorsky memo]].” ''Source: [[#refVas|Cold War International History Project]], Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars'']]When Chambers testified against Hiss, wrote Sudoplatov, "we considered this to be a setback for [[GRU]] intelligence activities in the United States."<ref>[[#refSudoplatov95|Sudoplatov 1995]]: 228</ref> Four months later, [[Anatoly Gorsky]], chief of Soviet intelligence in the U.S. during World War II, would author an internal [[KI|Soviet secret police]] memorandum, entitled "[[Gorsky memo|Failures in the USA (1938-48)]]," listing 43 Soviet sources and intelligence officers likely to have been identified to U.S. authorities. Included on the list, under the heading, "'Karl’s' group," was "Alger Hiss, former employee of the State Dept."<ref>[[#refVasBlack|Vassiliev Black Notebook]]: Orig. 39; Trans. 77; cf. [[#refBLH05|Bachman, Leich, Haynes 2005]]; [[#refLowCher|Lowenthal, Chervonnaya 2005]]</ref> That same month, Piotr Fedotov and Konstantin Kukin, two other senior Soviet intelligence officials, [[#refTLS09|reported to the chairman of Soviet intelligence]] about “our former agents who were betrayed by Chambers (A. Hiss, [[Donald Hiss|D. Hiss]], [[Julian Wadleigh|Wadleigh]], [[Ward Pigman|Pigman]], [[Vincent Reno|Reno]]).”<ref>[[#refVasBlack|Vassiliev Black Notebook]]: Orig. 37; Trans. 73; cf. [[#refSpies09|Haynes, Klehr, Vassiliev 2009]]: 553, 555</ref>

[[Image:HissSig.png|thumb|300px|right|The name “Alger Hiss” in Cyrillic (Элджер Хисс) from Vassiliev's notes on the “[[Gorsky memo]].” ''Source: [[#refVas|Cold War International History Project]], Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars'']]When Chambers testified against Hiss, wrote Sudoplatov, "we considered this to be a setback for [[GRU]] intelligence activities in the United States."<ref>[[#refSudoplatov95|Sudoplatov 1995]]: 228</ref> Four months later, [[Anatoly Gorsky]], chief of Soviet intelligence in the U.S. during World War II, would author an internal [[KI|Soviet secret police]] memorandum, entitled "[[Gorsky memo|Failures in the USA (1938-48)]]," listing 43 Soviet sources and intelligence officers likely to have been identified to U.S. authorities. Included on the list, under the heading, "'Karl’s' group," was "Alger Hiss, former employee of the State Dept."<ref>[[#refVasBlack|Vassiliev Black Notebook]]: Orig. 39; Trans. 77; cf. [[#refBLH05|Bachman, Leich, Haynes 2005]]; [[#refLowCher|Lowenthal, Chervonnaya 2005]]</ref> That same month, Piotr Fedotov and Konstantin Kukin, two other senior Soviet intelligence officials, [[#refTLS09|reported to the chairman of Soviet intelligence]] about “our former agents who were betrayed by Chambers (A. Hiss, [[Donald Hiss|D. Hiss]], [[Julian Wadleigh|Wadleigh]], [[Ward Pigman|Pigman]], [[Vincent Reno|Reno]]).”<ref>[[#refVasBlack|Vassiliev Black Notebook]]: Orig. 37; Trans. 73; cf. [[#refSpies09|Haynes, Klehr, Vassiliev 2009]]: 553, 555</ref>