Changes

"In the end, the publication of the Venona intercepts settled the matter," observes Stanley Kutler [http://www.law.wisc.edu/profiles/sikutler@wisc.edu of the University of Wisconsin Law School]. "[T]o [http://writ.lp.findlaw.com/books/reviews/20040806_kutler.html all but the truest of believers], 'Ales' could only be Alger Hiss." The Soviet agent "Ales" is assumed by "[http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/hiss/hissvenona.html most scholars] to be Alger Hiss," agrees Douglas O. Linder [http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTrials/linder.htm of the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law]. "For the [http://microformguides.gale.com/Data/Download/9100000C.rtf majority of scholars], the critical ALES transmission puts to rest any doubt about Hiss’s complicity in the Soviet underground," concurs R. Bruce Craig, a [http://www.upei.ca/history/bcraig specialist in Cold War history] and [http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/116899.html author of a forthcoming Hiss biography]. Even [http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-plank/reagan-appointee-and-recent-mccain-adviser-charles-fried-supports-obama Obama supporter] Charles Fried, a professor at Hiss's ''alma mater'', Harvard Law School (and former Justice of the court that granted Hiss's petition for readmittance to the Massachusetts Bar), writes, "it is now clear to [http://www.amacad.org/publications/bulletin/winter2006/Winter2006Bulletin.pdf all but the most obdurate] that Alger Hiss was a Soviet agent." Historians John Earl Haynes [https://www.h-net.org/people/person_view.php?id=124585 of the Library of Congress] and Harvey Klehr [http://polisci.emory.edu/faculty%20pages/klehr.htm of Emory University] sum up:

"In the end, the publication of the Venona intercepts settled the matter," observes Stanley Kutler [http://www.law.wisc.edu/profiles/sikutler@wisc.edu of the University of Wisconsin Law School]. "[T]o [http://writ.lp.findlaw.com/books/reviews/20040806_kutler.html all but the truest of believers], 'Ales' could only be Alger Hiss." The Soviet agent "Ales" is assumed by "[http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/hiss/hissvenona.html most scholars] to be Alger Hiss," agrees Douglas O. Linder [http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTrials/linder.htm of the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law]. "For the [http://microformguides.gale.com/Data/Download/9100000C.rtf majority of scholars], the critical ALES transmission puts to rest any doubt about Hiss’s complicity in the Soviet underground," concurs R. Bruce Craig, a [http://www.upei.ca/history/bcraig specialist in Cold War history] and [http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/116899.html author of a forthcoming Hiss biography]. Even [http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-plank/reagan-appointee-and-recent-mccain-adviser-charles-fried-supports-obama Obama supporter] Charles Fried, a professor at Hiss's ''alma mater'', Harvard Law School (and former Justice of the court that granted Hiss's petition for readmittance to the Massachusetts Bar), writes, "it is now clear to [http://www.amacad.org/publications/bulletin/winter2006/Winter2006Bulletin.pdf all but the most obdurate] that Alger Hiss was a Soviet agent." Historians John Earl Haynes [https://www.h-net.org/people/person_view.php?id=124585 of the Library of Congress] and Harvey Klehr [http://polisci.emory.edu/faculty%20pages/klehr.htm of Emory University] sum up:

{{cquote|Any reasonable person will conclude that the new documentation of Hiss’s assistance to Soviet espionage, along with the massive weight of prior accumulated evidence, closes the case. Given the fervour exhibited by his loyalists, it is unlikely that anything will convince the remaining diehards. But to serious students of history, continued claims for Hiss’s innocence are akin to a terminal form of [http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/article6731654.ece ideological blindness].}}

{{cquote|Any reasonable person will conclude that the new documentation of Hiss’s assistance to Soviet espionage, along with the massive weight of prior accumulated evidence, closes the case. Given the fervour exhibited by his loyalists, it is unlikely that anything will convince the remaining diehards. But to serious students of history, continued claims for Hiss’s innocence are akin to a terminal form of [http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/article6731654.ece ideological blindness].}}

Robert Justin Goldstein, who admits that his "political views" are "at odds with" Klehr's, concedes that Klehr and Haynes "quite reasonably" conclude that Hiss was "[http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/91718.html unquestionably]" an espionage agent. In light of recent scholarship, concludes [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], "it is hard to see how even the most frequently made counterargument—that there was ''no Communist involvement in espionage''—can be sustained…. The same is true when it comes to specific cases, but [http://cicentre.com/BK/BOOKS_Peake_Venona.htm supporters of Alger Hiss] … will no doubt persist." The Hiss cases "is a controversy that should have died 30 years ago and hasn't only because of the efforts of [http://hnn.us/articles/106101.html a small, vocal group] that is absolutely convinced that Hiss was an innocent victim," agrees Steven T. Usdin, author of Yale University Press' ''Engineering Communism''. "No amount of documentation, including the fact that documents Vassiliev copied unambiguously identify him as a Soviet agent, can persuade these true believers otherwise." [http://www.bu.edu/ir/faculty/bacevich.html Boston University professor] Andrew J. Bacevich concurs, "Diehards will still contend that Hiss was innocent." But, he adds:

Robert Justin Goldstein, who admits that his "political views" are "at odds with" Klehr's, concedes that Klehr and Haynes "quite reasonably" conclude that Hiss was "[http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/91718.html unquestionably]" an espionage agent. The Hiss cases "is a controversy that should have died 30 years ago and hasn't only because of the efforts of [http://hnn.us/articles/106101.html a small, vocal group] that is absolutely convinced that Hiss was an innocent victim," agrees Steven T. Usdin, author of Yale University Press' ''Engineering Communism''. "No amount of documentation, including the fact that documents Vassiliev copied unambiguously identify him as a Soviet agent, can persuade these true believers otherwise." [http://www.bu.edu/ir/faculty/bacevich.html Boston University professor] Andrew J. Bacevich concurs, "Diehards will still contend that Hiss was innocent." But, he adds:

{{cquote|At some point, the accumulation of evidence permits us to dismiss such people [http://www.firstthings.com/article/2007/01/venona-decoding-soviet-espionage-in-america-and-the-haunted-wood-soviet-espionage-in-america-the-stalin-era-30 as crackpots]. We are now well past that point with regard to the most controversial spy cases of the 1940s and 1950s."}}

{{cquote|At some point, the accumulation of evidence permits us to dismiss such people [http://www.firstthings.com/article/2007/01/venona-decoding-soviet-espionage-in-america-and-the-haunted-wood-soviet-espionage-in-america-the-stalin-era-30 as crackpots]. We are now well past that point with regard to the most controversial spy cases of the 1940s and 1950s."}}