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Nixon brought Hiss face-to-face with his accuser on August 25. "Hiss stoutly continued to deny the charge," reported ''Time'', but "it was clear to everyone" that he and Chambers "had known each other quite well in the mid-'30s." The magazine added that Hiss's "favorite phrase, as he fenced tediously with the committee, was: 'To the best of my recollection.' He used it and similar phrases [http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,779940,00.html 198 times]." Chambers [[#refWhalen48|offered to take]] a lie-detector test; [http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,799060,00.html Hiss refused]—a refusal he kept up for the rest of his life.

Nixon brought Hiss face-to-face with his accuser on August 25. "Hiss stoutly continued to deny the charge," reported ''Time'', but "it was clear to everyone" that he and Chambers "had known each other quite well in the mid-'30s." The magazine added that Hiss's "favorite phrase, as he fenced tediously with the committee, was: 'To the best of my recollection.' He used it and similar phrases [http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,779940,00.html 198 times]." Chambers [[#refWhalen48|offered to take]] a lie-detector test; [http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,799060,00.html Hiss refused]—a refusal he kept up for the rest of his life.

Trying to explain Chambers' charges, Hiss suggested that his accuser was crazy, asking, "is he a man of consistent reliability, truthfulness and honor?... Indeed, is he a man of sanity?"<ref>[[#refHUAC48|HUAC 1948]]: 1164 (PDF 674)</ref> He demanded that the committee ask his accuser if he had ever been treated for a mental illness. The committee obliged, and Chambers answered: "[http://www.thenation.com/article/case-alger-hiss I have not, period]." On the White House memo advising that Chambers be investigated for perjury was inserted a handwritten line: "Investigation of Chambers' [https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/venona-soviet-espionage-and-the-american-response-1939-1957/21.gif confinement in a mental institution]."<ref>[[#refBW96|Benson, Warner 1996]]: 117.</ref> (Again, no suggestion was made that Hiss's mental health history might be subject to investigation.) The FBI had already checked into this, and [[J. Edgar Hoover|Hoover]] had reported to [[Attorney General]] [[Tom Clark]], "With regard to [[Whittaker Chambers]], there is nothing indicated in the files of the [[FBI|Bureau]], or in the files of the New York office that Chambers has been institutionalized."<ref>[[#refEvans07|Evans 2007]]: 322</ref> In falling for the fiction that Chambers had been committed to an insane asylum, the Truman administration was "taken in by disinformation being spread by the American Communist party and Alger Hiss's partisans."<ref>[[#refHK99|Haynes, Klehr 1999]]: 15</ref>

Trying to explain Chambers' charges, Hiss suggested that his accuser was crazy, asking, "is he a man of consistent reliability, truthfulness and honor?... Indeed, is he a man of sanity?"<ref>[[#refHUAC48|HUAC 1948]]: 1164 (PDF 674)</ref> He demanded that the committee ask his accuser if he had ever been treated for a mental illness. The committee obliged, and Chambers answered: "[http://www.thenation.com/article/case-alger-hiss I have not, period]." On the White House memo advising that Chambers be investigated for perjury was inserted a handwritten line: "Investigation of Chambers' [https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/venona-soviet-espionage-and-the-american-response-1939-1957/21.gif confinement in mental institution]."<ref>[[#refBW96|Benson, Warner 1996]]: 117.</ref> (Again, no suggestion was made that Hiss's mental health history might be subject to investigation.) The FBI had already checked into this, and [[J. Edgar Hoover|Hoover]] had reported to [[Attorney General]] [[Tom Clark]], "With regard to [[Whittaker Chambers]], there is nothing indicated in the files of the [[FBI|Bureau]], or in the files of the New York office that Chambers has been institutionalized."<ref>[[#refEvans07|Evans 2007]]: 322</ref> In falling for the fiction that Chambers had been committed to an insane asylum, the Truman administration was "taken in by disinformation being spread by the American Communist party and Alger Hiss's partisans."<ref>[[#refHK99|Haynes, Klehr 1999]]: 15</ref>

In an act of supreme hubris, Hiss [[#refWard88|dared]] Chambers to repeat his charges outside of the immunity afforded in congressional hearings, so Hiss could sue him, taunting, "and I hope you will do it [[#refHUAC8-17-48|damned quickly]]." Just two days after their public testimony,<ref>Stephen D. Easton, ed., ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=BwtJgD-stVIC The Irving Younger Collection: Wisdom and Wit from the Master of Trial Advocacy]'' (American Bar Association, 2010) ISBN 1604426004, p. 533</ref> Chambers called Hiss's bluff on NBC's ''Meet the Press,'' saying, "[http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17982730/page/5/ Alger Hiss was a Communist] and may be now."

In an act of supreme hubris, Hiss [[#refWard88|dared]] Chambers to repeat his charges outside of the immunity afforded in congressional hearings, so Hiss could sue him, taunting, "and I hope you will do it [[#refHUAC8-17-48|damned quickly]]." Just two days after their public testimony,<ref>Stephen D. Easton, ed., ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=BwtJgD-stVIC The Irving Younger Collection: Wisdom and Wit from the Master of Trial Advocacy]'' (American Bar Association, 2010) ISBN 1604426004, p. 533</ref> Chambers called Hiss's bluff on NBC's ''Meet the Press,'' saying, "[http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17982730/page/5/ Alger Hiss was a Communist] and may be now."