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moved Massing-Field episode to chronological order
==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>
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]]'s [[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> It was here that Hiss met [[Whittaker Chambers]].<ref>William Fitzgibbon, "[http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/09/reviews/chambers-chronology.html The Hiss-Chambers Case: A Chronology Since 1934]," ''The New York Times'', June 12, 1949</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. 227-228</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. 227-228</ref>
At a 1935 Communist cell meeting at the home of State Department official [[Noel Field]], Alger Hiss argued with OGPU recruiter [[Hede Massing]] that Field should work with Hiss' GRU group, rather than Massing's OGPU group, according to Massing.<ref>Hede Massing, ''This Deception'' (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1951), p. 335</ref>
Field would later defect to Communist Czechoslovakia, where he would tell his Czech interrogators that Hiss was a fellow Communist underground agent in the State Department during the mid-thirties, and that Field was defecting to avoid testifying in the Hiss trial, according to records of the interrogation of Noel Field by Czech secret police after his 1948 defection (reported in 1990 by Karel Kaplan, former archivist of the Central Committee of the Czech Communist Party)<ref>[Karel Kaplan, Report on the Murder of the General Secretary (London: I.B. Taurus & Co. Ltd., 1990), ISBN 1-85043-211-2 http://books.google.com/books?id=x3s6sBZw-YkC&pg=PA19&dq=%22noel+field%22&sig=d7XE7yhraGkrz6k4AP0ljIqXEvY#PPA19,M1, pp. 19-25]</ref>
Field would end up in Communist Hungary, where he would give Hungarian secret police a statement (transcripts published published in 1992 by Hungarian historian Maria Schmidt) reading as follows:
{{cquote|We [Field and his wife] made friends with Alger Hiss—an official of the "New Deal" brought about by Roosevelt—and his wife. After a couple of meetings we mutually realized we were Communists. Around the summer of 1935 Alger Hiss tried to induce me to do service for the Soviets. I was indiscreet enough to tell him he had come too late. Naturally I didn't say a word about the Massings.<ref>Maria Schmidt, "The Hiss Dossier: A Historian's Report," ''The New Republic'', November 8, 1993, pp. 17-20</ref>}}
The transcripts also record Field saying that he turned over State Department documents to Hede Massing in the 1930s. In other statements Field twice said that although Hiss knew that Field “was a Communist,” he strongly supported Field at the State Department and even tried to help him obtain a job as a State Department adviser in the Philippines in 1940. The dossier likewise records a statement by Field that he briefly visited Hiss in 1939 in America, where they agreed that if either's cover was ever blown, he would communicate to the other indirectly.<ref>Sam Tanenhaus, “Hiss: Guilty as Charged,” ''Commentary'', April 1993</ref><ref>Sam Tanenhaus, "Hiss Case 'Smoing Gun'?" ''New York Times'', October 15, 1993; Sam Tanenhaus, "New Reasons to Doubt Hiss," ''Wall Street Journal'', November 18, 1993</ref>
A 1936 memorandum by Massing, found in the NKVD archives by Weinstein and Vassiliev, complains to Moscow about Hiss (using his real name) talking to Field (whom she refers to by his code name "Ernst"): "Alger told him that he was a Communist," complains Massing;—a serious breach of discipline;—and asked Field to use his connections to help Hiss get into the State Department."<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. 228</ref>
==State Department==
==State Department==
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> 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>
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> 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, 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>, 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' colleagues at the AAA told investigators that Hiss and his circle were fellow travelers, if not Communists. Hiss denied everything. 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>
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>, 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' colleagues at the AAA told investigators that Hiss and his circle were fellow travelers, if not Communists. Hiss denied everything. 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>
Also in 1942, 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> He 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> That year, an encrypted cable (decrypted in the Venona project and released in 1995) from Pavel B. Mikhailov (code-named "Mol'er"), who (under cover as Soviet Vice Consul in New York) was controller of military intelligence for the NKVD,<ref>Kai Bird and Svetlana Chervonnaya, "[http://www.theamericanscholar.org/su07/ales-birdlong.html The Mystery of Ales]," ''The American Scholar'', Summer 2007</ref> to NKVD chief of foreign intelligence Pavel Fitin (code-named "Victor")<ref>[http://www.nsa.gov/venona/releases/09_Feb_1944_R1_p2.gif Venona 195 New York to Moscow 9th February 1944]</ref> in Moscow, identifying the real names and code names of several agents in the U.S., said the GRU (code-named "Neighbors") reported someone "from the State Department by the name of Hiss."<ref>[http://www.nsa.gov/venona/releases/28_Sept_1943_R4_m1_p1.gif Venona 1579 New York to Moscow, 28 September 1943</ref>
Also in 1942, 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> He 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> That year, an encrypted cable (decrypted in the Venona project and released in 1995) from Pavel B. Mikhailov (code-named "Mol'er"), who (under cover as Soviet Vice Consul in New York) was controller of military intelligence for the NKVD,<ref>Kai Bird and Svetlana Chervonnaya, "[http://www.theamericanscholar.org/su07/ales-birdlong.html The Mystery of Ales]," ''The American Scholar'', Summer 2007</ref> to NKVD chief of foreign intelligence Pavel Fitin (code-named "Victor")<ref>[http://www.nsa.gov/venona/releases/09_Feb_1944_R1_p2.gif Venona 195 New York to Moscow 9th February 1944]</ref> in Moscow, identifying the real names and code names of several agents in the U.S., said the GRU (code-named "Neighbors") reported someone "from the State Department by the name of Hiss."<ref>[http://www.nsa.gov/venona/releases/28_Sept_1943_R4_m1_p1.gif Venona 1579 New York to Moscow, 28 September 1943</ref>
In 1949, at Hiss’ first perjury trial, Hornbeck testified that an unnamed friend had warned him that Hiss was a Communist fellow-traveler, but he disregarded the warning.<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, p. 235</ref> At the second trial, Hornbeck testified that on at least two occasions he was warned that Hiss was a Communist, and named Bullitt as his source.<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, p. 258-259</ref> John Foster Dulles, who had recommended Hiss for the Carnegie Endowment, likewise testified at that trial that various people had warned him subsequently that Hiss was a Communist.<ref>"[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,806501-1,00.html The Alger Hiss Issue]," ''Time'', November 3, 1952</ref>
In 1949, at Hiss’ first perjury trial, Hornbeck testified that an unnamed friend had warned him that Hiss was a Communist fellow-traveler, but he disregarded the warning.<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, p. 235</ref> At the second trial, Hornbeck testified that on at least two occasions he was warned that Hiss was a Communist, and named Bullitt as his source.<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, p. 258-259</ref> John Foster Dulles, who had recommended Hiss for the Carnegie Endowment, likewise testified at that trial that various people had warned him subsequently that Hiss was a Communist.<ref>"[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,806501-1,00.html The Alger Hiss Issue]," ''Time'', November 3, 1952</ref>
The prosecution called Hede Massing, a confessed OGPU recruiter, but at the first trial Judge Samuel H. Kaufman ruled that her testimony was irrelevant. At the second trial, Judge Henry W. Goddard allowed her to testify. Massing testified that at a 1935 Communist cell meeting at the home of State Department official Noel Field, Alger Hiss argued with her that Field should work with his GRU group, rather than her OGPU group. Field had fled to Czechoslovakia, then Hungary, from both of which would eventually come corroboration for Massing's testimony.
The prosecution called [[Hede Massing]], a confessed OGPU recruiter, but at the first trial Judge Samuel H. Kaufman ruled that her testimony was irrelevant. At the second trial, Judge Henry W. Goddard allowed her to testify about Hiss' 1935 attempt to get [[Noel Field]] to transfer from her OGPU group to Hiss' GRU group.<ref>"[http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,855041,00.html Woman with a Past]," ''Time'', December 19, 1949</ref> To avoid testifying, Field fled to Czechoslovakia, ending up in Hungary.
In 1952, Bullitt testified before the Senate Internal Security subcommittee as to what French Premier Daladier had told him in 1938.<ref>Testimony of Ambassador William Bullitt, April 8, 1952, “Communist influence on U.S. policies in the Far East,” Hearings Before the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and other Internal Security Laws of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Eighty-Second Congress, Second Session. Hearings: March 13, 1951 to June 20, 1952; Report: July 2, 1952</ref>,<ref>Jim Caldwell, “[http://w4.pica.army.mil/voice/voice2002/020419/KoreaApr4-10.htm Korea - 50 years ago this week, April 4 - 10, 1952],” Army News Service, April 1, 2002]</ref> Also at that hearing, Nathaniel Weyl, a confessed former member of the Ware group, testified 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 1952, Bullitt testified before the Senate Internal Security subcommittee as to what French Premier Daladier had told him in 1938.<ref>Testimony of Ambassador William Bullitt, April 8, 1952, “Communist influence on U.S. policies in the Far East,” Hearings Before the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and other Internal Security Laws of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Eighty-Second Congress, Second Session. Hearings: March 13, 1951 to June 20, 1952; Report: July 2, 1952</ref>,<ref>Jim Caldwell, “[http://w4.pica.army.mil/voice/voice2002/020419/KoreaApr4-10.htm Korea - 50 years ago this week, April 4 - 10, 1952],” Army News Service, April 1, 2002]</ref> Also at that hearing, Nathaniel Weyl, a confessed former member of the Ware group, testified 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>