Difference between revisions of "Alger Hiss"

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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>
 
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>
  
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Field would defect in 1948 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 Czech secret police (reported in 1990 by Karel Kaplan, former archivist of the Central Committee of the Czech Communist Party).<ref>[Karel Kaplan, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=x3s6sBZw-YkC&pg=PA19&dq=%22noel+field%22&sig=d7XE7yhraGkrz6k4AP0ljIqXEvY#PPA19,M1, Report on the Murder of the General Secretar]y (London: I.B. Taurus & Co. Ltd., 1990), ISBN 1-85043-211-2, pp. 19-25]</ref> Field would end up in Communist Hungary, where in 1954 he would give Hungarian secret police a statement reading in part as follows:
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Field would defect in 1948 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 Czech secret police (reported in 1990 by Karel Kaplan, former archivist of the Central Committee of the Czech Communist Party).<ref>[Karel Kaplan, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=x3s6sBZw-YkC&pg=PA19&dq=%22noel+field%22&sig=d7XE7yhraGkrz6k4AP0ljIqXEvY#PPA19,M1, Report on the Murder of the General Secretary]'' (London: I.B. Taurus & Co. Ltd., 1990), ISBN 1-85043-211-2, pp. 19-25]</ref> Field would end up in Communist Hungary, where in 1954 he would give Hungarian secret police a statement reading in part 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>}}
 
{{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>
 
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>
  
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In a 1936 memorandum, found in the [[NKVD]] archives by Weinstein and Vassiliev, Massing 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&mdash;a serious breach of discipline&mdash;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>
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In a 1936 memorandum, found in the [[NKVD]] archives by former [[KGB]] agent [[Alexander Vassiliev]], Massing 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&mdash;a serious breach of discipline&mdash;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==
 
In 1936, Alger Hiss joined the [[State Department]] as special assistant to Assistant Secretary of State for Trade Agreements [[Francis B. Sayre]], son-in-law of [[Woodrow Wilson]].<ref>[http://www.woodrowwilsonhouse.org/timeline/ImageDisplay.asp?ID=37 Francis Bowes Sayre (April 30, 1885 -- March 29, 1972)], Woodrow Wilson House</ref> Two years later, his younger brother [[Donald Hiss|Donald]], who had followed Alger to Johns Hopkins, Harvard Law, and a clerkship for Justice Holmes, would join him there.<ref>Glenn Fowler, "[http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE5DB133EF933A15756C0A96F948260 Donald Hiss, 82, Ex-U.S. Official And Lawyer in Washington Firm]," ''The New York Times'', May 20, 1989</ref>
 
In 1936, Alger Hiss joined the [[State Department]] as special assistant to Assistant Secretary of State for Trade Agreements [[Francis B. Sayre]], son-in-law of [[Woodrow Wilson]].<ref>[http://www.woodrowwilsonhouse.org/timeline/ImageDisplay.asp?ID=37 Francis Bowes Sayre (April 30, 1885 -- March 29, 1972)], Woodrow Wilson House</ref> Two years later, his younger brother [[Donald Hiss|Donald]], who had followed Alger to Johns Hopkins, Harvard Law, and a clerkship for Justice Holmes, would join him there.<ref>Glenn Fowler, "[http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE5DB133EF933A15756C0A96F948260 Donald Hiss, 82, Ex-U.S. Official And Lawyer in Washington Firm]," ''The New York Times'', May 20, 1989</ref>
  
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The year before, at the funeral of Marshal [[Jozsef Pilsudski]] in [[Warsaw]], U.S. Ambassador to [[Moscow]] [[William C. Bullitt]] had confidentially assured the Polish government that the United States would stand by Poland in the event of a [[Nazi]] invasion. But when he reported back to the State Department that he had done so, someone there passed this information to the [[Kremlin]], which in turn transmitted it to German intelligence (with which Soviet intelligence had maintained liaison since the time of [[Lenin]]). Nazi propaganda minister [[Joseph Goebbels]] exploited this information to portray the United States as a warmonger. According to reporter Ralph de Toledano, who covered the Hiss trial for ''Newsweek'', the State Department source who passed this information to the [[NKVD]] was Alger Hiss.<ref>[http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_n3_v13/ai_19048238 Ralph de Toledano, “Embarrassment aided and abetted the Top Soviet spy - Alger Hiss,” ''Insight on the News'', January 27, 1997]</ref>
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The year before, at the funeral of Marshal [[Jozsef Pilsudski]] in [[Warsaw]], U.S. Ambassador to [[Moscow]] [[William C. Bullitt]] had confidentially assured the Polish government that the United States would stand by Poland in the event of a [[Nazi]] invasion. But when he reported back to the State Department that he had done so, someone there passed this information to the [[Kremlin]], which in turn transmitted it to German intelligence (with which Soviet intelligence had maintained liaison since the time of [[Lenin]]). Nazi propaganda minister [[Joseph Goebbels]] exploited this information to portray the United States as a warmonger. According to reporter Ralph de Toledano, who covered the Hiss trial for ''Newsweek'', the State Department source who passed this information to the [[NKVD]] was Alger Hiss.<ref>Ralph de Toledano, “[http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_n3_v13/ai_19048238 Embarrassment aided and abetted the Top Soviet spy - Alger Hiss],” ''Insight on the News'', January 27, 1997</ref>
  
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By 1937, Hiss was delivering packets of documents to [[Whittaker Chambers]] at intervals of a week or ten days, according to [[Oleg Gordievsky]], the [[KGB]] London ''rezident'' who defected in 1985.<ref>Peter B. Niblo, " Influence: The Soviet Task Leading to Pearl Harbor, the Iron Curtain, and the Cold War'' (Oakland, OR: Elderberry Press, 2002) ISBN 1930859147, p. 65</ref>
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By 1937, Hiss was delivering packets of documents to [[Whittaker Chambers]] at intervals of a week or ten days, according to [[Oleg Gordievsky]], the [[KGB]] London ''rezident'' who defected in 1985.<ref>Peter B. Niblo, ''Influence: The Soviet Task Leading to Pearl Harbor, the Iron Curtain, and the Cold War'' (Oakland, OR: Elderberry Press, 2002) ISBN 1930859147, p. 65</ref>
  
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In 1938, French Premier [[Edouard Daladier]] informed Bullitt that two brothers named Hiss, both in the U.S. government, were Soviet agents,<ref>[http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_n3_v13/ai_19048238 Ralph de Toledano, “Embarrassment aided and abetted the Top Soviet spy - Alger Hiss,” ''Insight on the News'', January 27, 1997]</ref> but Bullitt “laughed it off as a tall tale, never having heard their names.”<ref>Ralph De Toledano, “The Last Word,” ''Insight on the News'', December 17, 2001</ref> The same year, [[Whittaker Chambers]] made his final break with the Communists,<ref>Whittaker Chambers, ''Witness'' (Regnery Publishing, 1952) ISBN 0-89526-789-6, p. 25</ref> asking his wife's nephew<ref>Allen Weinstein, ''Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978), ISBN 0394495462, p. 319</ref> to hide a packet of copies of documents, hand-written memos and microfilm of documents for him.<ref>Whittaker Chambers, ''Witness'' (Regnery Publishing, 1952) ISBN 0-89526-789-6, p. 40-41</ref>  
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In 1938, French Premier [[Edouard Daladier]] informed Bullitt that two brothers named Hiss, both in the U.S. government, were Soviet agents.<ref>Ralph de Toledano, “[http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_n3_v13/ai_19048238 Embarrassment aided and abetted the Top Soviet spy - Alger Hiss],” ''Insight on the News'', January 27, 1997</ref> Bullitt “laughed it off as a tall tale, never having heard their names.”<ref>Ralph De Toledano, “The Last Word,” ''Insight on the News'', December 17, 2001</ref> The same year, [[Whittaker Chambers]] made his final break with the Communists,<ref>Whittaker Chambers, ''Witness'' (Regnery Publishing, 1952) ISBN 0-89526-789-6, p. 25</ref> asking his wife's nephew<ref>Allen Weinstein, ''Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978), ISBN 0394495462, p. 319</ref> to hide a packet of copies of documents, hand-written memos and microfilm of documents for him.<ref>Whittaker Chambers, ''Witness'' (Regnery Publishing, 1952) ISBN 0-89526-789-6, p. 40-41</ref>  
  
 
The following year, Hiss became personal aide to [[Stanley Hornbeck]], the State Department's adviser on Far Eastern Affairs. When news of the [[Hitler-Stalin pact]] broke on August 23, 1939, [[Walter Krivitsky]], former chief of [[GRU|Soviet military intelligence]] in Europe, who had defected in Paris two years earlier,<ref>Roman Brackman, ''The Secret File of Joseph Stalin: A Hidden Life'' (Florence, Ky: Routledge, 2001) ISBN:0714650501, p. 299</ref> warned his ''Saturday Evening Post'' ghostwriter, [[Isaac Don Levine]], "Everything that went on in the [U.S.] embassy [in Moscow], especially the major communications between Washington and Bullitt, were quickly relayed to the Soviet secret police."<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, p. 191</ref>
 
The following year, Hiss became personal aide to [[Stanley Hornbeck]], the State Department's adviser on Far Eastern Affairs. When news of the [[Hitler-Stalin pact]] broke on August 23, 1939, [[Walter Krivitsky]], former chief of [[GRU|Soviet military intelligence]] in Europe, who had defected in Paris two years earlier,<ref>Roman Brackman, ''The Secret File of Joseph Stalin: A Hidden Life'' (Florence, Ky: Routledge, 2001) ISBN:0714650501, p. 299</ref> warned his ''Saturday Evening Post'' ghostwriter, [[Isaac Don Levine]], "Everything that went on in the [U.S.] embassy [in Moscow], especially the major communications between Washington and Bullitt, were quickly relayed to the Soviet secret police."<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, p. 191</ref>
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In 1941, the [[House Committee on Un-American Activities|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 [[House Committee on Un-American Activities|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>
  
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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>
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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>
  
 
The following year, Hiss was promoted to become deputy director of the State Department's [[Office of Special Political Affairs]],<ref>[http://www.gpo.gov/congress/commissions/secrecy/pdf/12hist1.pdf Report of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy (Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1997), Appendix A]</ref> a policy-making office for postwar planning and international organization.<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> In August 1944, he organized the [[Dumbarton Oaks Conference]],<ref>Douglas O. Linder, [http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/hiss/hissaccount.html The Trials of Alger Hiss: A Commentary], Famous Trials: The Alger Hiss Trials, 1949-50 (University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, 2003)</ref> where he served as executive secretary,<ref>Robert G. Whalen, "[http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/09/reviews/chambers-strange.html Hiss and Chambers: Strange Story of Two Men]," ''The New York Times'', December 12, 1948</ref><ref>"[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,811892.html The Case of Alger Hiss]," ''Time'', February 13, 1950</ref> presiding over the drafting of the proposed [[United Nations]] Charter.<ref>[http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/history/dumbarton.shtml History of the Charter of the United Nations: Dumbarton Oaks and Yalta]</ref>
 
The following year, Hiss was promoted to become deputy director of the State Department's [[Office of Special Political Affairs]],<ref>[http://www.gpo.gov/congress/commissions/secrecy/pdf/12hist1.pdf Report of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy (Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1997), Appendix A]</ref> a policy-making office for postwar planning and international organization.<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> In August 1944, he organized the [[Dumbarton Oaks Conference]],<ref>Douglas O. Linder, [http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/hiss/hissaccount.html The Trials of Alger Hiss: A Commentary], Famous Trials: The Alger Hiss Trials, 1949-50 (University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, 2003)</ref> where he served as executive secretary,<ref>Robert G. Whalen, "[http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/09/reviews/chambers-strange.html Hiss and Chambers: Strange Story of Two Men]," ''The New York Times'', December 12, 1948</ref><ref>"[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,811892.html The Case of Alger Hiss]," ''Time'', February 13, 1950</ref> presiding over the drafting of the proposed [[United Nations]] Charter.<ref>[http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/history/dumbarton.shtml History of the Charter of the United Nations: Dumbarton Oaks and Yalta]</ref>
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At the conference, the U.S. ceded hegemony over Eastern Europe to Stalin and made a secret agreement giving the Soviet Union three votes in the UN to one for the U.S.<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 pp. 107-109.</ref> According to confidential [[GRU]] sources, during the conference, Hiss gave daily briefings to General [[Mikhail Abramovich Milshtein]], a military adviser to Stalin and the deputy director of the [[GRU]], revealing not only the American negotiating strategy but insights into the attitudes of the American negotiators.<ref>Jerrold and Leona Schecter, ''Sacred Secrets: How Soviet Intelligence Operations Changed American History''(Washington: Potomac Books Inc., 2002) ISBN 1574883275, p. 130</ref>
 
At the conference, the U.S. ceded hegemony over Eastern Europe to Stalin and made a secret agreement giving the Soviet Union three votes in the UN to one for the U.S.<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 pp. 107-109.</ref> According to confidential [[GRU]] sources, during the conference, Hiss gave daily briefings to General [[Mikhail Abramovich Milshtein]], a military adviser to Stalin and the deputy director of the [[GRU]], revealing not only the American negotiating strategy but insights into the attitudes of the American negotiators.<ref>Jerrold and Leona Schecter, ''Sacred Secrets: How Soviet Intelligence Operations Changed American History''(Washington: Potomac Books Inc., 2002) ISBN 1574883275, p. 130</ref>
  
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After the conference, Hiss went on to Moscow, where he was decorated with the Order of the Red Star<ref>Jerrold and Leona Schecter, ''Sacred Secrets: How Soviet Intelligence Operations Changed American History''(Washington: Potomac Books Inc., 2002) ISBN 1574883275, p. 131</ref> by Foreign Minister V.M. Molotov.<ref>Ralph De Toledano, “The Last Word,” ''Insight on the News'', December 17, 2001</ref>
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After the conference, Hiss went on to Moscow, where he was decorated with the Order of the Red Star<ref>Jerrold and Leona Schecter, ''Sacred Secrets: How Soviet Intelligence Operations Changed American History''(Washington: Potomac Books Inc., 2002) ISBN 1574883275, p. 131</ref> by Foreign Minister V.M. Molotov.<ref>Ralph De Toledano, “The Last Word,” ''Insight on the News'', December 17, 2001</ref> An 25 April 1945 memorandum from [[Pavel Fitin]], head of [[NKVD]] foreign intelligence, to NKVD Chief [[Vsevolod Merkulov]] reads in part: "According to data from [[Anatoly Gorsky|Vadim]] the group of agents of the [[GRU|"military" neighbors]] whose part [[Harold Glasser|Ruble]] was earlier, recently was decorated with orders of the USSR. Ruble learned about this fact from his friend Ales, who is the head of the mentioned group."<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. 226</ref>
  
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[[Venona project|Venona]] decrypt #1822 dated 30 March 1945 reads:<ref>The translation used here is that of [http://www.johnearlhaynes.org/page61.html John R. Schindler]</ref>  
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This memo apparently refers to [[Venona project|Venona]] decrypt #1822 dated 30 March 1945, which reads:<ref>The translation used here is that of [http://www.johnearlhaynes.org/page61.html John R. Schindler]</ref>  
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{{cquote|"Addendum to our telegram no. 28 as a result of a conversation of “Pya” with Ales, it turns out:
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{{cquote|Addendum to our telegram no. 28 as a result of a conversation of “Pya” with Ales, it turns out:
 
1. Ales has been continuously working with the [[GRU|neighbors]] since 1935.
 
1. Ales has been continuously working with the [[GRU|neighbors]] since 1935.
  
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3. The group and Ales himself are working on obtaining only military information, materials about “the [[United States Department of State|Bank]]” – the [[GRU|neighbors]] allegedly are not very interested and he doesn’t pass it regularly.
 
3. The group and Ales himself are working on obtaining only military information, materials about “the [[United States Department of State|Bank]]” – the [[GRU|neighbors]] allegedly are not very interested and he doesn’t pass it regularly.
  
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4. In recent years, Ales has been working with [[Nathan Gregory Silvermaster|Pol]] repeat [[Nathan Gregory Silvermaster|Pol]] who also meets with other members of the group on occasion.
+
4. In recent years, Ales has been working with Pol repeat Pol who also meets with other members of the group on occasion.
  
 
5. Recently Ales and his whole group were awarded Soviet medals.
 
5. Recently Ales and his whole group were awarded Soviet medals.
Line 105: Line 105:
 
On March 24, FBI agent E.A. Tamm, assistant to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, alerted Robert Lynch, Special Assistant to the Secretary of State, to Chambers' allegations that Hiss had been a member of the underground organization of the [[Communist Party]], and to Hiss' links to [[Nathan Witt]] and [[Lee Pressman]]. Three days later, FBI official D.M. Ladd furnished Frederick B. Lyon, Chief of the Division of Foreign Activity Correlation of the Department of State, a summary memorandum outlining this information.<ref>FBI memorandum: Ladd to Hoover, January 28, 1949 (FBI file: Hiss Chambers, Vol. 44)</ref>
 
On March 24, FBI agent E.A. Tamm, assistant to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, alerted Robert Lynch, Special Assistant to the Secretary of State, to Chambers' allegations that Hiss had been a member of the underground organization of the [[Communist Party]], and to Hiss' links to [[Nathan Witt]] and [[Lee Pressman]]. Three days later, FBI official D.M. Ladd furnished Frederick B. Lyon, Chief of the Division of Foreign Activity Correlation of the Department of State, a summary memorandum outlining this information.<ref>FBI memorandum: Ladd to Hoover, January 28, 1949 (FBI file: Hiss Chambers, Vol. 44)</ref>
  
−
The following month, Hiss was promoted to become Director of the State Department Office of Special Political Affairs. Former KGB officer Alexander Vassiliev's notes on a cable of the era, ([[Anatoly Gorsky|Vadim]] to Moscow Center, 5 March 1945) which Vassiliev discovered in the Soviet archives, read in part:
+
The following month, Hiss was promoted to become Director of the State Department Office of Special Political Affairs. [[Alexander Vassiliev]]'s notes on a cable of the era, ([[Anatoly Gorsky|Vadim]] to Moscow Center, 5 March 1945) which Vassiliev discovered in the Soviet archives, read in part:
−
{{cquote|He [[Anatoly Gorsky|Gorsky]] wants to be included in the Sov. delegation to the conference in San Francisco.  However, he can't leave his post to any of his collaborators.  He wants to leave it to "Son" (F.A. Garanin, transferred from Cuba to Washington as an attaché of the Soviet embassy).  After the conference, Vadim wants to come to Moscow to give a personal report.
+
{{cquote|He [[Anatoly Gorsky|Gorsky]] wants to be included in the Sov. delegation to the conference in San Francisco.  However, he can't leave his post to any of his collaborators.  He wants to leave it to "Son" (F.A. Garanin, transferred from Cuba to Washington as an attaché of the Soviet embassy).  After the conference, [[Anatoly Gorsky|Vadim]] wants to come to Moscow to give a personal report.
−
Particular attention – to "Ales."  He was at the Yalta Conference, then went to Mexico City and hasn't returned yet.  Our only key to him – "[[Harold Glasser|Ruble]]." "Ruble" is going on assignment himself (Italy)....  it is difficult to oversee "Ales"  through him.
+
Particular attention – to "Ales."  He was at the Yalta Conference, then went to Mexico City and hasn't returned yet.  Our only key to him – "[[Harold Glasser|Ruble]]"....
−
"We spoke with '[[Harold Glasser|Ruble]]' several times about 'Ales'.  As we have written already, 'Ruble' gives 'Ales' an exceptionally good political reference as a member of the Comparty. 'Ruble' reports that 'Ales' is strong and strong-willed, with a firm and decisive nature, completely aware that he is Communist in an illegal position, with all the ensuing consequences. Unfortunately, it seems that, like all local Communists, he has his own ideas about secrecy. As we already reported to you, 'Ales' and 'Ruble' used to work in '[[Whittaker Chambers|Karl]]'s' informational group, which was affiliated with the neighbors.  When the connection with 'Karl' was lost, 'Ruble' backed out, while 'Ales' entered into a connection with 'Pol'.  He told 'Ruble' about this himself a year and a half ago, when he asked the latter to meet with 'Pol' in order to continue work."
+
"We spoke with '[[Harold Glasser|Ruble]]' several times about 'Ales'.  As we have written already, 'Ruble' gives 'Ales' an exceptionally good political reference as a member of the [[Communist Party|Comparty]]. 'Ruble' reports that 'Ales' is strong and strong-willed, with a firm and decisive nature, completely aware that he is Communist in an illegal position, with all the ensuing consequences.... As we already reported to you, 'Ales' and 'Ruble' used to work in '[[Whittaker Chambers|Karl]]'s' informational group, which was affiliated with the neighbors.  When the connection with 'Karl' was lost, 'Ruble' backed out, while 'Ales' entered into a connection with 'Pol'.  He told 'Ruble' about this himself a year and a half ago, when he asked the latter to meet with 'Pol' in order to continue work."
 
"[[Harold Glasser|Ruble]]" could talk to "Ales"  about recommencing work.  If the latter doesn't want to work with "Ruble," he could do it with us.
 
"[[Harold Glasser|Ruble]]" could talk to "Ales"  about recommencing work.  If the latter doesn't want to work with "Ruble," he could do it with us.
 
There is an unclear situation: "About 6 months ago, 'Ales' told 'Ruble' that he had met a Russian (he didn't give his name), who immediately asked him to write a brief report about a certain matter.  'Ales' asked 'Ruble's' opinion as to what he should do. 'Ruble' evaded the question, saying that 'Ales' could do as he saw fit.
 
There is an unclear situation: "About 6 months ago, 'Ales' told 'Ruble' that he had met a Russian (he didn't give his name), who immediately asked him to write a brief report about a certain matter.  'Ales' asked 'Ruble's' opinion as to what he should do. 'Ruble' evaded the question, saying that 'Ales' could do as he saw fit.
Line 114: Line 114:
 
"After 2 or 3 meetings, depending on how 'Ales' conducts himself, we can get down to business, alluding either to the password, or to '[[Harold Glasser|Ruble]]', or simply to 'Ales's' progressive attitudes."<ref>John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, "[http://www.johnearlhaynes.org/page70.html 'Ales' is Still Hiss: The Wilder Foote Red Herring]," 2007 Symposium on Cryptologic History. The Center for Cryptologic History, October 19, 2007</ref>}}
 
"After 2 or 3 meetings, depending on how 'Ales' conducts himself, we can get down to business, alluding either to the password, or to '[[Harold Glasser|Ruble]]', or simply to 'Ales's' progressive attitudes."<ref>John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, "[http://www.johnearlhaynes.org/page70.html 'Ales' is Still Hiss: The Wilder Foote Red Herring]," 2007 Symposium on Cryptologic History. The Center for Cryptologic History, October 19, 2007</ref>}}
  
−
Shortly thereafter, Hiss presided as Secretary General over the [[United Nations Conference on International Organization|United Nations Charter Conference]] in San Francisco. [[Secretary of State]] [[James F. Byrnes]] said that despite his categorical instructions not to recommend any U.S. citizen for posts in the UN secretariat, Hiss recommended several dozen federal employees—members of Communist cells in the government, whose jobs were at risk under a tightened security program.<ref>[http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_n3_v13/ai_19048238 Ralph de Toledano, “Embarrassment aided and abetted the Top Soviet spy - Alger Hiss,” ''Insight on the News'', January 27, 1997]</ref>
+
Shortly thereafter, Hiss presided as Secretary General over the [[United Nations Conference on International Organization|United Nations Charter Conference]] in San Francisco. [[James F. Byrnes]], who became [[Secretary of State]] during the conference, said that despite his categorical instructions not to recommend any U.S. citizen for posts in the UN secretariat, Hiss recommended several dozen federal employees—members of Communist cells in the government, whose jobs were at risk under a tightened security program.<ref>Ralph de Toledano, “[http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_n3_v13/ai_19048238 Embarrassment aided and abetted the Top Soviet spy - Alger Hiss],” ''Insight on the News'', January 27, 1997</ref>
  
 
==Defections and Investigation==
 
==Defections and Investigation==
 
On September 5, 1945, [[GRU]] code clerk [[Igor Gouzenko]] defected from the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa, telling the FBI that he had been told by one Lt. Kulakov in the office of the Soviet military attaché that "the Soviets had an agent in the United States in May 1945 who was an assistant to the then secretary of state, Edward R. Stettinius."<ref>Amy W. Knight, ''How the Cold War Began: The Igor Gouzenko Affair and the Hunt for Soviet Spies'' (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2006) ISBN 0786718161, p. 33</ref> Stettinius' aide at the time was Alger Hiss.<ref>G. Edward White, ''Alger Hiss's Looking-Glass War'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) , p. 49</ref>
 
On September 5, 1945, [[GRU]] code clerk [[Igor Gouzenko]] defected from the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa, telling the FBI that he had been told by one Lt. Kulakov in the office of the Soviet military attaché that "the Soviets had an agent in the United States in May 1945 who was an assistant to the then secretary of state, Edward R. Stettinius."<ref>Amy W. Knight, ''How the Cold War Began: The Igor Gouzenko Affair and the Hunt for Soviet Spies'' (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2006) ISBN 0786718161, p. 33</ref> Stettinius' aide at the time was Alger Hiss.<ref>G. Edward White, ''Alger Hiss's Looking-Glass War'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) , p. 49</ref>
  
−
Canadian Prime Minister [[William Lyon Mackenzie King]] wrote that acting under-secretary of state for external affairs Robertson told him that Gouzenko’s documents disclosed that “everything was much worse than we would have believed…. Stettinius [had] been surrounded by spies, etc….” <ref>http://hrsbstaff.ednet.ns.ca/smileymi/Global%20History%2012/a_short_essay_on_the_cold_war.htm William Lyon Mackenzie King, diary entry for September 7, 1945</ref>
+
Canadian Prime Minister [[William Lyon Mackenzie King]] wrote that acting under-secretary of state for external affairs Robertson told him that Gouzenko’s documents disclosed that “everything was much worse than we would have believed…. Stettinius [had] been surrounded by spies, etc….”<ref>[http://hrsbstaff.ednet.ns.ca/smileymi/Global%20History%2012/a_short_essay_on_the_cold_war.htm William Lyon Mackenzie King, diary entry for September 7, 1945]. "Mr. Smiley's World of Social Studies and English Page" (Halifax Regional School Board Teacher Webspace)</ref>
  
 
Two days after Gouzenko's defection, Hiss proposed that the State Department create a new post, that of "special assistant for military affairs," linked to his Office of Special Political Affairs.<ref>Sam Tanenhaus, ''Whittaker Chambers: A Biography'' (New York: Random House, 1997) ISBN 0375751459, p. 519</ref> Following up on Gouzeno's revelations, Raymond Murphy of the State Department again interviewed Chambers, who repeated that Hiss' assignment was "to mess up policy."<ref>Allen Weinstein, ''Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978), ISBN 0394495462, p. 366</ref>
 
Two days after Gouzenko's defection, Hiss proposed that the State Department create a new post, that of "special assistant for military affairs," linked to his Office of Special Political Affairs.<ref>Sam Tanenhaus, ''Whittaker Chambers: A Biography'' (New York: Random House, 1997) ISBN 0375751459, p. 519</ref> Following up on Gouzeno's revelations, Raymond Murphy of the State Department again interviewed Chambers, who repeated that Hiss' assignment was "to mess up policy."<ref>Allen Weinstein, ''Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978), ISBN 0394495462, p. 366</ref>
  
−
On November 27, 1945, the FBI disseminated a secret report to the State Department, the Attorney General, and the Truman White House, reporting Chambers' identification of Hiss as a secret member of the Communist underground apparatus in contact with the Ware group.<ref>FBI Report: Soviet Espionage Activities in the United States Between World War I and World War II, November 27, 1945, p. 13</ref> Three days later, defecting Soviet courier [[Elizabeth Bentley]] advised FBI investigators that [[Victor Perlo]] told her that [[Harold Glasser]] had been taken away from the “Perlo Group” and turned over to a Russian “by some American in some governmental agency in Washington.” She said that [[Charles Kramer]] told her that the person who had done this “was named Hiss and that he was in the U.S. State Department.” She said she later clipped an article from the left-wing New York daily ''PM'' “in which Hiss was mentioned.” She said “It is my present recollection that this newspaper article stated Hiss’ full name was Eugene Hiss and that he was an adviser to Dean Acheson in the State Department.”<ref>[http://ultra-secret.info/PDFs/splitfiles/splitprocessed/Silvermaster006_Folder/Silvermaster006_page106.pdf Silvermaster file, Vol. 6, p. 105 (PDF p. 106)]</ref> FBI investigation quickly closed in on Alger Hiss. <ref>http://ultra-secret.info/PDFs/splitfiles/splitprocessed/Silvermaster082_Folder/Silvermaster082_page119.pdf FBI Report: Underground Soviet Espionage Organization (NKVD) in Agencies of the United States Government, p. 108 (PDF p. 119)</ref>
+
On November 27, 1945, the FBI disseminated a secret report to the State Department, the Attorney General, and the Truman White House, reporting Chambers' identification of Hiss as a secret member of the Communist underground apparatus in contact with the Ware group.<ref>FBI Report: Soviet Espionage Activities in the United States Between World War I and World War II, November 27, 1945, p. 13</ref> Three days later, defecting Soviet courier [[Elizabeth Bentley]] advised FBI investigators that [[Victor Perlo]] told her that [[Harold Glasser]] had been taken away from the “Perlo Group” and turned over to a Russian “by some American in some governmental agency in Washington.” She said that [[Charles Kramer]] told her that the person who had done this “was named Hiss and that he was in the U.S. State Department.”
  
−
In 1946, the FBI again interviewed Hiss. Hiss denied ever being a Communist, and denied knowledge of any of his friends being Communists. He did, however, add that he had heard it said that [[Lee Pressman]] was either a Party member or followed the Party line.<ref>http://ultra-secret.info/PDFs/splitfiles/splitprocessed/Silvermaster082_Folder/Silvermaster082_page121.pdf FBI Report: Underground Soviet Espionage Organization (NKVD) in Agencies of the United States Government, p. 110 (PDF p. 121)</ref> That year, British intelligence supplied its order of battle against Soviet-led guerrillas in Greece to the Pentagon. Shortly thereafter, this top-secret information appeared in [[Drew Pearson]]’s column, forcing the British army to withdraw, a move that would have delivered Greece to the [[Kremlin]] had not the U.S. intervened. According to de Toledano, “Deputy Assistant Secretary of State J. Anthony Panuch, in charge of security, tracked down the source of the leak. He discovered that Hiss had asked the Pentagon for this information, though it had nothing to do with his work as director of the Office of Special Political Affairs.”<ref>[http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_n3_v13/ai_19048238 Ralph de Toledano, “Embarrassment aided and abetted the Top Soviet spy - Alger Hiss,” Insight on the News, January 27, 1997]</ref>
+
Bentley's unlikely account was corroborated by an 25 April 1945 memo from [[Pavel Fitin]], head of [[NKVD]] foreign intelligence, to NKVD Chief [[Vsevolod Merkulov]], noting that Glasser had worked for both the [[NKVD]] and [[GRU]]:
 +
{{cquote|Our agent RUBLE, drawn to work for the Soviet Union in May 1937, passed initially through the [[GRU|military "neighbors"]] and then through our station [[[NKVD]]] valuable information on political and economic issues.... To our work RUBLE gives much attention and energy and is devoted and disciplined agent.}}
 +
 
 +
Bentley said she later clipped an article from the left-wing New York daily ''PM'' “in which Hiss was mentioned.” She said “It is my present recollection that this newspaper article stated Hiss’ full name was Eugene Hiss and that he was an adviser to Dean Acheson in the State Department.”<ref>[http://ultra-secret.info/PDFs/splitfiles/splitprocessed/Silvermaster006_Folder/Silvermaster006_page106.pdf Silvermaster file, Vol. 6, p. 105 (PDF p. 106)]</ref> FBI investigation quickly closed in on Alger Hiss. <ref>[http://ultra-secret.info/PDFs/splitfiles/splitprocessed/Silvermaster082_Folder/Silvermaster082_page119.pdf FBI Report: Underground Soviet Espionage Organization (NKVD) in Agencies of the United States Government, p. 108 (PDF p. 119)]</ref>
 +
 
 +
In 1946, the FBI again interviewed Hiss. Hiss denied ever being a Communist, and denied knowledge of any of his friends being Communists. He did, however, add that he had heard it said that [[Lee Pressman]] was either a Party member or followed the Party line.<ref>[http://ultra-secret.info/PDFs/splitfiles/splitprocessed/Silvermaster082_Folder/Silvermaster082_page121.pdf FBI Report: Underground Soviet Espionage Organization (NKVD) in Agencies of the United States Government, p. 110 (PDF p. 121)]</ref> That year, British intelligence supplied its order of battle against Soviet-led guerrillas in Greece to the Pentagon. Shortly thereafter, this top-secret information appeared in [[Drew Pearson]]’s column, forcing the British army to withdraw, a move that would have delivered Greece to the [[Kremlin]] had not the U.S. intervened. According to de Toledano, “Deputy Assistant Secretary of State J. Anthony Panuch, in charge of security, tracked down the source of the leak. He discovered that Hiss had asked the Pentagon for this information, though it had nothing to do with his work as director of the Office of Special Political Affairs.”<ref>Ralph de Toledano, “[http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_n3_v13/ai_19048238 Embarrassment aided and abetted the Top Soviet spy - Alger Hiss],” Insight on the News, January 27, 1997</ref>
  
 
When Secretary of State James F. Byrnes put Hiss under surveillance at the State Department<ref>Ron Capshaw, "[http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=E9146EC9-A031-4F77-9691-F4C7F1ACA9F4 Alger Hiss: The Left's Religious Icon]," FrontPageMagazine.com, May 4, 2007</ref> that year it was discovered he had obtained top secret reports "on atomic energy ... and other matters relating to military intelligence" that were outside the scope of his Office of Special Political Affairs, which dealt largely with United Nations diplomacy." <ref>Allen Weinstein, ''Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case'', New York: Random House, (ed. 1997), pgs. 321-322.</ref> Shortly thereafter, a State Department internal security probe (made public in 1993) revealed that Alger Hiss had purloined several highly classified documents on matters of national security, including China policy and atomic energy—documents Hiss was not authorized to access, which were unrelated to his official duties at State, but of obvious interest to Soviet intelligence.<ref>Sam Tanenhaus, "New Reasons to Doubt Hiss," ''Wall Street Journal'', November 18, 1993</ref>
 
When Secretary of State James F. Byrnes put Hiss under surveillance at the State Department<ref>Ron Capshaw, "[http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=E9146EC9-A031-4F77-9691-F4C7F1ACA9F4 Alger Hiss: The Left's Religious Icon]," FrontPageMagazine.com, May 4, 2007</ref> that year it was discovered he had obtained top secret reports "on atomic energy ... and other matters relating to military intelligence" that were outside the scope of his Office of Special Political Affairs, which dealt largely with United Nations diplomacy." <ref>Allen Weinstein, ''Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case'', New York: Random House, (ed. 1997), pgs. 321-322.</ref> Shortly thereafter, a State Department internal security probe (made public in 1993) revealed that Alger Hiss had purloined several highly classified documents on matters of national security, including China policy and atomic energy—documents Hiss was not authorized to access, which were unrelated to his official duties at State, but of obvious interest to Soviet intelligence.<ref>Sam Tanenhaus, "New Reasons to Doubt Hiss," ''Wall Street Journal'', November 18, 1993</ref>
Line 146: Line 151:
 
After Chambers publicly reiterated his charge that Hiss was working for the Soviets on the radio program "Meet the Press," Hiss instituted an unsuccessful slander lawsuit against Chambers, but only after several of his supporters began to publicly question his curious reluctance to file an action. Chambers, in response, presented the "Baltimore Documents", which were copies of a series of government documents that he had obtained from Hiss in the 1930s. The government documents had first been re-typed by Hiss's wife, Priscilla, and these copies were then photographed and passed on to the spy network. Later Chambers produced highly incriminating microfilm evidence which was given to Nixon on December 2nd, from a hollowed-out pumpkin on his Maryland farm (the so-called [[Pumpkin Papers]]).
 
After Chambers publicly reiterated his charge that Hiss was working for the Soviets on the radio program "Meet the Press," Hiss instituted an unsuccessful slander lawsuit against Chambers, but only after several of his supporters began to publicly question his curious reluctance to file an action. Chambers, in response, presented the "Baltimore Documents", which were copies of a series of government documents that he had obtained from Hiss in the 1930s. The government documents had first been re-typed by Hiss's wife, Priscilla, and these copies were then photographed and passed on to the spy network. Later Chambers produced highly incriminating microfilm evidence which was given to Nixon on December 2nd, from a hollowed-out pumpkin on his Maryland farm (the so-called [[Pumpkin Papers]]).
  
−
That year, after reviewing Hiss’ FBI file, President Truman pronounced Hiss “guilty as hell,” telling White House Special Counsel Samuel Rosenman, “We shouldn't just indict this son of a bitch. We should hang him.” Five minutes later, Truman blustered to a press conference that the Hiss case was just an election-year “red herring.” When Rosenman later asked why he had lied, Truman explained, “You don't understand. The Republicans aren't after Alger Hiss. They're after me. I had to take the political view.”<ref>[http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_n3_v13/ai_19048238 Ralph de Toledano, “Embarrassment aided and abetted the Top Soviet spy - Alger Hiss,” ''Insight on the News'', January 27, 1997]</ref>
+
That year, after reviewing Hiss’ FBI file, President Truman pronounced Hiss “guilty as hell,” telling White House Special Counsel Samuel Rosenman, “We shouldn't just indict this son of a bitch. We should hang him.” Five minutes later, Truman blustered to a press conference that the Hiss case was just an election-year “red herring.” When Rosenman later asked why he had lied, Truman explained, “You don't understand. The Republicans aren't after Alger Hiss. They're after me. I had to take the political view.”<ref>Ralph de Toledano, “[http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_n3_v13/ai_19048238 Embarrassment aided and abetted the Top Soviet spy - Alger Hiss],” ''Insight on the News'', January 27, 1997</ref>
  
 
Shortly before the Hiss indictment in 1948, the New York bureau of the ''Christian Science Monitor'' teletyped this message to the home office in Boston:
 
Shortly before the Hiss indictment in 1948, the New York bureau of the ''Christian Science Monitor'' teletyped this message to the home office in Boston:
−
{{cquote|From a thoroughly reliable contact [Arnold Beichman, then publicity director for New York's Liberal Party, of which former Assistant Secretary of State Berle was chairman]: According to this informant Berle has said privately that classified material which Hiss was handling was reaching the Russians. It was coded stuff. Berle took the handling out of Hiss' hands and the leaks stopped. <ref>[http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_n3_v13/ai_19048238 Ralph de Toledano, “Embarrassment aided and abetted the Top Soviet spy - Alger Hiss],” ''Insight on the News'', January 27, 1997</ref>}}
+
{{cquote|From a thoroughly reliable contact [Arnold Beichman, then publicity director for New York's Liberal Party, of which former Assistant Secretary of State Berle was chairman]: According to this informant Berle has said privately that classified material which Hiss was handling was reaching the Russians. It was coded stuff. Berle took the handling out of Hiss' hands and the leaks stopped. <ref>Ralph de Toledano, “[http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_n3_v13/ai_19048238 Embarrassment aided and abetted the Top Soviet spy - Alger Hiss],” ''Insight on the News'', January 27, 1997</ref>}}
  
 
==The Trials==
 
==The Trials==
Line 166: Line 171:
 
== Corroboration from Soviet archives ==
 
== Corroboration from Soviet archives ==
  
−
Former [[KGB]] officer Alexander Vassiliev’s handwritten notes on a 5 March 1945 cable by [[Anatoly Gorsky]] reveal that Ales had been at Yalta, went briefly to Moscow, then back to the U.S. but then immediately went to Mexico City for an inter-American conference of foreign ministers, known as the Chapultepec Conference (21 February 8 March 1945).  Stettinius, Hiss, Mathews, and Foote went to Mexico City.<ref>John Earl Haynes, "[http://www.johnearlhaynes.org/page63.html Ales: Hiss, Foote, Stettinius?]," June 7, 2007]</ref>
+
Former [[KGB]] officer Alexander Vassiliev’s handwritten notes on a 5 March 1945 cable by [[Anatoly Gorsky]] reveal that Ales had been at Yalta, went briefly to Moscow, then back to the U.S. but then immediately went to Mexico City for an inter-American conference of foreign ministers, known as the Chapultepec Conference (21 February 8 March 1945).  Stettinius, Hiss, Mathews, and Foote went to Mexico City.<ref>John Earl Haynes, "[http://www.johnearlhaynes.org/page63.html Ales: Hiss, Foote, Stettinius?]," June 7, 2007</ref>
  
 
An 25 April 1945 memo from [[KGB]] General [[Pavel Fitin]], head of foreign intelligence, to [[Vsevolod Merkulov]], overall head of the KGB, explained that [[Harold Glasser]] moved back and forth, sometimes working for the KGB, but at times also the [[GRU]].  Glasser learned from his friend Hiss that the latter's group had been decorated with honors. Glasser felt slighted, as the others in Hiss's group were decorated, but Glasser himself was not.<ref>Allan Weinstein, ''Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997 ed.), ISBN 067977338X, pp. 326–27.</ref>
 
An 25 April 1945 memo from [[KGB]] General [[Pavel Fitin]], head of foreign intelligence, to [[Vsevolod Merkulov]], overall head of the KGB, explained that [[Harold Glasser]] moved back and forth, sometimes working for the KGB, but at times also the [[GRU]].  Glasser learned from his friend Hiss that the latter's group had been decorated with honors. Glasser felt slighted, as the others in Hiss's group were decorated, but Glasser himself was not.<ref>Allan Weinstein, ''Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997 ed.), ISBN 067977338X, pp. 326–27.</ref>

Revision as of 20:59, June 6, 2008

Alger Hiss.
Photo courtesy U.S. Bureau of Prisons

Alger Hiss (November 11, 1904 – November 15, 1996) was a U.S. State Department official and Secretary General of the founding conference of the United Nations. Following accusations by Whittaker Chambers that he spied on behalf of the Soviet Union, Hiss was convicted of perjury.

Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (Dem.-N.Y.), who was instrumental in securing the release of the long-awaited FBI and Venona project files, which had been classified for nearly 50 years, in his 1998 book, Secrecy: The American Experience, wrote:

“ Belief in the guilt or innocence of Alger Hiss became a defining issue in American intellectual life. Parts of the American government had conclusive evidence of his guilt, but they never told. [1] ”

Early life

Alger Hiss was born in Baltimore, Maryland, November 11, 1904,[2] to a financially comfortable upper-middle-class[3] WASP family.[4] When Alger was two years old, his father, an executive with a dry goods firm,[5] committed suicide by slashing his throat with his own razor.[6] When Alger was 25, his sister Mary Ann also committed suicide, by drinking a bottle of Lysol.[7] Hiss’s older brother Bosley had died two and a half years before from Bright’s disease, a kidney disorder aggravated by his excessive alcohol consumption.[8]

As a boy, Alger Hiss was friends with Henry Collins.[9] After graduation from Baltimore City College and a year at Powder Point Academy (a private prep school in Duxbury, Massachusetts) and the Maryland Institute of Art, Hiss attended Baltimore's Johns Hopkins University.[10]

As an undergraduate, Hiss' favorite instructors included the Socialist Broadus Mitchell[11] (a former Socialist Party candidate for Governor of Maryland)[12] and José Robles, a committed Stalinist.[13] Hiss apparently knew Robles well enough to spend time at his home.[14] Robles would go on to serve in the Spanish Civil War as interpreter for General Jānis Bērziņš, head of Soviet military intelligence,[15] but was never seen again[16] after Bērziņš was recalled to Moscow[17] and shot in a Stalinist purge in 1938.[18] Hiss would later say he too considered going to Spain to fight for the Soviet-backed Loyalist cause.[19]

After graduating in 1926, Hiss went on to Harvard Law School, where he resumed his friendship with Henry Collins (who was attending Harvard Business School) and served on the Harvard Law Review with his classmate Lee Pressman.[20] Hiss became the protégé of one instructor, future Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter—whom former U.S. President William Howard Taft, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, said "seems to be closely in touch with every Bolshevist, Communist movement in this country."[21] When Hiss graduated from law school in 1929, Frankfurter got him a job as law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes.[22] The same year, Hiss married the former Mrs. Priscilla Fansler Hobson.

Hiss went on to a law firm in Boston, then to another in New York where, by 1930, his wife Priscilla had joined the Morningside Heights branch of the Socialist Party.[23] By 1932, Priscilla Hiss was an active member of American Labor Associates, and Hiss was becoming "radicalized,"[24] joining the International Juridical Association (IJA) (which "consistently followed the Communist Party line")[25] along with his Harvard Law classmate Lee Pressman[26] and Nathan Witt.[27]

During this period, Hiss' letters to his wife reflected his increasing radicalism. In 1930, he made a coy reference to the International Workers of the World, writing to Priscilla, "[D]id thee call thyself a Wobbly with an I.W.W. tongue in thy socialistic (I couldn't bring myself to write “Communistic”) cheek." Suggesting that an article questioning the legitimacy of the existing “capitalist order”[28] did not go far enough, Hiss wrote to Priscilla in 1932, “Has thee seen Archibald MacLeish's article on capitalism in last week's Saturday Review? Felix [Frankfurter] says it is soft thinking after Wilson.”[29]

New Deal

In 1933, Frankfurter sent Hiss a telegram[30] urging him to join President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal under Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace as assistant general counsel to the new Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA).[31] 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.[32] Even before the FBI would learn of Whittaker Chambers' charges, one of Hiss' colleagues at the AAA would tip off FBI investigators that Hiss and his circle were fellow travelers, if not Communists.[33]

In 1934, Hiss became General Counsel for the U.S. Senate's Nye committe,[34] which investigated people Chairman Gerald P. Nye (Rep.-N.D.) called Wall Street's "merchants of death,"[35] whom he accused of conspiracy to lead the U.S. into war. One scholar has dubbed this a "witch-hunt" for "subversive capitalists," in which Hiss was to Nye what Roy Cohn would later be to Senator Joe McCarthy (Rep.-Wisc.)[36] It was in this role that Hiss met Whittaker Chambers.[37]

The following year, Hiss transferred into the Justice Department as special assistant to the Solictor General, where he unsuccessfully defended the Agricultural Adjustment Act before the United States Supreme Court[38] (which ruled the AAA unconstitutional in 1936).[39]

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.[40]

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.[41]

Field would defect in 1948 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 Czech secret police (reported in 1990 by Karel Kaplan, former archivist of the Central Committee of the Czech Communist Party).[42] Field would end up in Communist Hungary, where in 1954 he would give Hungarian secret police a statement reading in part as follows:

“ 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.[43] ”

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.[44][45]

In a 1936 memorandum, found in the NKVD archives by former KGB agent Alexander Vassiliev, Massing 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.[46]

State Department

In 1936, Alger Hiss joined the State Department as special assistant to Assistant Secretary of State for Trade Agreements Francis B. Sayre, son-in-law of Woodrow Wilson.[47] Two years later, his younger brother Donald, who had followed Alger to Johns Hopkins, Harvard Law, and a clerkship for Justice Holmes, would join him there.[48]

The year before, at the funeral of Marshal Jozsef Pilsudski in Warsaw, U.S. Ambassador to Moscow William C. Bullitt had confidentially assured the Polish government that the United States would stand by Poland in the event of a Nazi invasion. But when he reported back to the State Department that he had done so, someone there passed this information to the Kremlin, which in turn transmitted it to German intelligence (with which Soviet intelligence had maintained liaison since the time of Lenin). Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels exploited this information to portray the United States as a warmonger. According to reporter Ralph de Toledano, who covered the Hiss trial for Newsweek, the State Department source who passed this information to the NKVD was Alger Hiss.[49]

By 1937, Hiss was delivering packets of documents to Whittaker Chambers at intervals of a week or ten days, according to Oleg Gordievsky, the KGB London rezident who defected in 1985.[50]

In 1938, French Premier Edouard Daladier informed Bullitt that two brothers named Hiss, both in the U.S. government, were Soviet agents.[51] Bullitt “laughed it off as a tall tale, never having heard their names.”[52] The same year, Whittaker Chambers made his final break with the Communists,[53] asking his wife's nephew[54] to hide a packet of copies of documents, hand-written memos and microfilm of documents for him.[55]

The following year, Hiss became personal aide to Stanley Hornbeck, the State Department's adviser on Far Eastern Affairs. When news of the Hitler-Stalin pact broke on August 23, 1939, Walter Krivitsky, former chief of Soviet military intelligence in Europe, who had defected in Paris two years earlier,[56] warned his Saturday Evening Post ghostwriter, Isaac Don Levine, "Everything that went on in the [U.S.] embassy [in Moscow], especially the major communications between Washington and Bullitt, were quickly relayed to the Soviet secret police."[57]

The year before, Whittaker Chambers confessed to Levine that he had been a courier for the Communist underground. On September 2, 1939, as the joint Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland was gearing up, Levine arranged a dinner with Chambers and Assistant Secretary of State for Security Adolf Berle, at which Chambers told Berle of an underground apparatus of the Communist Party for employees of the Federal government in Washington, D.C. Its organizer, said Chambers, was Harold Ware, its treasurer Henry Collins;[58] among its members he identified Lee Pressman, Nathan Witt, and the brothers Alger and Donald Hiss.[59]

While Chambers talked, Berle took notes. Under the heading “Underground Espionage Agent,” he listed several names, including “Alger Hiss,” with the notation, “Ass’t. to Sayre—CP—1937,” and “Member of the Underground Com.—Active.”[60] In Berle's diary, the first entry after his visit with Levine and Chambers reads:

“ Saturday night [September 2] ... Isaac Don Levine ... brought a Mr. X around to my house ... Through a long evening, I slowly manipulated Mr. X to a point where he had told some of the ramifications hereabout; and it becomes necessary to take a few simple measures. I expect more of this kind of thing, later. A good deal of the Russian espionage was carried on by Jews; we know now that they are exchanging information with Berlin; and the Jewish units are furious to find out they are, in substance, working for the Gestapo... [61] ”

After Berle relayed this information to President Franklin Roosevelt, Levine asked Berle how FDR responded. In his 1973 memoir, Levine wrote, “To the best of my recollection, the President dismissed the matter rather brusquely with an expletive remark on this order: ‘Oh, forget it, Adolf.’”[62]

In 1940, after Levine informed Bullitt of what Chambers had told him about Hiss, Bullitt relayed to Hiss' superior, Stanley Hornbeck, what Daladier had told him. Bullitt advised Alice Roosevelt Longworth and de Toledano that he also took this information directly to FDR.[63]

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 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."[64] Winchell's posthumously published memoir confirms Levine's story.[65]

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,[66] who, in a lecture before a KGB audience, identified Hiss as a Soviet agent during World War II.[67]

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,[68][69] with the notation appended, "Husband with State Department."[70] 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.[71]

Also in 1942, the Bureau interviewed Chambers for the first time.[72] 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.[73] 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,[74] to NKVD chief of foreign intelligence Pavel Fitin (code-named "Victor")[75] 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."[76]

The following year, Hiss was promoted to become deputy director of the State Department's Office of Special Political Affairs,[77] a policy-making office for postwar planning and international organization.[78] In August 1944, he organized the Dumbarton Oaks Conference,[79] where he served as executive secretary,[80][81] presiding over the drafting of the proposed United Nations Charter.[82]

Yalta and the United Nations

President Truman at the rostrum of the United Nations Charter Meeting with Secretary General of the Conference Alger Hiss seated second from Truman's left.

In February 1945, with the backing of Secretary of State Edward Stettinius, Jr., Hiss was selected to accompany FDR to his meeting with Stalin and Churchill at Yalta.

According to Sudoplatov, "One of the officials [at Yalta] we had established confidential relations with was Alger Hiss," who was "highly sympathetic to the interests of the Soviet Union."[83] He added:

“ In conversation, Hiss disclosed to Oumansky, and then Litvinov, official U.S. attitudes and plans; he was also very close to our sources who were cooperating with Soviet intelligence and to our active intelligence operators in the United States. Within this framework of exchange of confidential information were references to Hiss as the source who told us the Americans were prepared to make a deal in Europe.[84] ”

At the conference, the U.S. ceded hegemony over Eastern Europe to Stalin and made a secret agreement giving the Soviet Union three votes in the UN to one for the U.S.[85] According to confidential GRU sources, during the conference, Hiss gave daily briefings to General Mikhail Abramovich Milshtein, a military adviser to Stalin and the deputy director of the GRU, revealing not only the American negotiating strategy but insights into the attitudes of the American negotiators.[86]

After the conference, Hiss went on to Moscow, where he was decorated with the Order of the Red Star[87] by Foreign Minister V.M. Molotov.[88] An 25 April 1945 memorandum from Pavel Fitin, head of NKVD foreign intelligence, to NKVD Chief Vsevolod Merkulov reads in part: "According to data from Vadim the group of agents of the "military" neighbors whose part Ruble was earlier, recently was decorated with orders of the USSR. Ruble learned about this fact from his friend Ales, who is the head of the mentioned group."[89]

This memo apparently refers to Venona decrypt #1822 dated 30 March 1945, which reads:[90]

“ Addendum to our telegram no. 28 as a result of a conversation of “Pya” with Ales, it turns out:

1. Ales has been continuously working with the neighbors since 1935.

2. For a few years now he has been the director of a small group of probationers of the neighbors, for the most part drawn from his relatives.

3. The group and Ales himself are working on obtaining only military information, materials about “the Bank” – the neighbors allegedly are not very interested and he doesn’t pass it regularly.

4. In recent years, Ales has been working with Pol repeat Pol who also meets with other members of the group on occasion.

5. Recently Ales and his whole group were awarded Soviet medals.

6. After the Yalta conference, back in Moscow, one very high-ranking Soviet worker allegedly had contact with Ales (Ales implied that it was Comrade Vyshinskii) and at the request of the military neighbors he conveyed to him their thanks, etc.

Vadim[91]

”

Regarding "Ales," in its unanimous final report in 1997, the bipartisan Moynihan Commission on Government Secrecy concluded:

“ "This could only be Alger Hiss"[92] ”

Analysts at the National Security Agency have also gone on record asserting that Ales could only have been Alger Hiss.[93] Former NSA analyst John R. Schindler, professor of strategy at the Naval War College, concurs that "the identification of ALES as Alger Hiss, made by the U.S. Government more than a half-century ago, seems exceptionally solid based on the evidence now available; message 1822 is only one piece of that evidence, yet a compelling one."[94]

In March 1945, State Department security officer Raymond Murphy interviewed Chambers. Murphy's notes record that Chambers reiterated his identification of Hiss as a member of the Communist Party underground apparatus, but added that he was the leader of a cell within the Ware group, the members of which, said Chambers, were not merely Communists, but espionage agents who disclosed "much confidential material," as well as agents of influence who sought to shape U.S. policy "in keeping with the desires of the Communist Party."[95]

On March 24, FBI agent E.A. Tamm, assistant to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, alerted Robert Lynch, Special Assistant to the Secretary of State, to Chambers' allegations that Hiss had been a member of the underground organization of the Communist Party, and to Hiss' links to Nathan Witt and Lee Pressman. Three days later, FBI official D.M. Ladd furnished Frederick B. Lyon, Chief of the Division of Foreign Activity Correlation of the Department of State, a summary memorandum outlining this information.[96]

The following month, Hiss was promoted to become Director of the State Department Office of Special Political Affairs. Alexander Vassiliev's notes on a cable of the era, (Vadim to Moscow Center, 5 March 1945) which Vassiliev discovered in the Soviet archives, read in part:

“ He Gorsky wants to be included in the Sov. delegation to the conference in San Francisco. However, he can't leave his post to any of his collaborators. He wants to leave it to "Son" (F.A. Garanin, transferred from Cuba to Washington as an attaché of the Soviet embassy). After the conference, Vadim wants to come to Moscow to give a personal report.

Particular attention – to "Ales." He was at the Yalta Conference, then went to Mexico City and hasn't returned yet. Our only key to him – "Ruble".... "We spoke with 'Ruble' several times about 'Ales'. As we have written already, 'Ruble' gives 'Ales' an exceptionally good political reference as a member of the Comparty. 'Ruble' reports that 'Ales' is strong and strong-willed, with a firm and decisive nature, completely aware that he is Communist in an illegal position, with all the ensuing consequences.... As we already reported to you, 'Ales' and 'Ruble' used to work in 'Karl's' informational group, which was affiliated with the neighbors. When the connection with 'Karl' was lost, 'Ruble' backed out, while 'Ales' entered into a connection with 'Pol'. He told 'Ruble' about this himself a year and a half ago, when he asked the latter to meet with 'Pol' in order to continue work." "Ruble" could talk to "Ales" about recommencing work. If the latter doesn't want to work with "Ruble," he could do it with us. There is an unclear situation: "About 6 months ago, 'Ales' told 'Ruble' that he had met a Russian (he didn't give his name), who immediately asked him to write a brief report about a certain matter. 'Ales' asked 'Ruble's' opinion as to what he should do. 'Ruble' evaded the question, saying that 'Ales' could do as he saw fit. 'Ales' should be approached by a Soviet representative. Either an employee of Center, or 'Sergey," or me, 'Vadim'. The most convenient place - at the conference in San Francisco. "After 2 or 3 meetings, depending on how 'Ales' conducts himself, we can get down to business, alluding either to the password, or to 'Ruble', or simply to 'Ales's' progressive attitudes."[97]

”

Shortly thereafter, Hiss presided as Secretary General over the United Nations Charter Conference in San Francisco. James F. Byrnes, who became Secretary of State during the conference, said that despite his categorical instructions not to recommend any U.S. citizen for posts in the UN secretariat, Hiss recommended several dozen federal employees—members of Communist cells in the government, whose jobs were at risk under a tightened security program.[98]

Defections and Investigation

On September 5, 1945, GRU code clerk Igor Gouzenko defected from the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa, telling the FBI that he had been told by one Lt. Kulakov in the office of the Soviet military attaché that "the Soviets had an agent in the United States in May 1945 who was an assistant to the then secretary of state, Edward R. Stettinius."[99] Stettinius' aide at the time was Alger Hiss.[100]

Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King wrote that acting under-secretary of state for external affairs Robertson told him that Gouzenko’s documents disclosed that “everything was much worse than we would have believed…. Stettinius [had] been surrounded by spies, etc….”[101]

Two days after Gouzenko's defection, Hiss proposed that the State Department create a new post, that of "special assistant for military affairs," linked to his Office of Special Political Affairs.[102] Following up on Gouzeno's revelations, Raymond Murphy of the State Department again interviewed Chambers, who repeated that Hiss' assignment was "to mess up policy."[103]

On November 27, 1945, the FBI disseminated a secret report to the State Department, the Attorney General, and the Truman White House, reporting Chambers' identification of Hiss as a secret member of the Communist underground apparatus in contact with the Ware group.[104] Three days later, defecting Soviet courier Elizabeth Bentley advised FBI investigators that Victor Perlo told her that Harold Glasser had been taken away from the “Perlo Group” and turned over to a Russian “by some American in some governmental agency in Washington.” She said that Charles Kramer told her that the person who had done this “was named Hiss and that he was in the U.S. State Department.”

Bentley's unlikely account was corroborated by an 25 April 1945 memo from Pavel Fitin, head of NKVD foreign intelligence, to NKVD Chief Vsevolod Merkulov, noting that Glasser had worked for both the NKVD and GRU:

“ Our agent RUBLE, drawn to work for the Soviet Union in May 1937, passed initially through the military "neighbors" and then through our station [[[NKVD]]] valuable information on political and economic issues.... To our work RUBLE gives much attention and energy and is devoted and disciplined agent. ”

Bentley said she later clipped an article from the left-wing New York daily PM “in which Hiss was mentioned.” She said “It is my present recollection that this newspaper article stated Hiss’ full name was Eugene Hiss and that he was an adviser to Dean Acheson in the State Department.”[105] FBI investigation quickly closed in on Alger Hiss. [106]

In 1946, the FBI again interviewed Hiss. Hiss denied ever being a Communist, and denied knowledge of any of his friends being Communists. He did, however, add that he had heard it said that Lee Pressman was either a Party member or followed the Party line.[107] That year, British intelligence supplied its order of battle against Soviet-led guerrillas in Greece to the Pentagon. Shortly thereafter, this top-secret information appeared in Drew Pearson’s column, forcing the British army to withdraw, a move that would have delivered Greece to the Kremlin had not the U.S. intervened. According to de Toledano, “Deputy Assistant Secretary of State J. Anthony Panuch, in charge of security, tracked down the source of the leak. He discovered that Hiss had asked the Pentagon for this information, though it had nothing to do with his work as director of the Office of Special Political Affairs.”[108]

When Secretary of State James F. Byrnes put Hiss under surveillance at the State Department[109] that year it was discovered he had obtained top secret reports "on atomic energy ... and other matters relating to military intelligence" that were outside the scope of his Office of Special Political Affairs, which dealt largely with United Nations diplomacy." [110] Shortly thereafter, a State Department internal security probe (made public in 1993) revealed that Alger Hiss had purloined several highly classified documents on matters of national security, including China policy and atomic energy—documents Hiss was not authorized to access, which were unrelated to his official duties at State, but of obvious interest to Soviet intelligence.[111]

In November 1946, the FBI disseminated to the State Department, Attorney General and Truman White House a second secret report, this time reporting Bentley's allegations regarding "Eugene Hiss," suggesting that this might actually be a reference to Alger Hiss.[112]

In January, 1947, Byrnes quietly eased Hiss out of the State Department.[113]

Hiss became president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and served until May 5, 1949. Hiss also served as a trustee on the Institute of Pacific Relations.[114]

In 1948, Alexander Barmine, former Charge d'Affairs at the Soviet Embassy in Athens, Greece, who had defected in 1937, told FBI investigators "that he had heard Alger Hiss referred to as being an agent of Soviet military intelligence. A 1949 FBI report said, according to Barmine, his source was former GRU chief in Europe Walter Krivitsky, who defected in Paris in 1938 and was found dead in his Washington hotel room in 1941.[115]

Meanwhile in Moscow, Anatoly Gorsky, who had been chief of Soviet intelligence in the U.S. during World War II, authored an internal Soviet secret police memorandum in which he listed 43 Soviet sources and intelligence officers likely to be identified to American authorities by Bentley after her defection, included on the list was Alger Hiss.[116]

House Committee on Un-American Activities

In 1948, the House Committee on Un-American Activities called Whittaker Chambers. He testified that Alger Hiss, assisted by his wife Priscilla, had been a member of the underground apparatus of the Communist Party in the late 1930s, while he was a Federal official.[117] The purpose of the Ware Group, he testified, was to promote communist policies in U.S. government.When Chambers testified against Hiss, wrote Sudoplatov, "we considered this to be a setback for GRU intelligence activities in the United States."[118]

After Time magazine managing editor Whittaker Chambers charged him as being a Communist, Alger Hiss voluntarily appeared before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Some Committee members had misgivings at first about attacking Hiss, but Congressman Richard Nixon, who was fed information by the Catholic Church's secretive Communist hunter, Father John Cronin, and using materials from the FBI, claimed to have sensed that Hiss was hiding something and pressed the Committee to act. Initially, Hiss denied having ever known Chambers and dared Chambers to repeat the charge.

After Chambers publicly reiterated his charge that Hiss was working for the Soviets on the radio program "Meet the Press," Hiss instituted an unsuccessful slander lawsuit against Chambers, but only after several of his supporters began to publicly question his curious reluctance to file an action. Chambers, in response, presented the "Baltimore Documents", which were copies of a series of government documents that he had obtained from Hiss in the 1930s. The government documents had first been re-typed by Hiss's wife, Priscilla, and these copies were then photographed and passed on to the spy network. Later Chambers produced highly incriminating microfilm evidence which was given to Nixon on December 2nd, from a hollowed-out pumpkin on his Maryland farm (the so-called Pumpkin Papers).

That year, after reviewing Hiss’ FBI file, President Truman pronounced Hiss “guilty as hell,” telling White House Special Counsel Samuel Rosenman, “We shouldn't just indict this son of a bitch. We should hang him.” Five minutes later, Truman blustered to a press conference that the Hiss case was just an election-year “red herring.” When Rosenman later asked why he had lied, Truman explained, “You don't understand. The Republicans aren't after Alger Hiss. They're after me. I had to take the political view.”[119]

Shortly before the Hiss indictment in 1948, the New York bureau of the Christian Science Monitor teletyped this message to the home office in Boston:

“ From a thoroughly reliable contact [Arnold Beichman, then publicity director for New York's Liberal Party, of which former Assistant Secretary of State Berle was chairman]: According to this informant Berle has said privately that classified material which Hiss was handling was reaching the Russians. It was coded stuff. Berle took the handling out of Hiss' hands and the leaks stopped. [120] ”

The Trials

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.[121] 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.[122] 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.[123]

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.[124] 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.[125],[126] 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.[127]

Conviction on perjury

Hiss was charged with two counts of perjury; the grand jury could not indict him for espionage, as the statute of limitations had run out. Hiss went to trial twice. The first trial ended in a hung jury. Hiss's character witnesses at his first trial included such notables as Adlai Stevenson, Justice Felix Frankfurter, and former Democratic presidential candidate John W. Davis. The second trial Hiss was found guilty on two counts of perjury. Some of the Baltimore Documents were classified, and four handwritten notes were in Hiss's own handwriting. Both Under Secretary Welles and Sayre testified that delivering the classifed documents to a foreign power would enable them break America's most secret codes. [128] The verdict was upheld at the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court. Hiss was sentenced to five years on Jan. 25 and served 44 months in Lewisburg Federal Prison before being released in November 1954.

Disbarred, he became a salesman. But, despite the mountains of evidence against him that only increased as Soviet bloc incriminatory documents came to light following the collapse of Communism, Hiss continued for the rest of his life to claim innocence.

Corroboration from Soviet archives

Former KGB officer Alexander Vassiliev’s handwritten notes on a 5 March 1945 cable by Anatoly Gorsky reveal that Ales had been at Yalta, went briefly to Moscow, then back to the U.S. but then immediately went to Mexico City for an inter-American conference of foreign ministers, known as the Chapultepec Conference (21 February 8 March 1945). Stettinius, Hiss, Mathews, and Foote went to Mexico City.[129]

An 25 April 1945 memo from KGB General Pavel Fitin, head of foreign intelligence, to Vsevolod Merkulov, overall head of the KGB, explained that Harold Glasser moved back and forth, sometimes working for the KGB, but at times also the GRU. Glasser learned from his friend Hiss that the latter's group had been decorated with honors. Glasser felt slighted, as the others in Hiss's group were decorated, but Glasser himself was not.[130]

After the exposure of several Soviet espionage networks in the United States, Stalin created the KI, a centralized bureaucracy, modelled on the CIA, to funnel information from both KGB and GRU to intelligence users. During the KI's short existence (1947 - 1951), Anatoly Gorsky, who served in the United States and Great Britain, wrote a memorandum on Compromised American Sources and Networks. This memo incontrovertibly identifies Alger Hiss as a longtime Soviet agent who worked in the U.S. State Department.

In 1996 the United States government released the Venona papers, decoded Russian intelligence intercepts dating from the mid-1940s. These documents reference a Soviet spy at the State Department, code-named "Ales", whose biographical details matched those of Hiss.

Alger Hiss's known cryptonyms were "Lawyer" [131] ("Advocate" [132] or "Advokat" [133] which was assigned during his brief time at the United States Department of Justice between 1935 and 1936, and "Ales" [134] in 1945. "Leonard" [135] did not occur as a cover name in the World War II deciphered KGB Venona traffic and may be a later (or possibly earlier) cryptonym, or a GRU covername.


Few serious historians still regard the matter of Hiss's guilt as unresolved. Archivist of the United States Allen Weinstein, author of who had begun his research intending to prove Hiss innocent, concluded, "the body of available evidence proves that Hiss perjured himself when describing his secret dealings with Chambers, so that the jury in his second trial made no mistake in finding Alger Hiss guilty as charged."[136] The bipartisan Moynihan commission went further -- not just on perjury, but on espionage, the commission's unanimous Final Report concluding, "The complicity of Alger Hiss of the State Department seems settled.[137] More recently G. Edward White slammed the door on any serious question of Hiss's guilt with his meticulously researched "Alger Hiss's Looking Glass Wars: The Covert Life of a Soviet Spy," published in 2004.

References

  1. ↑ Moynihan, Daniel Patrick, Secrecy: The American Experience, New Haven: Yale University Press (1998), pg. 146.
  2. ↑ Testimony of Alger Hiss before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (August 5, 1948)
  3. ↑ Denise Noe, "The Alger Hiss Case," TruTV Crime Library
  4. ↑ Murray Friedman, The Neoconservative Revolution: Jewish Intellectuals and the Shaping of Public Policy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006) ISBN 0521836565), p. 62
  5. ↑ Janny Scott, "Alger Hiss, 92, Central Figure in Long-Running Cold War Controversy," New York Times, November 16, 1996
  6. ↑ Lance Morrow, "Fred Astaire Meets the Sad-Sack Dostoevskian Pudge," Time, November 25, 1996
  7. ↑ G. Edward White, Alger Hiss's Looking-glass Wars: The Covert Life of a Soviet Spy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) ISBN 0195182553, p. 5
  8. ↑ Denise Noe, "The Alger Hiss Case," TruTV Crime Library
  9. ↑ Testimony of Alger Hiss before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (August 5, 1948)
  10. ↑ Historical Note: Chronology of Alger Hiss. Zeligs, Meyer Aaron. Papers, 1923-1978: Finding Aid (Harvard Law School Library)
  11. ↑ Alger Hiss, Draft of a Chapter Written By Alger Hiss on the Foundations For His Liberalism (unpublished manuscript, on file with the Harvard Law School Special Collections)
  12. ↑ Matthew Richer, "The ongoing campaign of Alger Hiss: the sins of the father," Modern Age, Fall, 2004
  13. ↑ Jason Powell, "Review: The Breaking Point: Hemingway, Dos Passos, and the Murder of Jose Robles," eHistory (Ohio State University), January 2006
  14. ↑ Tony Hiss, Laughing Last: Alger Hiss by Tony Hiss (Boston: Haughton Mifflin, 1977), ISBN 039524899X, pp. 37-38
  15. ↑ Hugh Thomas, The Spanish Civil War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994) ISBN 0671758764, pp. 705-706
  16. ↑ George Packer, "The Spanish Prisoner," The New Yorker, October 31, 2005
  17. ↑ Roy Aleksandrovich Medvedev, Let History Judge: The Origins and Consequences of Stalinism (tr. George Shriver) (New York: Columbia University Press, 1989) ISBN 0231063504, p. 428
  18. ↑ David J. Nordlander, "Origins of a Gulag Capital: Magadan and Stalinist Control in the Early 1930s," Slavic Review, Vol. 57, No. 4 (Winter, 1998), pp. 791-812
  19. ↑ John Chabot Smith, Alger Hiss: The True Story (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1976), ISBN 0030137764, p. 104
  20. ↑ Testimony of Alger Hiss before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (August 5, 1948)
  21. ↑ "Felix Frankfurter," Time, September 7, 1962
  22. ↑ "Your Witness, Mr. Murphy," Time, July 4, 1949
  23. ↑ G. Edward White, Alger Hiss's Looking-glass Wars: The Covert Life of a Soviet Spy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) ISBN 0195182553, p. 27
  24. ↑ Douglas Linder, The Trials of Alger Hiss: A Chronology, Famous Trials: The Alger Hiss Trials, 1949-50 (University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, 2003)
  25. ↑ "Report on the National Lawyers Guild, legal bulwark of the Communist Party," United States Congress. House Committee on Un-American Activities (1950), p. 12
  26. ↑ G. Edward White, Alger Hiss's Looking-glass Wars: The Covert Life of a Soviet Spy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) ISBN 0195182553, p. 27
  27. ↑ Martin Dies, The Trojan Horse in America (New York: Arno Press, 1977) ISBN 0405099452, p. 92
  28. ↑ Archibald MacLeish, “To the Young Men of Wall Street,” Saturday Review, January 16, 1932
  29. ↑ Tony Hiss, The View From Alger's Window (New York: Vintage Books, 2000) ISBN 0375701281, pp. 140-141
  30. ↑ Dan Cryer, "We're a long way from the end of this," Salon.com, June 1, 1999
  31. ↑ Testimony of Alger Hiss before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (August 5, 1948)
  32. ↑ Testimony of Alger Hiss before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (August 5, 1948)
  33. ↑ FBI memorandum: Ladd to Hoover, January 28, 1949, p. 2 (FBI file: Hiss-Chambers, Vol. 44)
  34. ↑ Biographical Sketch. Alger Hiss Collection, 1934-1979 (Maryland Historical Society)
  35. ↑ 1921-1940: September 4, 1934, "Merchants of Death"
  36. ↑ Peter Viereck, Unadjusted Man in the Age of Overadjustment: Where History and Literature Intersect (Edison, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 2004) ISBN:0765808064, pp. 156-157
  37. ↑ William Fitzgibbon, "The Hiss-Chambers Case: A Chronology Since 1934," The New York Times, June 12, 1949
  38. ↑ Testimony of Alger Hiss before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (August 5, 1948)
  39. ↑ United States v. Butler, 297 U.S. 1 (1936)
  40. ↑ Anatoli Sudoplatov, Pavel Sudoplatov, Leona P. Schecter and Jerrold L. Schecter, Special Tasks (New York: Back Bay Books, 1995) ISBN 0316821152, p. 227-228
  41. ↑ Hede Massing, This Deception (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1951), p. 335
  42. ↑ [Karel Kaplan, Report on the Murder of the General Secretary (London: I.B. Taurus & Co. Ltd., 1990), ISBN 1-85043-211-2, pp. 19-25]
  43. ↑ Maria Schmidt, "The Hiss Dossier: A Historian's Report," The New Republic, November 8, 1993, pp. 17-20
  44. ↑ Sam Tanenhaus, “Hiss: Guilty as Charged,” Commentary, April 1993
  45. ↑ 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
  46. ↑ 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
  47. ↑ Francis Bowes Sayre (April 30, 1885 -- March 29, 1972), Woodrow Wilson House
  48. ↑ Glenn Fowler, "Donald Hiss, 82, Ex-U.S. Official And Lawyer in Washington Firm," The New York Times, May 20, 1989
  49. ↑ Ralph de Toledano, “Embarrassment aided and abetted the Top Soviet spy - Alger Hiss,” Insight on the News, January 27, 1997
  50. ↑ Peter B. Niblo, Influence: The Soviet Task Leading to Pearl Harbor, the Iron Curtain, and the Cold War (Oakland, OR: Elderberry Press, 2002) ISBN 1930859147, p. 65
  51. ↑ Ralph de Toledano, “Embarrassment aided and abetted the Top Soviet spy - Alger Hiss,” Insight on the News, January 27, 1997
  52. ↑ Ralph De Toledano, “The Last Word,” Insight on the News, December 17, 2001
  53. ↑ Whittaker Chambers, Witness (Regnery Publishing, 1952) ISBN 0-89526-789-6, p. 25
  54. ↑ Allen Weinstein, Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978), ISBN 0394495462, p. 319
  55. ↑ Whittaker Chambers, Witness (Regnery Publishing, 1952) ISBN 0-89526-789-6, p. 40-41
  56. ↑ Roman Brackman, The Secret File of Joseph Stalin: A Hidden Life (Florence, Ky: Routledge, 2001) ISBN:0714650501, p. 299
  57. ↑ Isaac Don Levine, Eyewitness To History: Memoirs and Reflections of a Foreign Correspondent for Half a Century (Stroud, Glos.: Hawthorn Books, 1973) ASIN B000ONBAW0, p. 191
  58. ↑ Testimony of Whittaker Chambers before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (August 3, 1948)
  59. ↑ "The Case of Alger Hiss," Time, February 13, 1950
  60. ↑ Adolf Berle’s Notes on his Meeting with Whittaker Chambers
  61. ↑ 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. 55-58)
  62. ↑ 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. 197-8
  63. ↑ Ralph De Toledano, “The Last Word,” Insight on the News, December 17, 2001
  64. ↑ 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
  65. ↑ Allen Weinstein, Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978), ISBN 0394495462, p. 331
  66. ↑ Douglas O. Linder, The VENONA Files and the Alger Hiss Case," Famous Trials: The Alger Hiss Trials, 1949-50 (University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law)
  67. ↑ 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
  68. ↑ Allen Weinstein, Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978), ISBN 0394495462, p. 329
  69. ↑ 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
  70. ↑ FBI Report: Underground Soviet Espionage Organization (NKVD) in Agencies of the United States Government, p. 109 (PDF p. 120)
  71. ↑ FBI memorandum: Ladd to Hoover, January 28, 1949, p. 2 (FBI file: Hiss-Chambers, Vol. 44)
  72. ↑ Douglas Linder, The Trials of Alger Hiss: A Chronology, Famous Trials: The Alger Hiss Trials, 1949-50 (University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, 2003)
  73. ↑ John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999) ISBN 0300077718, p. 92
  74. ↑ Kai Bird and Svetlana Chervonnaya, "The Mystery of Ales," The American Scholar, Summer 2007
  75. ↑ Venona 195 New York to Moscow 9th February 1944
  76. ↑ Venona 1579 New York to Moscow, 28 September 1943
  77. ↑ Report of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy (Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1997), Appendix A
  78. ↑ Douglas Linder, The Trials of Alger Hiss: A Chronology, Famous Trials: The Alger Hiss Trials, 1949-50 (University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, 2003)
  79. ↑ Douglas O. Linder, The Trials of Alger Hiss: A Commentary, Famous Trials: The Alger Hiss Trials, 1949-50 (University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, 2003)
  80. ↑ Robert G. Whalen, "Hiss and Chambers: Strange Story of Two Men," The New York Times, December 12, 1948
  81. ↑ "The Case of Alger Hiss," Time, February 13, 1950
  82. ↑ History of the Charter of the United Nations: Dumbarton Oaks and Yalta
  83. ↑ Anatoli Sudoplatov, Pavel Sudoplatov, Leona P. Schecter and Jerrold L. Schecter, Special Tasks (New York: Back Bay Books, 1995) ISBN 0316821152, p. , p. 227
  84. ↑ Anatoli Sudoplatov, Pavel Sudoplatov, Leona P. Schecter and Jerrold L. Schecter, Special Tasks (New York: Back Bay Books, 1995) ISBN 0316821152, p. , p. 227
  85. ↑ Ralph de Toledano and Victor Lasky, Seeds of Treason: The True Story of the Hiss-Chambers Tragedy, (NY: Funk and Wagnalls, 1950), ASIN B0007DS43A pp. 107-109.
  86. ↑ Jerrold and Leona Schecter, Sacred Secrets: How Soviet Intelligence Operations Changed American History(Washington: Potomac Books Inc., 2002) ISBN 1574883275, p. 130
  87. ↑ Jerrold and Leona Schecter, Sacred Secrets: How Soviet Intelligence Operations Changed American History(Washington: Potomac Books Inc., 2002) ISBN 1574883275, p. 131
  88. ↑ Ralph De Toledano, “The Last Word,” Insight on the News, December 17, 2001
  89. ↑ G. Edward White, Alger Hiss's Looking-glass Wars: The Covert Life of a Soviet Spy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) ISBN 0195182553, p. 226
  90. ↑ The translation used here is that of John R. Schindler
  91. ↑ Venona 1822 Washinton to Moscow 30 March 1945
  92. ↑ Report of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy (Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1997), Appendix A, p. A-34 (PDF p. 36)
  93. ↑ "Secrets, Lies and Atomic Spies," Nova (PBS)
  94. ↑ John R. Schindler, "Hiss in VENONA: The Continuing Controversy," Center for Cryptologic History Symposium, 27 October 2005
  95. ↑ Memorandum of Conversation, Tuesday, March 20, 1945, Westminster, Md.
  96. ↑ FBI memorandum: Ladd to Hoover, January 28, 1949 (FBI file: Hiss Chambers, Vol. 44)
  97. ↑ John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, "'Ales' is Still Hiss: The Wilder Foote Red Herring," 2007 Symposium on Cryptologic History. The Center for Cryptologic History, October 19, 2007
  98. ↑ Ralph de Toledano, “Embarrassment aided and abetted the Top Soviet spy - Alger Hiss,” Insight on the News, January 27, 1997
  99. ↑ Amy W. Knight, How the Cold War Began: The Igor Gouzenko Affair and the Hunt for Soviet Spies (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2006) ISBN 0786718161, p. 33
  100. ↑ G. Edward White, Alger Hiss's Looking-Glass War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) , p. 49
  101. ↑ William Lyon Mackenzie King, diary entry for September 7, 1945. "Mr. Smiley's World of Social Studies and English Page" (Halifax Regional School Board Teacher Webspace)
  102. ↑ Sam Tanenhaus, Whittaker Chambers: A Biography (New York: Random House, 1997) ISBN 0375751459, p. 519
  103. ↑ Allen Weinstein, Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978), ISBN 0394495462, p. 366
  104. ↑ FBI Report: Soviet Espionage Activities in the United States Between World War I and World War II, November 27, 1945, p. 13
  105. ↑ Silvermaster file, Vol. 6, p. 105 (PDF p. 106)
  106. ↑ FBI Report: Underground Soviet Espionage Organization (NKVD) in Agencies of the United States Government, p. 108 (PDF p. 119)
  107. ↑ FBI Report: Underground Soviet Espionage Organization (NKVD) in Agencies of the United States Government, p. 110 (PDF p. 121)
  108. ↑ Ralph de Toledano, “Embarrassment aided and abetted the Top Soviet spy - Alger Hiss,” Insight on the News, January 27, 1997
  109. ↑ Ron Capshaw, "Alger Hiss: The Left's Religious Icon," FrontPageMagazine.com, May 4, 2007
  110. ↑ Allen Weinstein, Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case, New York: Random House, (ed. 1997), pgs. 321-322.
  111. ↑ Sam Tanenhaus, "New Reasons to Doubt Hiss," Wall Street Journal, November 18, 1993
  112. ↑ FBI Report: Underground Soviet Espionage Organization (NKVD) in Agencies of the United States Government, November 21, 1946, p. 109 (PDF p. 120)
  113. ↑ Ron Capshaw, "Alger Hiss: The Left's Religious Icon," FrontPageMagazine.com, May 4, 2007
  114. ↑ Interlocking Subversion in Government Departments, SISS report (July 30, 1953), pp. 8-10.
  115. ↑ FBI Report: Alger Hiss, February 4, 1949
  116. ↑ Alexander Vassiliev's Notes on Anatoly Gorsky's December 1948 Memo on Compromised American Sources and Networks, Tr. Ronald Bachman and Harold Leich, assisted by John Earl Haynes
  117. ↑ Testimony of Whittaker Chambers before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (August 3, 1948)
  118. ↑ Anatoli Sudoplatov, Pavel Sudoplatov, Leona P. Schecter and Jerrold L. Schecter, Special Tasks (New York: Back Bay Books, 1995) ISBN 0316821152, p. 228
  119. ↑ Ralph de Toledano, “Embarrassment aided and abetted the Top Soviet spy - Alger Hiss,” Insight on the News, January 27, 1997
  120. ↑ Ralph de Toledano, “Embarrassment aided and abetted the Top Soviet spy - Alger Hiss,” Insight on the News, January 27, 1997
  121. ↑ Ralph de Toledano and Victor Lasky, Seeds of Treason: The True Story of the Hiss-Chambers Tragedy, (NY: Funk and Wagnalls, 1950), ASIN B0007DS43A, p. 235
  122. ↑ Ralph de Toledano and Victor Lasky, Seeds of Treason: The True Story of the Hiss-Chambers Tragedy, (NY: Funk and Wagnalls, 1950), ASIN B0007DS43A, p. 258-259
  123. ↑ "The Alger Hiss Issue," Time, November 3, 1952
  124. ↑ "Woman with a Past," Time, December 19, 1949
  125. ↑ 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
  126. ↑ Jim Caldwell, “Korea - 50 years ago this week, April 4 - 10, 1952,” Army News Service, April 1, 2002]
  127. ↑ “Another Witness,” Time, March 3, 1952]
  128. ↑ Ralph de Toledano and Victor Lasky, Seeds of Treason, (NY: Funk and Wagnalls, 1950), pgs. 221-223.
  129. ↑ John Earl Haynes, "Ales: Hiss, Foote, Stettinius?," June 7, 2007
  130. ↑ Allan Weinstein, Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997 ed.), ISBN 067977338X, pp. 326–27.
  131. ↑ Whittaker Chambers, Witness New York: Random House, (1952); Allen Weinstein, Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case, New York: Random House, (ed. 1997); "Lawyer" in 1936, Allen Weinstein and Alexander Vassiliev, The Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America�the Stalin Era, New York: Random House, (1999), pg. 43.
  132. ↑ Allen Weinstein, Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case, New York: Random House, (ed. 1997)
  133. ↑ Whittaker Chambers, Witness, New York: Random House, (1952).
  134. ↑ Venona; Allen Weinstein and Alexander Vassiliev, The Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America�the Stalin Era, New York: Random House, (1999); Eduard Mark, Who Was Venona's Ales? Cryptanalysis and the Hiss Case, Intelligence and National Security 18, no. 3 (Autumn 2003).
  135. ↑ KGB file 43173 vol.2 (v) pp. 49-55, The Gorsky Memo, 1948.
  136. ↑ Allen Weinstein, Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997), ISBN 0394495462, p. 513
  137. ↑ "Report of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy (Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1997), Appendix A, p. A-37 (PDF p. 39)

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