Changes

==New Deal==

==New Deal==

In 1933, Frankfurter sent Hiss a telegram urging him to join President [[Franklin Delano Roosevelt]]'s [[New Deal]] under Secretary of Agriculture [[Henry A. Wallace]] as an attorney with the new [[Agricultural Adjustment Administration]]. There Hiss reunited with [[Henry Collins]], [[Lee Pressman]] and [[Nathan Witt]], all of whom now joined the [[Harold Ware|Ware group]] of underground Communists, a Soviet espionage group. During the early and middle thirties, Hiss was a source of agent information for another Soviet spy ring in Washington, the [[Silvermaster group]], according to a former GRU ''rezident'' in London and New York, as reported by Pavel Sudoplatov, former deputy director of Foreign Intelligence for the USSR.<ref>Anatoli Sudoplatov, Pavel Sudoplatov, Leona P. Schecter and Jerrold L. Schecter, ''Special Tasks'' (Boston: Back Bay Books, 1995) ISBN 0316821152, p. 228</ref>

In 1933, Frankfurter sent Hiss a telegram urging him to join President [[Franklin Delano Roosevelt]]'s [[New Deal]] under Secretary of Agriculture [[Henry A. Wallace]] as an attorney with the new [[Agricultural Adjustment Administration]] (AAA).<ref>Dan Cryer, "[http://www.salon.com/books/feature/1999/06/01/hiss/index.html We're a long way from the end of this]," Salon.com, June 1, 1999</ref> At AAA, Hiss reunited with his boyhood friend [[Henry Collins]], Harvard Law School classmate [[Lee Pressman]] and colleague [[Nathan Witt]], and became acquainted with [[Harold Ware]],<ref>[http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/hiss/8-5testimony.html Testimony of Alger Hiss before the House Committee on Un-American Activities] (August 5, 1948)</ref> head of an underground apparatus of the [[Communist Party]], according to confessed former Soviet courier [[Whittaker Chambers]]. Chambers would name Hiss, Pressman and Witt, among others, as members of the "Ware group,"<ref>"[http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,811892,00.html The Case of Alger Hiss," ''Time'', February 13, 1950</ref> and name Collins as the group's treasurer.<ref>[http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/hiss/8-3testimony.html Testimony of Whittaker Chambers before the House Committee on Un-American Activities] (August 3, 1948)</ref> Collins would refuse to answer whether he was a member of the Communist Party (citing grounds of potential self-incrimination),<ref>Hearings of the Senate Internal Security subcommittee, October 8, 1957, pp. 1855-56</ref> as would Witt.<ref>"[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,859933,00.html Mr. Smith Went to Washington]," ''Time'', June 1, 1953</ref> Pressman would eventually admit having been a Communist and member of the Ware group, identifying Witt, among others as a fellow member.<ref>"[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,856648,00.html The Road Back]," ''Time'', September 4, 1950</ref> Rather than taking the [[Fifth Amendment]], Hiss would deny membership, but [[Nathaniel Weyl]], another confessed former member of the Ware group, would testify that he attended secret Communist meetings with Alger Hiss, and saw Hiss pay his party dues.<ref>[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,890230,00.html “Another Witness,” Time, March 3, 1952]</ref>

He served briefly in the [[United States Department of Justice|Justice Department]]. In August or September of 1934, Hiss met [[Whittaker Chambers]] and started paying Communist Party dues. He began working with the [[GRU]] in 1935 and Chambers acted as courier.  GRU ''Illegal Rezident'' [[Boris Bykov]] recommended espionage procedures, followed by Hiss, that included bringing files home nightly and retyping them. [[Harold Glasser]] was transfered to GRU  in 1937.  Hiss's membership was later corroborated by [[Nathaniel Weyl]] who also worked in the AAA and was a member of the Ware group in testimony before the [[Senate Internal Security Subcommittee|McCarran Committee]]. <ref>[[Wikisource:Nathaniel Weyl testimony corroborating Alger Hiss as member of CPUSA secret apparatus| Nathaniel Weyl testimony, Senate Internal Security Subcommittee]], 23 February 1953. </ref>

In 1934, Hiss was appointed General Counsel for the [[U.S. Senate]] [[Special Committee Investigating the Munitions Industry|Nye committe]],<ref>[http://www.mdhs.org/library/Mss/ms002504.html Biographical Sketch. Alger Hiss Collection, 1934-1979] (Maryland Historical Society)</ref> which investigated charges of "warmongering" and "war profiteering" in the munitions industry in World War I.<ref>http://www.archives.gov/legislative/guide/senate/chapter-18-1921-1946.html#18D-4 Special Committee Investigating the Munitions Industry (April 12, 1934). Guide to the Records of the U.S. Senate at the National Archives</ref> The following year, Hiss transferred into the [[Justice Department]] as special assistant to the [[Solictor General]], where he tried unsuccessfully to defend the [[Agricultural Adjustment Act]] before the [[United States Supreme Court]]<ref>[http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/hiss/8-5testimony.html Testimony of Alger Hiss before the House Committee on Un-American Activities] (August 5, 1948)</ref> (which ruled the AAA unconstitutional in 1936).<ref>http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct-cgi/get-us-cite?297+1 United States v. Butler, 297 U.S. 1 (1936)</ref>

In 1936, Hiss and his brother [[Donald Hiss|Donald]] began working in the US State Department, where he served as assistant to [[Francis B. Sayre]], a son-in-law of [[Woodrow Wilson]], and later as an assistant to Secretary of State [[Edward Stettinius, Jr.]].  Hiss became special assistant to the Director of the Office of Far Eastern Affairs, then in 1944 special assitant to the Director of the Office of Special Political Affairs (OSPA), a policy-making office that concentrated on postwar planning for international organization and later became its director.  As such he was executive secretary at the [[Dumbarton Oaks Conference]], which drafted plans for the organization that would become the [[United Nations]].

In 1936, together with his brother [[Donald Hiss|Donald]], 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]].

 

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>

 

Hiss later became assistant to Secretary of State [[Edward Stettinius, Jr.]].  Hiss became special assistant to the Director of the Office of Far Eastern Affairs, then in 1944 special assitant to the Director of the Office of Special Political Affairs (OSPA), a policy-making office that concentrated on postwar planning for international organization and later became its director.  As such he was executive secretary at the [[Dumbarton Oaks Conference]], which drafted plans for the organization that would become the [[United Nations]].

==Nye Committee==

==Nye Committee==