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[[Image:FBI-Hiss-chart.jpg|thumb|300 px|FBI chart illustrating the dissemination to the White House, State Department and Attorney General of dozens of secret memos and reports on Alger Hiss in 1942-47. ''Image source: J. Edgar Hoover Official & Confidential File #34, FOIA Reading Room, Federal Bureau of Investigation'']]By 1940 Hiss was 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 [[Akhmerov]], the leading [[NKVD]] illegal in the [[United States]],<ref>Douglas O. Linder, [http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/hiss/hissvenona.html The VENONA Files and the Alger Hiss Case]," Famous Trials: The Alger Hiss Trials, 1949-50 (University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law)</ref> who, in a lecture before a [[KGB]] audience, identified Hiss as a Soviet agent during [[World War II]].<ref>Christopher Andrew and Oleg Gordievsky, ''KGB: The Inside Story of Its Foreign Operations from Lenin to Gorbachev'' (New York: Harpercollins, 1990) ISBN 0060166053, p. 287</ref>

[[Image:FBI-Hiss-chart.jpg|thumb|300 px|FBI chart illustrating the dissemination to the White House, State Department and Attorney General of dozens of secret memos and reports on Alger Hiss in 1942-47. ''Image source: J. Edgar Hoover Official & Confidential File #34, FOIA Reading Room, Federal Bureau of Investigation'']]By 1940 Hiss was 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 [[Akhmerov]], the leading [[NKVD]] illegal in the [[United States]],<ref>Douglas O. Linder, [http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/hiss/hissvenona.html The VENONA Files and the Alger Hiss Case]," Famous Trials: The Alger Hiss Trials, 1949-50 (University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law)</ref> who, in a lecture before a [[KGB]] audience, identified Hiss as a Soviet agent during [[World War II]].<ref>Christopher Andrew and Oleg Gordievsky, ''KGB: The Inside Story of Its Foreign Operations from Lenin to Gorbachev'' (New York: Harpercollins, 1990) ISBN 0060166053, p. 287</ref>

In 1941, during the [[Molotov-Ribbentrop pact]], the [[House Committee on Un-American Activities|Dies committee]] obtained the membership list of the Washington Committee for Democratic Action, which would be confirmed as a [[Communist]] front the following year by [[Franklin Roosevelt|Roosevelt]]'s [[Attorney General]] Francis Biddle.<ref>M. Stanton Evans, ''Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies'' (New York: Crown Forum, 2007) ISBN 978-1-4000-8105-9, p. 55, n. 6 (p. 610)</ref> Included on the roster was the name of Priscilla Hiss,<ref>Allen Weinstein, ''Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case'' (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978), ISBN 0394495462, p. 329; G. Edward White, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=FvR4HBTiYzAC 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>FBI Report: [http://education-research.org/PDFs/Silvermaster082.pdf Underground Soviet Espionage Organization (NKVD) in Agencies of the United States Government], October 21, 1946, [http://ultra-secret.info/PDFs/splitfiles/splitprocessed/Silvermaster082_Folder/Silvermaster082_page120.pdf p. 109 (PDF p. 120)]. FBI file: Silvermaster, Vol 82</ref> As mandated by the [[Hatch Act]], the [[FBI]] subsequently conducted an investigation of Hiss, in the course of which one of Hiss' former colleagues at the AAA told investigators that Hiss and his circle were [[fellow traveller|fellow travelers]], if not [[Communist]]s.<ref>FBI memorandum: Ladd to Hoover, January 28, 1949, p. 2 (FBI file: Hiss-Chambers, Vol. 44)</ref> Hiss denied everything, although he said he thought his wife might have been a member of the League of Women Shoppers,<ref>[http://asteria.fivecolleges.edu/findaids/sophiasmith/mnsss134_main.html League of Women Shoppers Records, 1937 - 2001], Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College</ref> a [[Popular Front]] group<ref>Michael Denning, ''The Cultural Front: The Laboring of American Culture in the Twentieth Century'' (New York: Verso, 1998) ISBN 1859841708, p. 410</ref> identified as a Communist front by the committee in 1939.<ref>Meg Jacobs, ''Pocketbook Politics: Economic Citizenship in Twentieth-century America'' (Princeton University Press, 2005) ISBN 0691086648, p. 171</ref> 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> the first of what would become a veritable avalanche of FBI memos and reports on Hiss disseminated to the [[State Department]], Attorney General and [[White House]] over the ensuing five years.

In 1941, during the [[Molotov-Ribbentrop pact]], the [[House Committee on Un-American Activities|Dies committee]] obtained the membership list of the Washington Committee for Democratic Action, which would be confirmed as a [[Communist]] front the following year by [[Franklin Roosevelt|Roosevelt]]'s [[Attorney General]] Francis Biddle.<ref>M. Stanton Evans, ''Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies'' (New York: Crown Forum, 2007) ISBN 978-1-4000-8105-9, p. 55, n. 6 (p. 610)</ref> Included on the roster was the name of Priscilla Hiss,<ref>Allen Weinstein, ''Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case'' (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978), ISBN 0394495462, p. 329; G. Edward White, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=FvR4HBTiYzAC 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>FBI Report: [http://education-research.org/PDFs/Silvermaster082.pdf Underground Soviet Espionage Organization (NKVD) in Agencies of the United States Government], October 21, 1946, [http://ultra-secret.info/PDFs/splitfiles/splitprocessed/Silvermaster082_Folder/Silvermaster082_page120.pdf p. 109 (PDF p. 120)]. FBI file: Silvermaster, Vol 82</ref> As mandated by the [[Hatch Act]], the [[FBI]] subsequently conducted an investigation of Hiss, in the course of which one of Hiss' former colleagues at the AAA told investigators that Hiss and his circle were [[fellow traveller|fellow travelers]], if not [[Communist]]s.<ref>FBI memorandum: Ladd to Hoover, January 28, 1949, p. 2 (FBI file: Hiss-Chambers, Vol. 44)</ref> Hiss denied everything, although he said he thought his wife might have been a member of the League of Women Shoppers,<ref>[http://asteria.fivecolleges.edu/findaids/sophiasmith/mnsss134_main.html League of Women Shoppers Records, 1937 - 2001], Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College</ref> a [[Popular Front]] group<ref>Michael Denning, ''The Cultural Front: The Laboring of American Culture in the Twentieth Century'' (New York: Verso, 1998) ISBN 1859841708, p. 410</ref> identified by the committee in 1939 as a Communist front.<ref>Meg Jacobs, ''Pocketbook Politics: Economic Citizenship in Twentieth-century America'' (Princeton University Press, 2005) ISBN 0691086648, p. 171</ref> 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> the first of what would become a veritable avalanche of FBI memos and reports on Hiss disseminated to the [[State Department]], Attorney General and [[White House]] over the ensuing five years.

After Ludwig Lore identified [[Whittaker Chambers|Chambers]] as a former [[GRU]] man, the [[FBI|Bureau]] interviewed Chambers for the first time in 1942.<ref>Allen Weinstein, ''Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case'' (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978), ISBN 0394495462, p. 340; 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> Chambers repeated his identification of Hiss, among others, as a [[Communist]]. In 1943, the FBI obtained the notes Berle had taken during his meeting four years earlier with Chambers and Levine.<ref>John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=M8p00bTFvRkC 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>G. Edward White, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=FvR4HBTiYzAC Alger Hiss's Looking-glass Wars: The Covert Life of a Soviet Spy]'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) ISBN 0195182553, p. 224</ref> to [[NKVD]] chief of foreign intelligence [[Pavel Fitin]] (code-named "Viktor")<ref>[http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/venona/1944/9feb_atomic_energy.pdf 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/public_info/_files/venona/1943/28sep_gru_sources.pdf Venona 1579 New York to Moscow, 28 September 1943]</ref>

After Ludwig Lore identified [[Whittaker Chambers|Chambers]] as a former [[GRU]] man, the [[FBI|Bureau]] interviewed Chambers for the first time in 1942.<ref>Allen Weinstein, ''Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case'' (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978), ISBN 0394495462, p. 340; 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> Chambers repeated his identification of Hiss, among others, as a [[Communist]]. In 1943, the FBI obtained the notes Berle had taken during his meeting four years earlier with Chambers and Levine.<ref>John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=M8p00bTFvRkC 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>G. Edward White, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=FvR4HBTiYzAC Alger Hiss's Looking-glass Wars: The Covert Life of a Soviet Spy]'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) ISBN 0195182553, p. 224</ref> to [[NKVD]] chief of foreign intelligence [[Pavel Fitin]] (code-named "Viktor")<ref>[http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/venona/1944/9feb_atomic_energy.pdf 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/public_info/_files/venona/1943/28sep_gru_sources.pdf Venona 1579 New York to Moscow, 28 September 1943]</ref>