Changes

"Hiss stoutly continued to deny the charge." reported ''Time'', but "it was clear to everyone" that he and Chambers "had known each other quite well in the mid-'30s." The magazine added that Hiss' "favorite phrase, as he fenced tediously with the committee, was: 'To the best of my recollection.' He used it and similar phrases [http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,779940,00.html 198 times]." Chambers [http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/09/reviews/chambers-strange.html offered to take] a lie-detector test; [http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,799060,00.html Hiss refused]—a refusal he kept up for the rest of his life.

"Hiss stoutly continued to deny the charge." reported ''Time'', but "it was clear to everyone" that he and Chambers "had known each other quite well in the mid-'30s." The magazine added that Hiss' "favorite phrase, as he fenced tediously with the committee, was: 'To the best of my recollection.' He used it and similar phrases [http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,779940,00.html 198 times]." Chambers [http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/09/reviews/chambers-strange.html offered to take] a lie-detector test; [http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,799060,00.html Hiss refused]—a refusal he kept up for the rest of his life.

Hiss demanded that the committee ask Chambers if he had ever been treated for a mental illness. The committee obliged, and Chambers answered: "[http://www.thenation.com/doc/19480904/sanction I have not, period]." Truman aide George Elsie wrote to White House Counsel [[Clark Clifford]], "Justice should make every effort to ascertain if Whittaker Chambers is guilty of perjury." No suggestion was made that Justice make any effort at all to ascertain if ''Hiss'' might be guilty of perjury, but a handwritten insertion advised "Investigation of Chambers' [https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/venona-soviet-espionage-and-the-american-response-1939-1957/21.gif confinement in a mental institution]." (Again, no suggestion was made that Hiss' mental health history might be subject to investigation.) In falling for the fiction that Chambers had been committed to an insane asylum, the Truman administration was "taken in by disinformation being spread by the American Communist party and Alger Hiss's partisans."<ref>John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=dIsmm_ZLHcIC Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America]'' (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999) ISBN 0300077718, p. 15</ref>

Hiss demanded that the committee ask Chambers if he had ever been treated for a mental illness. The committee obliged, and Chambers answered: "[http://www.thenation.com/doc/19480904/sanction I have not, period]." Truman aide George Elsie wrote to White House Counsel [http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/un/large/general_assembly/general_assembly3-1.jpg Clark Clifford], "Justice should make every effort to ascertain if Whittaker Chambers is guilty of perjury." No suggestion was made that Justice make any effort at all to ascertain if ''Hiss'' might be guilty of perjury, but a handwritten insertion advised "Investigation of Chambers' [https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/venona-soviet-espionage-and-the-american-response-1939-1957/21.gif confinement in a mental institution]." (Again, no suggestion was made that Hiss' mental health history might be subject to investigation.) In falling for the fiction that Chambers had been committed to an insane asylum, the Truman administration was "taken in by disinformation being spread by the American Communist party and Alger Hiss's partisans."<ref>John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=dIsmm_ZLHcIC Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America]'' (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999) ISBN 0300077718, p. 15</ref>

Hiss also [http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1988/7/1988_7_18.shtml dared] Chambers to repeat his charges outside of the immunity afforded in congressional hearings, so Hiss could sue him, adding, "and I hope you will do it [http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/hiss/8-17testimony.html damned quickly]." Within ten days,<ref>G. Edward White, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=T6S7htTSBqQC Alger Hiss's Looking-Glass Wars: the Covert Life of a Soviet Spy]'' (Oxford University Press, 2004) ISBN 0195153456, p. 61</ref> on NBC's ''Meet the Press,'' Chambers called Hiss' bluff, saying, "[http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17982730/page/5/ Alger Hiss was a Communist] and may be now."

Hiss also [http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1988/7/1988_7_18.shtml dared] Chambers to repeat his charges outside of the immunity afforded in congressional hearings, so Hiss could sue him, adding, "and I hope you will do it [http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/hiss/8-17testimony.html damned quickly]." Within ten days,<ref>G. Edward White, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=T6S7htTSBqQC Alger Hiss's Looking-Glass Wars: the Covert Life of a Soviet Spy]'' (Oxford University Press, 2004) ISBN 0195153456, p. 61</ref> on NBC's ''Meet the Press,'' Chambers called Hiss' bluff, saying, "[http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17982730/page/5/ Alger Hiss was a Communist] and may be now."