Chapter 2

Alger Hiss: Nixon’s bête noire

This was the American version of the ‘Dreyfuss Affair’. So much so that even today, people in the USA are torn between those who support Hiss and those against him.

Alger Hiss, a WASP,⁹ was a brilliant American government official and the perfect representative of the patrician society of America’s East Coast. In 1948 he was accused of being a Soviet spy, an accusation that initially seemed not only unlikely, but quite frankly ridiculous. But this was the Cold War and a period in which anti-communist feelings ran very high, aided of course by McCarthyism. What is more, the man who would lead the charge against Hiss was a newly elected young senator, with long teeth. The senator knew that the case presented the chance of a lifetime and offered an unexpected opportunity to be at the forefront of politics. The senator’s name was Richard Nixon, and we all know what he would later go on to become.

Nixon later acknowledged that he had no doubt that the Alger Hiss case would help to shape his destiny. In his memoires he wrote that:

The Hiss case proved beyond a shadow of a doubt the existence of communist subversion directed by the Soviets, at the highest echelons of the US government. Yet many of those who defended Hiss simply refused to believe the overwhelming evidence of his guilt. Some turned their anger and spite against me, as if I was somehow responsible for what Hiss had done. My role in the matter certainly started me on the path to the vice-presidency, but it also transformed from a young, relatively popular government official, who enjoyed a limited but good press, into a one of the most controversial figures in Washington, who was bitterly opposed by liberal journalists as well as the most respected and influential thinkers of the time.

Despite this challenge, the young Senator Nixon became Eisenhower’s vice-president only four years after the start of the Hiss case. He undoubtedly benefited from this episode of the Cold War, which was acted out in America like a serial thriller. Still, even sixty years later, Alger Hiss’ guilt still remains uncertain.

In order to properly understand the subject, it needs to be placed in historical context. In a famous speech made in 1946, Winston Churchill spoke for the first time about the ‘iron curtain’ that Stalin had built in Europe and that the gap between the former allies was continuing to widen. The so-called ‘witch hunts’ began in the USA, the significance and severity of which must not be exaggerated. There was no excuse for this form of stalking and McCarthyism, but these were troubled times. In eastern Europe, Stalin was leading a far more terrifying witch hunt, where people were either deported or even executed. However, many people at the time just closed their eyes and pretended not to see. The American’s witch hunt for communists seemed to obscure the crimes of Stalin. After all, a single mistake committed in a democracy, compared to what was taking place in the USSR, was a lot more showy than a series of crimes committed in a dictatorship. Such is the law.

Those in the West lived in fear of the ubiquitous communist spy. Even making allowances for the paranoia of those who specialised in anti-communist activities, it must be acknowledged that the Soviets took advantage of the common struggle against Nazism to infiltrate communist agents in western countries. Even better than spies and in cases that were more dangerous or insidious, they placed men in influential positions whose sole purpose in any circumstance was to advocate in favour of the USSR and its satellite countries. As a result, we have to pay very close attention to what was happening in the USA. In the early post-war years the news was troubling: after a number of defections by eastern agents, it would appear that the highest echelons of the US administration had been penetrated by communists. It was in this climate of widespread suspicion that the Hiss affair unfolded.

To borrow a contemporary phrase, Alger Hiss was a real ‘golden boy’. Life had always smiled on him: he came from a good family, received an excellent education at the best east coast schools and certainly had what would be called a ‘presence’. He was the embodiment of a young man who always gave the impression that he had just left the tennis club.

Hiss began his legal profession at one of the largest law firms in Boston, but very quickly decided that he wanted pursue a career at the highest levels of government administration. He was a member of the legal team at the Department of Agriculture and also worked on a special senate committee responsible for the armament industry before working for the Justice Department. Sewing up his career, he held many high-ranking positions, including working as the executive secretary at the conference that was to give birth to the United Nations.

Politically, Hiss was the darling of the Roosevelt administration and shared the progressive ideas of the American president. In the years of the ‘New Deal’, it was about being liberal. But for the Republicans and conservatives in general, that meant being too far to the left. Whatever the case, Hiss was close to Roosevelt, and even went as his advisor to the famous Yalta Conference, alongside Stalin and Churchill. A conference where westerners and Soviets would decide the dividing up of the world.

After the war, Hiss became president of the prestigious Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Even after the death of Roosevelt and under his replacement President Truman (another Democrat), Hiss remained an influential figure and one of the pillars of the liberal camp and counted many high-ranking officials as his friends. This is what made the scandal even greater when it was made public. Hiss’ main accuser was a man called Whittaker Chambers. A former communist, Chambers claims that his accusations dated back to 1939, when he had warned one of Roosevelt’s aides that Hiss was a communist spy; information that was immediately passed on to the White House. At the time however, the president treated the news with contempt and, not without reason, refused to order an investigation.

This can easily be explained as for years, the man who created the ‘New Deal’ had been a target for conservatives. Each of his reforms were regarded as being communist-inspired in some way and the Un-American Activities Committee continually harassed those who sided with the president. The general consensus in vogue in the United States was that the difference between Stalin’s communism and Roosevelt’s New Deal was practically nothing, and equivalent only to the width of a human hair.¹⁰ Roosevelt’s lack of response when informed of the suspicions surrounding his assistant is therefore understandable. Yet according to Chambers, other, more important names were also on the note that he sent to the White House. Was this just a way of making sure that the note was actually submitted to President Roosevelt?

During the war, other bits of information were submitted to the FBI and always at Chambers’ instigation. At the time, the FBI was directed by the infamous J. Edgar Hoover, a man who was well-known for not being particularly favourable to communists. Nevertheless, it would appear that the FBI did not take the accusations seriously.

In 1945, a KGB agent stationed in Canada, Igor Gouzenko, defected to the United States and provided information about Soviet spies stationed in London and Washington. Two months later, a woman called Elizabeth Bentley, who had been working for the Soviets, was turned by an FBI agent. What she had to say was very important, declaring that she had been recruited to the heart of a network that included many employees of the US government, some of whom were very well-placed. She gave up dozens of names, including several in Truman’s senior administration. However, Alger Hiss was nowhere on her list, although it did include the name of one of his close friends, Harry Dexter White, the former assistant to the Secretary of State, who quickly died from a heart attack after the revelation was made.

At first, the FBI was ordered to carry out their investigations quietly, in order to avoid any scandal. However, when Elizabeth Bentley was called before a grand jury and then before the Un-American Activities Committee, the case created much more noise. Her revelations were sensational, although some journalists who were close to the Democrats tried to ridicule the woman whom the press called ‘the red queen of espionage’.

However, worse was yet to come for the Liberals as the members of the commission, chaired by a Republican senator, were about to pull another ace from their sleeve: Chambers. He confirmed Bentley’s revelations and added to them, so much so that by the end of 1948, the case had taken on a national importance and forced President Truman to confront the voters.

William Manchester¹¹

To understand the enormity of the phenomenon that began during the summer of 1948, imagine a large household where the children are pretending to be chased by the bogeyman. You try to reassure them by constantly repeating to them that such a thing does not exist. You search the house from top to bottom and nothing, yet the children still persist in their story and you stop listening to them. But one evening, when the whole family is gathered in the living room, one of the children notices that the cupboard door is ajar. He gets up and opens it and suddenly, out comes a real bogeyman, 3 metres high with a mouthful of teeth.

But who is this Chamber, who acted as the trigger to this investigation? Outwardly he has all the appearance of an untrustworthy man, with the head and look of a spy: fat, neglected and dowdy. In 1948 he was a journalist at Time Magazine, where he held an important role, that of being in charge of all communist related stories. What is more, this former militant left-wing extremist was well-placed to understand the movement. In any case, his thriving professional situation appeared to be inconsistent with his physical appearance. Chambers made everyone feel uneasy, even those who supported him and staunchly believed his accusations.

Whittaker Chambers also knew that he often behaved like a scoundrel, a confession that would hardly give weight to his allegations, especially against a man as distinguished as Alger Hiss. Chambers knew this and subtly played up to this sneaky aspect of his character. In the eyes of public opinion, he certainly embodied the image of a communist activist who had been betrayed and now showed a sincere repentance, even recanting and converting to Catholicism. In fact, general opinion was even more hostile towards Alger Hiss, who was hiding under his bourgeois appearance and therefore did not have the courage of his convictions.

Born into a modest family, Whittaker Chambers had lived a rather adventurous and questionable youth. He enrolled in the American Communist Party at a young age and in the mid 1920s, worked in the party’s press office. In the early 1930s he was asked to go ‘underground’ and thus break with the party. The order came from the highest authorities and according to Chambers, from the NKVD itself. He was even sent to Moscow to attend a spy training course. According to his confession, when he returned to the USA, he built up a proper intelligence network that primarily operated within the Democratic administration.

This statement seems implausible. While there may be no denying that the Soviets wanted to infiltrate the US government, is it possible to imagine that they would have entrusted such a task to a man like Chambers, who had no significant contacts? It is more likely that Chambers was recruited by the NKVD and acted as a liaison between Soviets and those who provided the real information to Moscow. At Chambers’ level, it is easy to see how he could be misled. He could readily believe that the entire Roosevelt administration was a Soviet spy nest. In the world of intelligence it is all about taking your best shot at the right time over and over again. Anything that could ultimately weaken the US government was an opportunity that had to be taken, especially as the Soviet leaders had always preferred, paradoxically, to have conservative spokespeople, rather than progressive or even socialist ones. In France, for example, it was well-known that Moscow always voted to the right!

In 1937 or 1938, Chambers broke with the Communist Party and consequently with the Soviet intelligence services. After hiding out for a while, he later found a job as a journalist at Time. Very soon after, he met an aide of President Roosevelt, to whom he gave a list of officials he accused of being Soviet agents. This seems an odd place to submit your revelations. After all, if Roosevelt’s administration had indeed been infiltrated, why would you confide in someone who was close to the president?

In 1948, Elizabeth Bentley appeared before the Un-American Activities Committee. Immediately afterwards it was Whittaker Chambers’ turn to turn the screw. It was a young investigator on the Commission that pulled Chambers out of the hat, a young man close to Richard Nixon, who was a member of the same committee and who worked closely with the FBI. And so, J. Edgar Hoover, the immovable FBI boss who to begin with had paid little attention to Chambers’ allegations, now changed his tune. Having supported the Democrats for so many years, he now began to move closer to the Republicans, who according to political scientists, would win the next presidential election. With such opportunism, Hoover decided to help young Senator Nixon, who appeared to have a big future.

Whittaker Chambers was called to testify before the commission. He immediately declared that several Democrat figures, including Alger Hiss, had formed a clandestine communist cell within the administration. However, he accused them of being militants, not spies. The difference is significant, even if there was such anti-communist sentiment at the time. Questioned in turn, Hiss vigorously protested before the committee and denied ever being a communist. He also swore that he had never met Whittaker Chambers, even when he was presented with photographs of him. His testimony made an excellent impression: between the sneaky Chambers and the civilised ‘spy’ Alger Hiss, general opinion was divided. But the accusers were not about to stop there and would soon gain more support as they slowly ground Hiss down.

Marie-France Toinet¹²

[In Hiss’ words]

‘If that is a photograph of Mr Chambers, then he does not have a very exceptional appearance. He looks like many people ... I would not swear that I have never seen this man. I would like to see him in person then I think I would be better to say if I have already met him.’ According to the author, Alger Hiss had just created his own noose. His answer was not clear enough. He seems to have denied any relationship with Chambers, which would make the headlines, while at the same time was not completely sure whether he recognised him or not. However, everything seemed to go well for him. He made a very good impression during his hearing and even the president of the commission, Karl Mundt, congratulated him on his cooperation. The majority of the press seemed to take his side and various editorials strongly attacked the methods of the committee, although these cooled somewhat later, after they feared that they had portrayed the committee in a bad light. One of the representatives, Herbert, suggested that the case be handed over to the Justice Department. Only Richard Nixon found that Hiss was not quite clear enough in his denial and wanted to continue the interrogation. He finally got the consent of the commission, who like him, knew that their fate depended on the credibility of Chambers.

At this stage of the proceedings there was one crucial question: did Hiss know Chambers or not? During a new hearing, Chambers provided relatively detailed information about Alger Hiss, his wife, his house, his lifestyle. Ultimately, Hiss’ personal details amounted for little and he was not the only one that Chambers was accusing. However, he was the only one that Chambers declared he knew personally. Therefore, if the prosecutors could prove that he was telling the truth about this, then all his other allegations would be taken seriously and the idea of a genuine communist conspiracy would be strengthened. Hence the fury of their pursuit, especially as Hiss was seen as a symbol and representative of the arrogant and favoured social class from the East Coast who had run the country for so long. On the other side was Nixon; a Republican from the West Coast, the son of a modest tram driver, who represented the figure of the forgotten working-class American who believed in old-fashioned values.

In this regard, Nixon immediately understood the advantages that might result from the case. For him, it became a launch pad for election, while Hiss’ defenders were too caught up in the course of events to notice.

Hiss had already begun to make a retreat. During a new hearing, he claimed that he may have known Chambers, but under a different name, which was why he couldn’t immediately identify him. Then, when he was presented with photographs, he made no comment. Nixon, who increasingly appeared to be the strongman of the commission, decided to set up a confrontation between Hiss and Chambers. To escape the pack of journalists, the meeting would take place discreetly in a hotel room. On this occasion, Hiss finally recognised Chambers, saying they had met in 1935 and that he had rented an apartment from him, which he had never actually paid for. Ignoring the rest of the statement, this confession made a very bad impression. It would now appear that Alger Hiss had lied at least once, so could the committee in all good faith believe him when he denied being a communist?

Hiss committed another mistake a little later on when he attacked Chambers for libel. This put his opponents against the ropes. To defend himself, Chambers had to provide proof, otherwise he risked being sentenced for false testimony and perjury. Suddenly, the case now had a whole new dimension. Pushed by his rearguard who were operating at full speed, Chambers now declared that not only was Alger Hiss a communist, but he was also a spy. This new declaration caused a sensation as the informant continued to reveal that he had documents that would undoubtedly prove that Hiss was involved in espionage. These new accusations were serious and even if the allegations against Hiss were made up, the case once more took on a whole new dimension.

If Chambers did indeed have evidence that Hiss was a spy, why did he not mention this earlier? As for the documents he spoke of and had kept hidden for so long (microfilm and handwritten notes by Hiss on State Department paper), why were these only suddenly presented at the exact moment they were needed?

What is even more amazing is where these documents had supposedly been hidden all this time: the first batch were hidden in a dumb-waiter at the house of Chambers’ nephew, while the second batch were hidden in a hollowed-out pumpkin in Chambers’ garden. This is why the papers have gone down in history as the ‘pumpkin papers’, a name that the press, especially those opposed to Chambers, could not fail to laugh at. Beyond this, nothing more was known about the documents. As they were supposedly ‘secret’, they could not be revealed to the public and only certain elements were extracted from them. What is important is that they existed and not what was in them exactly, which only reinforces the idea that they could have been fabricated. Moreover, one of the microfilms was analysed by a Kodak expert, who claimed that the wire used was manufactured after the war. However, having demonstrated this deception, the man was quickly returned to his post.

It is tempting to see the hand of the FBI behind these latest developments in the case. It was a service that had the means to fabricate documents, as well as being able to put any necessary pressure on witnesses. Having said that, there is no evidence that the case was tampered with in any way. The only disturbing fact is that the FBI mobilised hundreds of agents during the case, which meant that Hoover was really committed to getting rid of Alger Hiss and forcing him to appear in court.

Finally, it was time for Hiss to be judged and in fact, the trial was conducted in two stages. At the end of the first trial in 1949, the jury was unable to come to a decision and Hiss was able to relax. However, after the second trial a few months later, he was found guilty and sentenced to five years in prison. He was not actually convicted for espionage due to the fact that there were doubts about some of the facts that had happened before the war. Instead, he was found guilty of perjury. The prosecution alleged that he had lied, and as was seen in the Monica Lewinsky Affair, Americans take the issue of committing perjury before a judge very seriously.

The former government official was jailed in March 1951. Hiss constantly protested his innocence and was submitted multiple requests for a retrial, but always in vain. He was finally released in 1954 but was not admitted back to the Massachusetts Bar until 1975, after being struck off after his conviction.¹³

So what really happened? All indications are that Alger Hiss was a scapegoat. It is not impossible that he did flirt with the Communist Party and may even have been a member. But during the haunting climate of the witch hunts that prevailed in America after the war, he clearly panicked when he was accused. He even thought that he had got away with it to begin with, despite all the pressure. This was foolish though, as the other figures who had been accused alongside him chose to invoke the Fifth Amendment, which allows a US citizen to refuse to answer a question if he or she believes it might incriminate them. As a result, they avoided prosecution. But Hiss was stubborn and so went on the attack. In so doing, he allowed his accusers to mount a real war against him, although the case against him personally was not particularly important. The main purpose of the trial was to show that the Democratic Party had been completely infiltrated by the ‘reds’.

The plot worked perfectly and at the same time, allowed the young senator, Richard Nixon, to become vice-president only three years later, in 1952.

In 1996, a number of encrypted telegrams were published that had been sent between Moscow and its agents in the west: the Venona Papers. One of the documents, dated 30 March 1945, refers to an agent with the codename ALES, and who had worked for the Soviet secret services since 1935. Some experts immediately made the link to Alger Hiss and that he probably was ALES. ‘Probably’, that is all. However, in 1993 the Russian historian, General Volkogonov, said he had found no trace of Alger Hiss after searching the KGB archives dating from the Cold War era.

Perhaps in the future we will know more. Indeed, the archives containing the Alger Hiss grand jury trial documents have been opened, despite the objections of the US government, and historians have plunged themselves into the thousands of pages of transcripts. Their work is not finished although some of them have been struck by Nixon’s attitude during the trial. They describe him as a skilled manipulator and cite this rather extraordinary moment in particular:

In a theatrical gesture, Nixon provoked the jurors by waving the microfilm that contained secret information from the State Department, known as the pumpkin papers, warning the court that he would force them to listen to the recordings. Nixon then told the grand jury, ‘I will not relinquish the film!’

Finally, showing that the Hiss trial was still of concern to Americans, Whittaker Chambers was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Ronald Reagan in 1984. Four years later, the farm where Chambers had supposedly hidden the secret papers in a hollowed-out pumpkin was designated a national historic site!