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Alger Hiss was the former State Department Official and one of Franklin Roosevelt's most highly regarded advisors. He played a critical role at Yalta and in the organization of the United Nations. But it was in 1948 that Hiss was accused of being a Soviet spy. Whittaker Chambers, an editor for the Time magazine who denounced his role as a Communist spy was the accuser. Chambers also claimed that while working in the Department of State, Hiss had passed on to him top-secret reports.
Hiss appeared before the HUAC (House Un-American Activities Committee) and denied all of Chambers' accusations. Chambers went to his Maryland farm and produced a hollow pumpkin containing re-typed copies of documents Chambers claimed he had received from Hiss. The documents were retyped with a Woodstock typewriter N230099 which was the same typewriter Hiss owned in 1938. The documents were called the "Pumpkin Papers" as they were found hidden in a pumpkin in Chambers' pumpkin patch.
Because the statute of limitation, Hiss was not tried for treason. However, Hiss lied. The first time regarding passing government documents to Chambers and the second time for denying he hadn't seen Chambers since 1937. Hiss was eventually convicted and was thrown in jail for three years and eight months. In fact, Richard Nixon gained an incredible amount of popularity as a result of this scandal.Many believe that Hiss was simply a victim of the rising anti-communist hysteria of the time. Many also believe that Hiss was actually a lying communist agent. Either way, Hiss's conviction was certainly a catalyst for Joseph McCarthy's witch hunts through the 50s. Nothing indicates if Hiss was actually a communist agent, but until his death in 1992, he never veered from his claim of innocence.
SOURCES:
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/alger-hiss-convicted-of-perjury
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/today-in-history-pumpkin-papers/
http://www.famous-trials.com/algerhiss/650-keyevidence
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/oct/19/joan-brady-alger-hiss-was-framed-by-nixon
Did you know the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) was actually founded in 1938, before WWII even ended, let alone the Cold War started. In its early phase, HUAC attacked FDR's administration, but the general American public liked FDR, so they couldn't get behind these attacks. However, as the Cold War began and anti-Communist hysteria began to spread (not to mention the fact that the trials were televised), the American public began to pay more attention.
ReplyDeleteGreat post, Claire. I find it really interesting how the sense of paranoia during the McCarthyism era made people desperate to point fingers. Take the Alger case for example. Whittaker Chambers actually joined the Communist party in 1925. Yet, when he was originally accused, he only needed to point fingers to Alger Hiss and he got off scott free despite there being more evidence of him being the spy than Hiss. I think this just goes to show how the Red Scare was so powerful that people oftentimes made irrational choices.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol44no5/html/v44i5a01p.htm