Six Crises (3 page)

This was the first time I had ever heard of either Alger or Donald Hiss. My attention that morning centered on another phase of Chambers' testimony, and it was the only point on which I questioned him during the time he was on the stand. What disturbed me was that Chambers testified he had told his story to government officials nine years before—and nothing had happened. Not only that, but Chambers stated that on three other occasions since then he had repeated the story to representatives of the government—at their request—and still, so far as he knew, no action had been taken to investigate his charges.

Chambers testified that he left the Communist Party in 1937 but said nothing to government officials about his past affiliation for two years thereafter. But in 1939 the signing of the Hitler-Stalin pact was so frightening to him that he felt he could no longer keep silent. Even though he was risking his own reputation and safety, he went to Washington as a “simple act of war” and told his story to Adolf A. Berle, Jr., who was then Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence. Berle, whom Chambers was careful to identify as an anti-Communist, became very distraught by what he heard and took extensive notes on the conversation. But Chambers' charges were so incredible and the temper in Washington at that time was such that when Berle reported the story to his superiors, he was told in so many words to “go jump in the lake.” Years passed during which Chambers heard nothing whatever
about what action, if any, had been taken with regard to his charges.

Then, in 1943, agents from the FBI visited him at his farm in Westminster, Maryland, and Chambers repeated his story in detail. Again, nothing happened. In 1945, and in 1947, he told the same story to FBI agents but, to his knowledge, no action was taken. It should be emphasized that during this period, J. Edgar Hoover, to his eternal credit, was conducting constant investigations of Communist infiltration in the United States generally and the government in particular, despite the fact that the official Administration policy was to “get along with Stalin.” But Hoover had the power only to conduct investigations. He could not follow them up with prosecutions or other required action without the approval of his superiors in the Justice Department and in the White House.

As Chambers testified that morning in his low, rather monotonous voice, most of the Committee members and the reporters at the press table yawned, took sporadic notes, and waited for the “spy stories” which never came.

His testimony made headlines the next day, but they were not nearly as sensational as those Elizabeth Bentley had drawn. For my own part, I gave very little thought to Chambers or his testimony that evening or the following morning, until Robert Stripling, the Committee's chief investigator, phoned me to say that the Committee had received a telegram from Alger Hiss requesting an opportunity to appear in public session to deny under oath all the allegations made about him by Chambers. Hiss was the only one named by Chambers who volunteered in this way. His request was granted immediately, and his appearance was set for the next day, August 5.

Hiss's performance before the Committee was as brilliant as Chambers' had been lackluster. The hearing was held in the caucus room of the Old House Office Building, which was much larger than the room in which Chambers had testified. It was filled to capacity. The press section was crowded with newsmen, many of whom were acquainted with Hiss and had gained respect for the ability he had demonstrated as head of the Secretariat at the San Francisco Conference which set up the UN organization. In this position, one of his jobs had been to brief the press and, in the process, he had earned their respect for his intelligence and over-all competence.

When he appeared on the morning of the fifth, Hiss immediately went on the offensive.

He told the Committee in a clear, well-modulated voice: “I was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on November 11, 1904. I am here at my own request to deny unqualifiedly various statements about me which were made before this Committee by one Whittaker Chambers the day before yesterday.

“I am not and never have been a member of the Communist Party. I do not and never have adhered to the tenets of the Communist Party. I am not and never have been a member of any Communist front organization. I have never followed the Communist Party line directly or indirectly. To the best of my knowledge none of my friends is a Communist.”

Hiss next reviewed his government career, and it was impressive to everyone in the room. After graduating from Johns Hopkins University and the Harvard Law School, he had served for a year as Clerk to Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, a signal honor for any Harvard Law graduate, had practiced law for three years, and then had come to Washington—in 1933—and became Assistant General Counsel (along with Lee Pressman) to the Agricultural Adjustment Administration. In 1934, he became Counsel to the Senate Committee Investigating the Munitions Industry (the Nye Committee). From there, he went to the office of Solicitor General Stanley F. Reed, who was later to be appointed to the U. S. Supreme Court. In September 1936, at the request of Assistant Secretary Francis B. Sayre, he joined the State Department, where he remained until January 1947. He resigned from government to accept the presidency of the Carnegie Endowment, one of the most respected private organizations in the field of foreign affairs. Its Board Chairman was John Foster Dulles.

Dulles, at the time of this hearing, was the chief foreign policy adviser to the Republican nominee for President, Governor Thomas E. Dewey. Hiss told the Committee that it was Dulles who had asked him to take the job at the Carnegie Endowment.
²

Hiss described his work in the State Department—including his preparing the draft of the U. S. position for the Yalta Conference and then accompanying former President Roosevelt to the conference. His manner was coldly courteous and, at times, almost condescending.

Had he concluded his testimony at this point—after denying any Communist affiliations or sympathy—he would have been home free. Hundreds of witnesses had denied such charges before the Committee in the past and nothing more had come of it because it was then simply their word against that of their accusers. In fact, this was one of the primary reasons the Committee itself was under such attack in the press at that time.

But here Hiss made his first and what proved to be his irreversible mistake. He was not satisfied with denying Chambers' charge that he had been a Communist. He went further. He denied ever having heard the name Whittaker Chambers. “The name means absolutely nothing to me,” he said.

When Robert Stripling, the Committee's chief investigator, handed him a photograph of Chambers, he looked at it with an elaborate air of concentration and said, “If this is a picture of Mr. Chambers, he is not particularly unusual looking.” He paused and then, looking up at Congressman Karl Mundt, the acting Chairman of the Committee, added: “He looks like a lot of people. I might even mistake him for the Chairman of this Committee.”

Hiss's friends from the State Department, other government agencies, and the Washington social community sitting in the front rows of the spectator section broke into a titter of delighted laughter. Hiss acknowledged this reaction to his sally by turning his back on the Committee, tilting his head in a courtly bow, and smiling graciously at his supporters.

“I hope you are wrong in that,” Mundt shot back quickly.

“I didn't mean to be facetious,” Hiss replied, “but very seriously I would not want to take oath that I had never seen that man. I would like to see him and then I would be better able to tell whether I had ever seen him. Is he here today?”

He then looked from side to side, giving the impression that he did not have the slightest idea who this mysterious character might be and that he was anxious to see him in the flesh.

“Not to my knowledge,” answered Mundt.

“I hoped he would be,” said Hiss, with an air of apparent disappointment.

It was a virtuoso performance. Without actually saying it, he left the clear impression that he was the innocent victim of a terrible case of mistaken identity, or that a fantastic vendetta had been
launched against him for some reason he could not fathom. But even at that time I was beginning to have some doubts. From considerable experience in observing witnesses on the stand, I had learned that those who are lying or trying to cover up something generally make a common mistake—they tend to overact, to overstate their case. When Hiss had gone through the elaborate show of meticulously examining the photograph of Chambers, and then innocently but also somewhat condescendingly saying that he might even mistake him for the Chairman, he had planted in my mind the first doubt about his credibility.

Karl Mundt, an experienced and skillful investigator, came back at Hiss strongly. He said, “You realize that this man whose picture you have just looked at, under sworn testimony before this Committee, where all the laws of perjury apply, testified that he called at your home, conferred at great length, saw your wife pick up the telephone and call somebody who he said must have been a Communist, pleaded with you to divert yourself from Communist activities, and that when he left you, you had tears in your eyes and said, ‘I simply can't make the sacrifice.'”

“I do know that he said that,” replied Hiss. “I also know that I am testifying under those same laws to the contrary.”

And so it went through the balance of the hearing. He so dominated the proceedings that by the end of his testimony he had several members of the Committee trying to defend the right of a congressional committee to look into charges of Communism in government.

But looking over my notes on his testimony, I saw that he had never once said flatly, “I don't know Whittaker Chambers.” He had always qualified it carefully to say, “I have never known a man by the name of Whittaker Chambers.” Toward the end of his testimony, I called Ben Mandel, one of the members of our staff, to the rostrum and asked him to telephone Chambers in New York and find out if he might possibly have been known under another name during the period he was a Communist functionary. The answer came back too late. After the hearing was over, Chambers returned the call and said that his Party name was Carl and that Hiss and the other members of the Communist cell with which he had worked had known him by that name.

As the hearing drew to a close, Karl Mundt, speaking for the Committee, said, “The Chair wishes to express the appreciation of the Committee for your very co-operative attitude, for your forthright
statements, and for the fact that you were first among those whose names were mentioned by various witnesses to communicate with us, asking for an opportunity to deny the charges.”

John Rankin of Mississippi added, “I want to congratulate the witness that he didn't refuse to answer the questions on the ground that it might incriminate him. And he didn't bring a lawyer here to tell him what to say.”

When the hearing adjourned Rankin left his seat to shake hands with Hiss. He had to fight his way through a crowd for, when the gavel came down, many of the spectators and some of the press swarmed around Hiss to congratulate him. He had won the day completely. It would not be an exaggeration to say that probably 90 per cent of the reporters at the press table and most of the Committee members were convinced that a terrible mistake had been made, a case of mistaken identity, and that the Committee owed an apology to Hiss for having allowed Chambers to testify without first checking into the possibility of such a mistake. Most of the news stories the next day and the editorials during the week were to express the same opinion—blasting the Committee for its careless procedures and, for the most part, completely overlooking the possibility that Chambers rather than Hiss might have been telling the truth.

One of the reporters who regularly covered the Committee came up to me afterwards and asked, “How is the Committee going to dig itself out of this hole?” Mary Spargo of the Washington
Post,
who had been covering the Committee for some time, told me bluntly, “This case is going to kill the Committee unless you can prove Chambers' story.” I ran into another barrage of questions when I went to the House restaurant after the hearing for lunch. Ed Lahey of the Chicago
Daily News,
whom I respected as one of the most honest and objective reporters in Washington, walked up to me literally shaking with anger. His eyes blazed as he said, “The Committee on Un-American Activities stands convicted, guilty of calumny in putting Chambers on the stand without first checking the truth of his testimony.”

As I was eating lunch I got the report of President Truman's opinion of the case. At his press conference he labeled the whole spy investigation a “red herring,” cooked up by a Republican Congress to avoid taking action on price controls, inflation, and other legislation important to the welfare of the people. Later, a Presidential Order directed that no federal agency was to release information on government
personnel to committees of Congress, thus blocking that avenue of investigation.

•  •  •

When the Committee reconvened in executive session later that afternoon, it was in a virtual state of shock. Several members berated the staff for not checking Chambers' veracity before putting him on the stand.

One Republican member lamented, “We've been had. We're ruined.”

Ed Hébert, a Louisiana Democrat, suggested that the only way the Committee could get “off the hook” would be to turn the whole file over to the Department of Justice and hold no more hearings in the case. “Let's wash our hands of the whole mess,” he said. That appeared to be the majority view, and if Hébert had put his suggestion in the form of a motion, it would have carried overwhelmingly. I was the only member of the Committee who expressed a contrary view, and Bob Stripling backed me up strongly and effectively.