SPY CASES - UNITED STATES

Alger Hiss and Whittaker Chambers

M - Z

Mark, Eduard. "Who Was 'Venona's' 'Ales'? Cryptanalysis and the Hiss Case." Intelligence and National Security 18, no. 3 (Autumn 2003): 45-72.

The author effectively refutes John Lowenthal, "Venona and Alger Hiss," Intelligence and National Security 15, no. 3 (Autumn 2000): 98-130, who argues that the Venona team "employed false premises and flawed comparative logic to reach the desired conclusion that Alger Hiss was the spy Ales." Mark concludes that Lowenthal's reading of Venona Cable No. 1822 is incorrect and suggests that Cable No. 195 from Moscow to New York adds further support to the case against Hiss.

David Lowenthal and Roger Sandilands, "Eduard Mark on Venona's 'Ales': A Note." Intelligence and National Security 20, no. 3 (Sep. 2005): 509-512, provide a "summary" of a draft response written by John Lowenthal prior to his death. That response concluded "that Mark had refuted neither the facts nor the reasoning presented in his [Lowenthal's] article."

Olmsted, Kathryn S. "Blond Queens, Red Spiders and Neurotic Old Maids: Gender and Espionage in the Early Cold War." Intellihence and national security 19, no. 1 (Spring 2004): 78-94.

Elizabeth Bentley, Judith Coplon, Priscilla Hiss, and Ethel Rosenberg "received the most media coverage of any female Communist spies, and their cases best illustrate the gender constructions used to interpret them."

Smith, John Chabot. Alger Hiss: The True Story. New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston, 1976.

From the "Hiss-was-framed" genre.

Allen Weinstein, "Was Alger Hiss Framed?" New York Review of Books, 1 Apr. 1976, 16-18, is a negative contemporaneous review.

Swan, Patrick A., ed. Alger Hiss, Whittaker Chambers, and the Shism in the American Soul. Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2003.

Whitfield, I&NS 18.3, calls this a "superb anthology" of nearly two dozen previously published essays. The work "basically endorses the verdict of 20 of the 24 jurors" in the two Hiss trials. The book's pro-Hiss essays "tend to ignore the documents that incriminated him and instead impugn the motives of his accuser."

Tanenhaus, Sam. "Hiss: Guilty as Charged." Commentary 95, no. 4 (Apr. 1993): 32-37.

Tanenhaus, Sam. Whittaker Chambers: A Biography. New York: Random House, 1997.

Bernstein, NYT, 18 Feb. 1997, calls the author's account of the Chambers-Hiss case "meticulous" and "sober and careful and patient." His conclusion that Hiss did pass secret documents to Chambers "is important though not surprising." Tanenhaus tells his story of Chambers the person "clearly, authoritatively and with wonderful richness of detail." Taylor, Booklist, 1 Feb. 1997, calls this work a "magnificent" and "definitive" biography. The author's research is "formidable and exhaustive," and "his narrative unfolds with supple effortlessness."

For Thomas, Washington Post, 31 Jan. 1999, "[t]his thoughtful biography ... is the best account of the communist spy trade in America." Oshinsky, WPNWE, 24 Mar. 1997, comments that Tanenhaus' "passionate work of scholarship" has given Chambers "a firm place in history." Writing in IJI&C 10.3, Jefferson Adams declares that Tanenhaus' biography is "[m]eticulously researched and succinctly written"; it "will be an indispensible work for many generations to come."

In the judgment of Falcoff, Commentary, Feb. 1997, "Whittaker Chambers: A Biography bids fair ... to become the last word on one of the longest-running controversies of the cold war." This is "a monumental work of scholarship which benefits from a vast amount of new documentation." To Ehrman, Studies, Winter-Spring 2001, "Tanenhaus is a thorough biographer" who presents "a full portrait of Chambers.... Tanenhaus's witing, too, is excellent, and he manages to bring a sense of drama and suspense to a well-worn story."

Weinstein, Allen. Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case. New York: Knopf, 1978. Toronto: Random House, 1978. Rev. ed. New York: Vintage, 1979. [pb] Newly rev. ed. New York: Random House, 1997.

Clark comment: After spending almost 10 years searching for information to vindicate Hiss, Weinstein concluded that Hiss was guilty of perjury and espionage. This remains the book to read on the Hiss case, especially the newly revised edition with its additional material. The downside of the new edition is that it seems to stretch to justify itself.

Ehrman, Studies, Winter-Spring 2001, comments that "since Perjury appeared, no significant work has repeated the claim of a frame-up or argued that Hiss was innocent." Pforzheimer calls Perjury "an important study of a major case of communist espionage in the U.S. in the 1930s and 1940s," while Petersen says it "is a meticulously researched scholarly treatment."

Victor Navasky, "Allen Weinstein's Docudrama," The Nation, 3 Nov. 1997, 11-16, remains unconvinced, and continues (Navasky, "The Case Not Proved Against Alger Hiss," The Nation, 8 Apr. 1978) to question Weinstein's use of his sources in arriving at his conclusion. Navasky argues that the revised edition of Perjury reprints interviews that have been challenged by the interviewees themselves "without indicating that they've been challenged." He also has reservations about the Venona transcripts, calling them "documents said to be decoded and annotated cable traffic ... between Moscow and its U.S. agents" (emphasis added.). Nevasky concludes that "it is at best a hazardous enterprise to attempt definitive readings of the tea leaves as soon as they are leaked, sold or selectively released by this or that intelligence source."

Allen Weinstein, "'Perjury,' Take Three," New Republic, 29 April 1978, 19-21, fires back at Navsky's criticisms of Perjury.

Weiser, Benjamin. "Nixon Lobbied Grand Jury to Indict Hiss in Espionage Case, Transcripts Reveal." New York Times, 12 Oct. 1999. [http://www.nytimes.com]

The Justice Department has released about 4,200 pages of grand jury records from the investigation of Alger Hiss. The documents include the 51-page transcript of then-Congressman Richard Nixon's appearance before the grand jury on 13 December 1948.

Ehrman, Studies 49.1 (2005), says that the author "provides a convincing analysis of Hiss's reasons" for committing espionage. The book "does not reveal any new facts or evidence," but it "still is an important addition to the literature of the case. White's focus on personality -- grounded in thorough research -- provides a useful and insightful way to look at Hiss. The book not only answers the questions about Hiss's motives for spying and denying his actions but also strips away the façade of respectability that helped Hiss obscure the facts for so long." Except for a few spots, the author's prose "is clear and direct, and makes for fascinating reading."

For Mark, I&NS 21.1 (Feb. 2006), this is "arguably the best" book on the life of Alger Hiss. The author mostly "lets the evidence speak for itself, though not without demonstrations of the implausibilites of Hiss's ever-evolving defense."

Zeligs, Meyer. Friendship and Fratricide. New York: Viking, 1967.

The author's psychoanalysis of Chambers to show why he would frame Hiss was performed without access to Chambers.

For a negative contemporaneous review, see Meyer Schapiro, "Dangerous Acquaintances," New York Review of Books, 23 Feb. 1967, 5-8.

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