Part 15

Later that evening, Hiss called Nixon and told him that his wife had arrived in town and would be available as originally scheduled. The next morning, the Hisses, accompanied by Dollard, met with Nixon at the Commodore. The hearing took only ten minutes. After Mrs. Hiss had affirmed that she would tell the truth, she stated that she had known a man by the name of George Crosley between 1934 and 1937. She remembered that Crosley and his wife had spent a few days with them before moving into their old apartment on P Street. As far as she could recall, she had never taken a trip with this man whom she described as “a little too smiley.” Before Nixon dismissed her, she informed him that, if he wanted her opinion, the man who had called himself Crosley was nothing but “a sponger.”

The next act in what was rapidly beginning to have all the appearances of a Greek tragedy was scheduled to take place on August 25th in the Caucus Room of the Old House Office Building. Long before Chairman Thomas gavelled the hearing into being at 10:30 a.m., the chamber was filled to overflowing with more people than it had ever held before. Television cameramen, newspaper photographers, radio commentators, and the less spectacular members of the Fourth Estate crowded every corner of the long room. Thomas welcomed them all in the name of the Committee. “We are glad,” he announced, “to have as many representatives of the American public as is possible to crowd into this room today.” He was also mighty happy to put Hiss and Chambers on view together before a nationwide audience.

The first order of business was to determine whether anyone but Alger Hiss had ever known of George Crosley’s existence. At the Commodore confrontation, Hiss had suggested the names of three former Nye Committee employees whom he thought might have run into Crosley when the latter was scrounging for magazine fodder. Stripling’s investigators had discovered that one was dead, another could not be traced, and the third couldn’t remember ever having met anyone named Crosley. A search of the records of the Library of Congress, the Copyright Division and the Public Catalogue had uncovered only two writers by that name--an obscure 1905 poet and a doctor who had published a treatise on the effects of ultra-violet light. If George Crosley had ever existed, he was now a case for the Missing Persons Bureau.

With Crosley out of the way, the Committee turned to Fords and photostats. Hiss had previously testified that after he had purchased a new Plymouth in the Spring of ’35, he had either given Crosley-Chambers “the use of the car” or “the car outright.” According to the records of the District of Columbia’s Motor Vehicles and Traffic Bureau, Hiss had bought the Plymouth on September 7, 1935. If the dates were correct, then Hiss had given Chambers the old Ford _before_ he had obtained the Plymouth.

Nixon was obviously fascinated by the business of the cars. Would Mr. Hiss enlighten him as to whether he had sold, or given the car to Crosley?

MR. HISS: I gave Crosley, according to my best recollection....

MR. NIXON: Well, now, just a moment on that point. I don’t want to interrupt you on that ‘to the best of my recollection’ but you certainly can testify ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ as to whether you gave Crosley a car. How many cars have you given away in your life, Mr. Hiss?

MR. HISS: I have only had one old car of a financial value of $25 in my life. That is the car that I let Crosley have the use of.

When Mundt reminded the witness that, a week earlier, he had sworn that he had “sold him an automobile,” Hiss promptly swallowed his words and conceded that, if that’s what the transcript said, it must be correct.

After Nixon had read into the record most of Hiss’ previous testimony about the Ford roadster, he confessed to the chairman that he was “amazed to hear Mr. Hiss say this morning that he can only testify to the best of his recollection as to whether he ever gave Crosley a car at all, that he is not sure as to whether or not he transferred the car to Crosley, that he might have given it to him for his use only, and that he is not even sure when the transaction occurred....” As far as he was concerned, Hiss ought to “tell us exactly what did happen to that car.”

The witness was only too happy to oblige. His testimony, “based upon the best recollection I have, is that I gave Crosley the use of the car, as I gave him the use of the apartment.” He thought that the transfer had taken place at the same time as he had subleased the apartment to the Crosleys but it could have taken place “several months after the rental transaction.” When Mundt asked him whether he had ever given the Ford “to anybody else in any way besides to Mr. George Crosley,” Hiss insisted that he could not answer the question “without consulting the records.”

The reason for the Committee’s preoccupation with the Ford’s disposition became clear when Stripling called Louis Russell, one of its own investigators. Russell testified that he had checked the records of the District’s Director of Vehicles and Traffic and that he had discovered that one Alger Hiss had assigned a 1929 Ford automobile to the Cherner Motor Company on July 23, 1936. He identified a photostatic copy of the assignment of title as a copy of the original document which he had seen on file. It was signed by Hiss and notarized by W. Marvin Smith, an attorney in the Solicitor General’s office.

After some shilly-shallying about “photostatic signatures,” Hiss admitted that “it looks like my signature to me, Mr. Chairman.” He was also prepared to go a little further and own that Mr. Smith had indeed notarized his signature. When Stripling produced a sales slip which indicated that the vehicle had been sold by the Cherner Motor Company to one William Rosen a few hours after Hiss had turned it in, that was the last trace of the saucy little car that was carrying the Committee to glory.

Just before the noon recess, Hébert wanted to ask a question.

MR. HÉBERT: Mr. Hiss, now that your memory has been refreshed by the development of the last few minutes, do you recall the transaction whereby you disposed of that Ford that you could not remember this morning?

MR. HISS: No, I have no present recollection of the disposition of the Ford, Mr. Hébert.

MR. HÉBERT: In view of the refreshing of your memory that has been presented here this morning?

MR. HISS: In view of that, and in view of all the other developments.

MR. HÉBERT: You are a remarkable and agile young man, Mr. Hiss.

In the afternoon, Hiss read a letter he had written to Chairman Thomas the preceding day. After spelling out for the Committee his record as a public servant, he read a list of questions which he wanted Chambers to answer in public. He was informed that Chambers would “take the stand directly after you finish on the stand today.” Before he subsided, Hiss challenged Chambers “to make the statements about me with respect to Communism in public that he has made under privilege of this Committee.”

It had grown dark when Chambers took the stand, and Thomas ordered the lights turned on. Led by Nixon and Stripling, the portly witness repeated much of his former testimony about Hiss and Communism. Since his predecessor on the stand had raised a question about the editor’s mental condition, Nixon asked him whether he had ever been “treated for mental illness.”

MR. CHAMBERS: Yes; I have never been treated for a mental illness--period.

MR. NIXON: You have never been treated in a mental institution?

MR. CHAMBERS: Never.

MR. NIXON: Never. Have you ever been treated for a mental illness or been in an institution during the past four years, which was the charge made?

MR. CHAMBERS: Of course, not; and anyone at _Time Magazine_ can tell you that.

Just before eight o’clock, Nixon wanted to know if Mr. Hiss was the witness’ closest friend. Chambers replied that he “was certainly the closest friend I ever had in the Communist Party.”

MR. NIXON: Mr. Chambers, can you search your memory now to see what motive you can have for accusing Mr. Hiss of being a Communist at the present time?

MR. CHAMBERS: What motive can I have?

MR. NIXON: Yes, I mean do you--is there any grudge that you have against Mr. Hiss over anything that he has done to you?

MR. CHAMBERS: The story has spread that, in testifying against Mr. Hiss, I am working out some old grudge, or motives of revenge or hatred. I do not hate Mr. Hiss. We were close friends, but we are caught in a tragedy of history. Mr. Hiss represents the concealed enemy against which we are all fighting, and I am fighting. I have testified against him with remorse and pity, but in a moment of history in which this nation now stands, so help me God, I could not do otherwise.

The chairman’s gavel signified the end of the hearing.

Two days later, Chambers accepted Hiss’s challenge to repeat his accusations in public. When he appeared on the _Meet the Press_ radio program, Edward T. Folliard of the _Washington Post_ asked him, “are you willing to say ... that Alger Hiss is or ever was a Communist?” When Chambers replied that “Alger Hiss was a Communist and may be now,” Folliard wanted to know if he was “prepared to go to court to answer a suit for libel or slander?” The answer was short and to the point. “I don’t think Hiss will go to court.”

On September 27th, Hiss proved him wrong by filing a $75,000 defamation suit in a Baltimore federal court. Although Chambers announced that he welcomed the litigation, he became convinced during some pre-trial hearings that, unless he could document some of his charges, he was reasonably sure of losing the suit. However, hidden behind a dumbwaiter shaft in the Brooklyn home of Nathan Levine, one of his nephews, was a bulky manila envelope. In it, were forty-seven typed copies of State Department reports, five rolls of microfilm, and four memoranda in Hiss’s handwriting. Chambers counted on these to save him from a civil judgment. They didn’t fail him.

William Marbury, Hiss’ attorney in the Baltimore libel suit, had asked Chambers whether he could produce “any documentary proof of your assertions?” On November 17th, Chambers complied by dumping the copies of official documents and the Hiss memos on the long conference table in Marbury’s office. These, he claimed, Hiss had turned over to him in 1937 after meeting a Colonel Bykov, a Soviet secret agent. Hiss would bring classified reports home for his wife to type. He would return the originals to the files the next morning while the typed copies would be delivered to Chambers for transmission to Bykov.

Hiss immediately directed his attorneys to turn the documents over to the Department of Justice. Alexander Campbell, chief of Justice’s Criminal Division, rushed up to Baltimore and took possession of all the papers. At the same time, he ordered John F. X. McGohey, the United States Attorney in New York, to convene the Federal Grand Jury. But, with the exception of a provocative little item in Jerry Kluttz’ column in the _Washington Post_ that “some startling information” had been uncovered in the Baltimore libel suit, what Chambers was later to refer to as his “lifeline” didn’t seem to have made much of a stir.

Bert Andrews of the _New York Herald Tribune_ thought that he smelled a rather large rat. He decided to play his hunch and, on December 1st, cabled Nixon, who was on the high seas bound for a Central American vacation, that a “bombshell” had exploded in Baltimore. Nixon ordered Stripling to visit Chambers at his Maryland farm where the latter blandly admitted that he had been less than frank with the Committee. Twenty-four hours later, Nixon, with the help of the Coast Guard, was back in Washington, and Chambers had turned over the five rolls of microfilm which he had cached in a pumpkin in his backyard to William Wheeler and Donald T. Appell, two Committee investigators. Three of the rolls, which had not yet been developed, were still in their aluminum cylinders while the developed rolls were wrapped in oilpaper bags.

On December 3rd, the day before Nixon & Company announced its strike, the New York Federal Grand Jury was called back into session. Its first step was to subpoena both Hiss and Chambers, a step that forced the Committee--most regretfully--to cancel a scheduled public hearing. On December 15th, the grand jurors, by one more than a bare majority, returned a two-count indictment against Alger Hiss. In it, it was charged that he had lied twice in his testimony: once, when he denied that he had turned State Department documents over to Whittaker Chambers, and again when he swore that he had not seen his rotund accuser “after January 1, 1937.” According to the grand jury, Hiss had delivered Government reports to Chambers in February and March of 1938 and had seen him during those months.

Hiss’ trial was originally scheduled for January 24, 1949 but, because of six adjournments, it was not until May 31st that it officially began with the selection of a ten man--two woman jury. McGohey had entrusted the case for the prosecution to the hands of Thomas F. Murphy, an Assistant United States Attorney noted for the thickest and droopiest mustache in New York County. Hiss had selected Lloyd Paul Stryker, a white-haired veteran of the criminal courts, as his attorney-in-chief. There were others--Thomas J. Donegan, who had been sent by the Attorney General to lend a helping hand, and Edward C. McLean, who used up a chair at the defense table--but it was Murphy and Stryker who carried the biggest swords. The judge was Samuel H. Kaufman, a wizened little man who could hardly see over the edge of the bench without rising from his abundantly stuffed chair.

The jury had been selected in less than three hours. Early on the afternoon of the trial’s first day, Murphy heaved his 6’ 4” bulk out of his chair and opened the Government’s case. He was going to prove, he announced, that Hiss had lied as the grand jury charged. Although he intended to corroborate Mr. Chambers’ testimony, he admitted, somewhat over-generously, that “if you don’t believe Mr. Chambers’ story, we have no case under the Federal perjury rule.” Stryker was more than willing to do battle on these terms and he assured the jury that he would do everything in his power to prove to their satisfaction that the man who accused Alger Hiss could only be described by the term used “in the warm southern countries” to warn of the approach of lepers--‘Unclean, unclean!’

Chambers was the Government’s first witness. Dressed in a baggy blue suit, he wearily repeated the testimony he had given on so many occasions in the past. He described his years in the Communist underground, his intimate friendship with the Hisses, the help the defendant had given him in obtaining secret State Department papers, and his own torturous break with the Party in 1938. This was all old hat to those who had followed the House Committee hearings, but suddenly Chambers added something new. He swore that Hiss had lent him $400.00 in the fall of 1937 to buy a new car for a trip to Florida, a trip that was to mark his disappearance from the Communist scene.

After Chambers had identified the Baltimore documents and the pumpkin papers as having been received from Hiss, Murphy asked him when he had last seen the defendant.

A. I saw Alger Hiss around Christmas, 1938.

Q. And where did you see him?

A. I saw him at his home on Volta Place.

The Hisses had lived at 3415 Volta Place in northwest Washington from December 29, 1937 to November 1, 1943, and Chambers claimed that it was at this house that he would pick up the reports that Hiss had pilfered from State’s files. At first, all papers were photographed in Baltimore by a man named Felix Inslerman, but the procedure was changed in late ’37 when Bykov ordered Priscilla Hiss to type copies of the reports.

On his last trip to Volta Place, he had tried to convince Hiss to join him in breaking with the underground. His friend had told him that he was sorry that Chambers, whom he knew only as Carl, was leaving the party because he had heard that “a new and more important post was to be given to me.” Before they had said goodbye, Hiss gave Chambers a wooden rolling-pin as a Christmas present for the latter’s infant daughter. One year later, in a conversation with Assistant Secretary of State Adolf A. Berle, Jr., he had named Hiss “as a member of the Communist Party.”

Stryker didn’t waste any time beating around the bush when Murphy turned the witness over to him. He wanted to know if Mr. Chambers knew what an oath was. His man did. “An oath is a declaration which a man makes when he promises to tell the truth.” He agreed with Stryker that “in our courts it is an affirmation made by a man who calls on Almighty God to witness the truth of what he says.” But, Stryker thundered, wasn’t it a fact that he had taken an oath in 1937 to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies?” He had.

Q. That was false from the beginning to the end, was it not, Mr. Chambers?

A. Of course.

Q. And it was perjury, wasn’t it?

A. If you like.

Q. And you did it in order to deceive and cheat the United States Government ... is that not true?

A. That is correct.

Q. You were an underhanded enemy of this country doing what you could to aid a foreign country and overthrow our constitution by force and violence?

A. Yes.

Chambers admitted that he had used more than seven aliases between 1924 and 1938 when he was in the underground. Furthermore, he had lied to the Dean of Columbia University, had stolen books from numerous libraries, and had lived with several women including a New Orleans whore with the fanciful name of “One-Eyed Annie.” While he was at Columbia, he had written an anti-religious play that was so offensive that he had been expelled from the university.

Chambers was prepared to admit everything--that he had been a liar, a thief, an atheist, a spy and a cheat. But he insisted that he had repented when he broke with the Communists in April of 1938. This was the opening Stryker had been waiting for.

Q. Did you have a high, God-fearing man’s regard for an oath in August of 1948?

A. Yes.

Q. Did you in October, 1948, testify before the grand jury in this building?

A. I did.

Q. When you testified before the grand jury, you were asked whether there was any espionage and you answered that there was not?

A. I answered I had no knowledge of it.

Q. Was that answer true or false?

A. That answer was false.

Q. Then you admit that you testified falsely and committed perjury before the grand jury in this building, is that right?

A. That is right.

After getting his pliable witness to admit that he had written erotic poetry and that his brother Dick had committed suicide after two previous attempts, Stryker called it a day. Murphy tried to repair some of the damage by asking Chambers to explain why he had perjured himself before the grand jury as late as 1948. The ex-_Time_ editor (he had resigned on December 10th), maintained that he had done so “to preserve from injury in so far as I could all individuals in the past in that conspiracy.... I was particularly anxious not to injure Mr. Hiss any more than necessary out of grounds of past friendship and because he is by widespread consent a very able man. Therefore, I chose to jeopardize myself rather than reveal the full extent of his activities and those of others.” Perjury was never more nobly explained away.

Before he called Esther Chambers, Murphy put a variety of witnesses on the stand to buttress the accuser’s story. A bank official testified that Mrs. Hiss had withdrawn $400.00 from a joint account on November 17, 1937, while an automobile salesman said that Mrs. Chambers had purchased a Ford sedan four days later. After some typewritten notes and reports sent to various people by the Hisses were identified, an Oriental rug dealer by the name of Edward H. Touloukian said that he had delivered four Bokhara rugs to a Dr. Meyer Schapiro just after Christmas of 1936. Since Chambers had sworn that he had been ordered by Colonel Bykov to give the defendant a rug, Dr. Schapiro’s testimony that he had bought the rugs from Touloukian at the editor’s request and with his money was of more than passing interest.

At last, the stage was set for Mrs. Chambers’ appearance. A tiny forty-nine-year-old woman dressed in an ill-fitting gray suit, she perched nervously in the witness chair, waiting for the indignities she was sure were in the offing. Under Murphy’s gentle questioning, she revealed a wealth of domestic detail about the Hisses that complemented the story told by her husband. The two families had been the best of friends, and she could even recall a wonderful New Year’s Eve party at Volta Place in 1937. Alger and Priscilla called her Lisa and her husband, Carl. When the judge asked her what their last name had been during this period of friendship, the witness stated, “We never had a last name to them.”

Stryker spent two days trying to destroy a woman who had much more endurance than her frail physique would have suggested. While she admitted that she didn’t have “a very good head for figures or dates,” she insisted that the Hisses and the Chamberses had known each other intimately and that she had once painted a portrait of Timmy Hobson. The relationship had been so close that Priscilla Hiss had willingly permitted one of her best linen towels to be used as a diaper by one of the Chambers infants.

During most of Stryker’s cross-examination, Mrs. Chambers, although frequently close to tears, managed to maintain her composure. It was only when the defense attorney began to attack her husband that her voice rose above a whisper. In October of 1937, when she had applied for a scholarship for her daughter, she had referred to Chambers as a “freelance writer and translator.” When Stryker asked her whether she “didn’t think it was much of a misrepresentation to present your husband to this school as a decent citizen,” she snapped back: “I resent that. My husband is a decent citizen, a great man.”

Q. Was he a great decent citizen in October, 1937?

A. When he was in the underground?

Q. I just asked a simple question. Was he a great and decent citizen in October, 1937, yes or no?

A. Yes, and always.

On her direct examination, Mrs. Chambers had first testified that the New Year’s Eve party at Volta Place had taken place at the end of 1936. When it was pointed out to her that the Hisses hadn’t moved to that address until December 29, 1937, she had pushed the date one year ahead. On cross, she was sure that the New Year’s Eve party which she had in mind had taken place at 1245 30th Street and not at Volta Place. She now remembered that it was a housewarming that had occurred at the latter house.

After Mrs. Chambers had stepped down, Murphy decided that it was time to introduce the State Department documents. Photographic enlargements were exhibited on a platform which was set up on the witness box. Walter Anderson, the chief of State’s records branch, identified the typewritten papers as cables received by Foggy Bottom during the first three months of 1938 from American diplomats scattered from Tokyo to Buenos Aires. They covered subjects as unconnected as Manchukuoan finances, Nazi relations with Austria, and British ship construction plans. The microfilm documents were, in the main, interdepartmental papers from the files of the Trade Agreements Section.