Alger Hiss

Alger Hiss , 1904-96, American public official, b. Baltimore. After serving (1929-30) as secretary to Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes , Hiss practiced law in Boston and New York City. He then was attached to the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (1933-35) and to the Dept. of Justice (1935-36). He entered the Dept. of State in 1936 and rose rapidly to become an adviser at various international conferences and a coordinator of American foreign policy. In 1947, he resigned his government post to become president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. In Aug., 1948, Whittaker Chambers , a magazine editor and former Communist party courier, accused Hiss of having helped transmit confidential government documents to the Russians. Hiss denied these charges; since, under the statute of limitations, he could not be tried for espionage, he was indicted (Dec., 1948) on two counts of perjury. When he was first brought to trial in 1949, the jury was unable to reach a decision. At a second trial Hiss was found guilty (Jan., 1950) and sentenced to a five-year prison term. His trial created great controversy; many believed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had tampered with evidence in order to secure a conviction. Hiss was released from prison in Nov., 1954, his term shortened for good conduct. In 1957 he wrote In the Court of Public Opinion, in which he denied all charges against him. Hiss maintained his innocence to his death; Soviet files made public in 1995 convinced most observers that he had been guilty, but controversy lingers.

Bibliography: See W. Chambers, Witness (1952, repr. 1983); R. Seth, The Sleeping Truth: The Hiss-Chambers Affair Reappraised (1968); A. Weinstein, Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case (1978).

Alger Hiss Trials (USA, 1949–50) Alger Hiss was a Harvard-educated lawyer who had worked at the highest levels for the US State Department. In 1948 he became the focus of an anti-Communist investigation under the direction of the Committee on Un-American Activities set up by the US House of Representatives. Hiss was originally suspected of having passed secret information to the Soviet Union in the 1930s. Since the statute of limitations prevented the charge of espionage, he was charged with perjury for having denied on oath that he had passed secret documents to Whittaker Chambers, a self-confessed Communist Party courier. Hiss maintained his innocence. In his first trial there was a hung jury, but in the second he was found guilty. At both trials high government officials testified on his behalf. The defence challenged Chambers's sanity and alleged that the FBI had tampered with evidence to obtain a conviction. Hiss was sentenced to five years in prison. He was released in 1954 and returned to private life as a lawyer, and in 1975 he was readmitted to the Massachusetts Bar. The trial epitomized some of the anxieties of the McCarthy era. At the time, much of the evidence remained unproven, though since then most commentators have agreed that he did commit perjury, and that he did pass on documents to the Soviet Union. The trial also established the reputation of Richard Nixon, who pursued Hiss with great energy, and who made much of Hiss's position as part of a privileged Ivy League-educated elite.