Alger Hiss

Alger Hiss (November 11, 1904 – November 15, 1996) was a U.S. State Department official and Secretary General to the founding charter conference of the United Nations. Following accusations that he spied on behalf of the Soviet Union, Hiss was convicted of perjury.

HUAC

The public controversy was brought to light in 1948 over Whittaker Chambers's accusation that Alger Hiss, assisted by his wife Priscilla, had been a member of the Communist Party and a spy, despite the fact that Chambers had spent the previous ten years denying that Hiss was ever a Communist or a spy. Chambers was forced to testify at the Hiss trial that he consistently lied about Hiss prior to 1948, and that he had lied more than once under oath.

Related Topics:
Whittaker Chambers - Communist Party - Spy

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Some historians, such as James Thomas Gay, author of "The Alger Hiss Spy Case" (American History, May-June 1998), still regard the matter of Hiss's guilt as unresolved. Others, such as Allen Weinstein, author of "Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case," judge that the preponderance of evidence points to Hiss's guilt.

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Hiss's case heightened public concern about Soviet espionage penetration of the US Government in the 1930s and 1940s and was a forerunner of the anti-Communism of McCarthyism in the next decade. McCarthy would make his famous Wheeling, West Virginia speech two weeks after Hiss was finally convicted for perjury in 1950.

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Publicity surrounding the case fed the early political career of Richard Nixon, helping him move from the House of Representatives to the Senate in 1950 and to the Vice Presidency of the United States in 1952.

Related Topics:
Richard Nixon - House of Representatives - Senate

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In February 1952 Nathaniel Weyl testified before the McCarran Committee that in 1933 he and Alger Hiss were in the Ware group, a group that operated within the Agricultural Adjustment Administration. The testimony corroborated Whittaker Chambers, although why Weyl didn't testify at the Hiss trial is a mystery. Hiss was later alleged to be a spy through the declassification of the VENONA project.

Related Topics:
Nathaniel Weyl - McCarran Committee - Agricultural Adjustment Administration - VENONA project

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