Whittaker Chambers

Jay Vivian (Whittaker) Chambers (April 1, 1901 – July 9, 1961) was an American writer, editor, political operative and defector best known for his accusation and testimony against Alger Hiss, the architect of the Yalta Conference and Secretary General of the San Francisco conference that created the United Nations, on espionage and subversion charges.

Defection

After leaving the Communist party, Chambers' politics shifted right. In the late 1930s, Chambers joined the staff of Time Magazine, where he would eventually rise to the position of senior editor and earn a yearly salary of $30,000. While at Time, Chambers became known as a staunch anti-Communist, sometimes enraging his writers with the changes he made to their stories.

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In late 1939, after the Soviet Union and Germany signed a non-aggression pact, Chambers approached assistant Secretary of State Adolf Berle and spent three hours detailing what he knew about Communist activity within the United States. In the wake of World War II, Chambers' story was mostly ignored.

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Chambers translated Felix Salten's children's book, Bambi, in 1927, while he was also editing the Daily Worker, a Communist newspaper in New York City. As recounted on page 239 of Witness, Chambers did so because wages on the Daily Worker were "intermittent and so small." He was asked to do the translation by Clifton Fadiman of Simon and Schuster, and the translation became an instant success, thus making Chambers an established translator. Chambers also wrote reviews of the early volumes of Arnold Toynbee's A Study of History.

Related Topics:
Bambi - Clifton Fadiman - Simon and Schuster - A Study of History

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