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.

The Ware Group

In 1925, Chambers joined the American Communist Party and wrote and edited for communist periodicals, including The Daily Worker and The New Masses. Chambers joined the Communist underground in the spring of 1932. In 1933, he was sent to Moscow for intelligence training and when he returned to the United States, his main controller was Josef Peters. Peters introduced Chambers to Harold Ware, head of the Ware group, a Communist underground cell in Washington that included Alger Hiss, Henry Collins and Lee Pressman. Hiss, meanwhile, took a job on the legal staff of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration. Chambers worked in Washington as an organizer among Communists in the city and as a courier between New York and Washington for stolen documents which where delivered to GRU Illegal Rezident Boris Bykov. He worked in this capacity from 1934 until he left the Communist party in 1938 having been alienated by the Great Purge of Josef Stalin. Chambers tried to convince Hiss to leave the party also; the two sat up all night after dinner one night arguing the point. Chambers recounted how Hiss, tears streaming down his face, refused to break with the Party because of his loyalty to his friends. It was the fanatacism of Hiss's wife, Chambers believed, that kept him in the party.

Related Topics:
The Daily Worker - The New Masses - Josef Peters - Harold Ware - Alger Hiss - Henry Collins - Lee Pressman - Agricultural Adjustment Administration - GRU - Boris Bykov - Great Purge - Josef Stalin

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Chambers saved a collection of documents he received from Hiss to protect himself and his family against retribution from the secret apparatus as occurred in the Juliet Poyntz case. Ten years later they became known as the "pumpkin papers."

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