ALGER HISS: ON MAKING TREASON RESPECTABLE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000302660005-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 21, 2010
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: September 7, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/21 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000302660005-1 STAT
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OI; PAGE
ALLAN BRO\IN'FELD
Iger Hiss, who was convicted
Ain 1950 of espionage-related
perjury; is now 77 years old.
He lied to a jury about whether or
not he had worked as a Soviet agent,
turning over to Moscow secret U.S.
documents. If the statute of limita-
tions had not run out, Hiss would
have been convicted of treason -
not espionage.
There is little doubt of his guilt,
and of the fairness of his trial -
although Hiss himself still maintains
his innocence. In his latest petition
for a new trial, in July 1982, Fed-
eral Judge Richard Owen turned him
down, stating: "The trial was a fair
one by any standard... The jury ver-
dict rendered in 1950 was amply
supported by the evidence - the
most damaging aspects of which
were admitted by Hiss - and noth-
ing presented in these papers...
places the verdict under any cloud"
Yet. despite Hiss' guilt, he remains
a hero to some on the left who have,
despite all of the evidence, supported
his self-serving claims of innocence.
Now, Hiss is touring the country,
speaking at universities, receiving
impressive lecture fees, and doing
his best to defend both himself and
the Soviet Union.
When he appeared in February;
1982 at the University of Colorado,
Hiss was referred to in The Colo-
rado Daily as "one of the first vic-
tims of the anti-communist hysteria
that swept the country after World
War II:' What did he tell his audi-
ence? According to reporter S.K.
Levin, "Red-baiting, McCarthyism
merely served the interests of the
Cold War," Hiss said,"...the strat-
egy was to'discredit Roosevelt and
the New Deal."
The-local newspaper, The Daily
Camera, carried an editorial enti-
tled "McCarthyism Is Only Dor-
mant" It stated: "Joe McCarthy and
his ilk were willing to leave a battle-
field strewn with the bodies of
accused communists in order to lay
claim to political popularity. 7b get
what they wanted they had to count
on a gullible public with a lynch-
mob mentality. One victim... was
Allan Brownfeld, associate editor
of the Lincoln Review, is a syndi-
cated columnist.
W'ASFIN ;TOI; TD'S
7 SE?TEI~ =, 19e2
Alger
on making
trle~#-,Inon
respectable
Alger Hiss... who was persecuted
by the House Un-American Activi.
ties Committee and a Young Richard
Nixon...?'
One wonders whether American
History is still being taught at the
University of Colorado - and the
other schools where Alger Hiss is
being invited to speak?
Mr. Chambers asserted that Hiss
had stolen secret documents for the
Soviet Union while working as a New
Deal official. Chambers produced
over 65 pages of typed summaries I
and four handwritten transcriptions
of State Department documents dat-
ng from December, 1937 to April,
1938. Mr. Hiss acknowledged that
the handwriting was his.
In Dec. 1948 FBI technical experts
compared the typed summaries with
samples of Hiss'typed personal cor-
respondence from the 1930s. They
concluded that all but one of the
documents had been typed on the
same machine, a Woodstoc that
Hiss later admitted having owned,
Hiss, however, made this admission
after having told the grand jury one
... three separate occasions that'be had
no knowledge of what happened to
the typewriter. -
Dr. Weinstein, in his book, Perjury:
The Hiss-Chambers Case (Knopf,-
19 7 a), sets forth his findings in detail.
"Despite overwhelming After having met with Hiss and his
evidence of his of
guilt material whichxamini he received from
of material w
from
Hiss remains a hero." the FBI, Weinstein carne to the con-
clusion that Hiss was clearly guilty,
Yet des it-
p ov
h
Professor Allen Weinstein, the his-
torian whose lawsuit caused the
release of 15,376 pages of FBI files
in the Hiss case, concludes that Hiss
"has been lying about his relations"
with his accuser, Whittaker Cham-
bers, for nearly 30 years.
Citing defense records, Weinstein,
who first thought that he would prove
Hiss' innocence by gaining access
to this material, says that people
"who once believed in Alger Hiss
may now be persuaded that he stole
the documents in question" from
the State Department as alleged by
Chambers, who said they were both
involved in Soviet espionage in 1938.
Newly released interviews with
other participants in the spy ring
confirm that Chambers had told the
truth. Dr. Weinstein notes that Igor
Gouzenko, the Soviet code clerk who
had defected in Canada, revealed
that the Soviets had an agent who
was an assistant to Secretary of State
Stettinius and that Elizabeth Bentley;
another Soviet spy, had identified
Hiss as a member of the commu.
nist underground.
erw
elming evi-
dence of his guilt, Hiss remains a
hero to many who seem completely
innocent of any knowledge of history
Professor Edward J. Rozek of the-:
University of Colorado, commenting
upon Hiss' appearance there and the
positive response to him of many in
the community; noted that, ?The fan
that Hiss is going around various
campuses and received a S4,S00...
honorarium from the University of
Colorado plus travel and expenses
does not mean that be is innocent. It
only means that those on the far left
have no problem being invited to
the universities and that the pres-
ent generation of students does not
know what was happening at the
time Alger Hiss was doing his thing"
The American society, it seems,
is in danger of losing an awareness
of its history - even the history of
its recent past. For a man such as
Alger Hiss to become a respectable
- much less' heroic - figure on
our campuses, the very places where
a knowledge of the past should be
carefully nurtured, tells -us a great
deal about the degraded state of our
l.- life
pub
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/21 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000302660005-1