Customer Reviews

Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

In 1948, lawyer Alger Hiss made what was arguably the biggest mistake of his life: he sued Whittaker Chambers. Chambers had publicly accused Hiss of having been a Communist Party member, Soviet spy, and agent of influence. Unfortunately for Hiss, Chambers had saved some of the material Hiss passed him for transmission to Soviet Military Intelligence. Alger Hiss ended up in prison, was disbarred, and spent the rest of his life trying to convince people a fantastic conspiracy had framed him.

In 1971, Hiss made a mistake almost as large: he let an honest man look at his defense files. Historian Allen Weinstein had previously believed that Hiss was innocent. But when he read what Hiss's lawyers said in private, and what FBI agents had written J. Edgar Hoover, he found there was no reasonable doubt possible anymore. Hiss had spied for the Soviets, and Chambers had usually told the truth to the best of his ability. Chambers had sometimes lied, but only when he attempted to minimize Hiss's guilt -- and his own, for Chambers had secrets about himself to protect, and a well founded fear of being the messenger killed for bearing bad news.

PERJURY is a fascinating account of two complex men, best friends who became mortal enemies when one split with Stalinism, and the other remained faithful. The lives of Alger Hiss and Whittaker Chambers would have been interesting even if they had never met or publicly clashed. Their long duel caught them in "A tragedy of History," as Chambers put it. PERJURY tells that story better than anyone before or since. It's a masterpiece of historical detective work.

When it was published originally, all but the die hard apologists for Stalinism conceded Hiss's guilt. The new edition has recently released material from the National Security Agency's Venona decryptions, and the KGB's Moscow files that destroy even the unreasonable doubts. My highest recommendation.

This is one of *the* books that made me want to become a historian. It's a miracle of research and writing. Weinstein started out as a left-wing partisan who wanted to prove Hiss innocent, and he received blessings from the man himself. But as he dug deeper and deeper, the professor discovered the remains of the secret world of Soviet espionage in America, and became convinced that Hiss was guilty. And he proves it in a tour-de-force of historical analysis: I would go so far as to say their is really no reasonable doubt left. This new edition contains the evidence of the recently declassified "Venona" Soviet documents that were decoded by the CIA at the time. One can argue about the wisdom of keeping such damning evidence secret for so long, but their release now puts the last nail in the coffin of the ill-considered faith of those who still, after everything, mock Whittaker Chambers. The writing of this book affected Weinstein so much he left academia to set up a foundation to help the U.S. goverment build democracy around the world. He recently wrote a sequel, "The Haunted Wood", about the history of Soviet espionage in the U.S. during the '30's and '40's.

This is the most thorough and comprehensive piece of investigative journalism ever published. Weinstein treats the case like an onion, he peels off one layer, then another, then another.... His treatment of when the Hiss typewriter was manufactured would fill a small book in itself. The same is also true of the transfer of Hiss's car to the communist party, the Soviet gift of a carpet to Hiss, the dating of Chambers' microfilm, and so on.

So why didn't Weinstein go on to become another Bob Woodward? Probably because his conclusion that Hiss was, in fact, a communist spy was unacceptable to so many people at that time. This was a great injustice to a man who told the truth and was himself suprised that the facts so heavily vindicated Chambers.

With the publication of Sam Tanenhaus's "Whittaker Chambers: a biography," the truth of Weinstein's conclusion has now been, finally, accepted by most people-even on the left. But why Tanenhaus's book, which contains hardly anything new, should have changed anybody's view seems odd. I suspect that with the passage of time, Tanenhaus's softer tone, and Hiss's death, many Hiss supporters felt the time had come to concede an unpleasant truth.

Having grown up in the 1950s, for me the Alger Hiss spy case was wrapped in a lot of emotion and few facts. This book remedies that imbalance. Author Allen Weinstein is a lawyer making a case, and he does it well. He lays out the evidence in detail--great detail--and lets the reader draw conclusions, without hiding his own. I can now see both why Hiss became a liberal cause and why Chambers was despised. It is a case where the bad guy is far more likable than the good guy. I came away convinced, as many others have been, of Hiss's guilt. Extensive research, balanced argument and clear prose make the case compellingly.

This book is so credible, so exhaustively researched, it deserves substantial praise. You would have to be incredibly mean-spirited to smear this book.
The lies presented as facts in the negative reviewers' comments show that the twisted forces Chambers warned about are still very much at work, especially among "elite intellectuals" (just as it was then).
Ignore the deliberate lies that have done so much damage already. The author Weinstein himself was a hard-core leftist sympathizer, but the facts were overwhelming. Kudos to Weinstein for his own redemption.

I decided to read this after reading Sam Tanenhaus's superlative bio of Whittaker Chambers, and finally located a copy at a used book store. So I have not read the revised edition, but the original book is very convincing. Those critical of it do not explain the evidence and how it fails to show Hiss guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. What Hiss did seems incredible, but the evidence remains convincing, despite all the efforts to show that the evidence in some way should not be believed. And I speak as one who at the time of Hiss's trial very much was hoping that it would be shown he was not guilty, and as one who voted against Nixon every chance I had (1952, 1956, 1960, 1968, and 1972).

Congratulations to Mr. Weinstein. He did not permit his original belief of Hiss's innocence to deter him from a dogged search for the truth. While this book is at times a very tough read,one can only marvel at the completeness of Weinstein's effort. By the end of the book he has methodically, painstakingly debunked every myth of this celebrated case. Fact by fact, strand by strand, Weinstein carefully, unrelentingly reveals the truth. Weinstein shows that Hiss's only hope in his trials was to portray Chambers as an unbalanced,psychopathic,liar. The only problem in this tactic was the "immutable" witnesses: the documents written in Hiss's own hand,Hiss's initials on other documents, and, of course, the infamous Woodstock typewriter owned by Hiss. Even though his lawyers had two trials to do so, they never disputed these "immutable witnesses". In fact, Hiss's lawyers engaged typwriting experts who concluded not only that the typewritten documents were done on the Hiss's Woodstock, but that Mrs. Hiss was the very typist of the documents.Facts,facts, facts always get in the way of Alger Hiss's defense.In the final chapters, Weinstein reveals his conclusions from recently declassified NSA/CIA files. While there are no smoking guns, Hiss looks guiltier than ever. Some fifty years of lying and obfuscation are demolished by Weinstein's careful work. Truth wins out.

By the time I reached the end of this fascinating work, I was convinced of Hiss's guilt. However, the book is tedious in spots, and the reader occasionally finds himself drowning in the overwhelming documentation that the author plows through in such detail. Weinstein deserves praise for never succumbing to bias as he explores every possible detail of this case which became a political fault line. Having never read a book on this trial, I was struck by the free ride which the mainstream media appears to have given Alger Hiss over the years. Having neither the law nor the facts on his side, Hiss decided to destroy his opponent, Whittaker Chambers. Hiss never offered even a ghost of an explanation for the evidence that accumulated against him. While there were many undeserving victims of the witch hunt for communists during the 1950's, Weinstein proves that Alger Hiss was not among them.

By the time I reached the end of this fascinating work, I was convinced of Hiss's guilt. However, the book is tedious in spots, and the reader occasionally finds himself drowning in the overwhelming documentation that the author plows through in such detail. Weinstein deserves praise for never succumbing to bias as he explores every possible detail of this case which became a political fault line. Having never read a book on this trial, I was struck by the free ride which the mainstream media appears to have given Alger Hiss over the years. Having neither the law nor the facts on his side, Hiss decided to destroy his opponent, Whittaker Chambers. Hiss never offered even a ghost of an explanation for the evidence that accumulated against him. While there were many undeserving victims of the witch hunt for communists during the 1950's, Weinstein proves that Alger Hiss was not among them.

I finished reading this book last week and came away totally convinced that Alger Hiss was a spy for the former Soviet Union. Chambers is depicted in this book as a very unlikely hero for the Anti-Communist cause in the late 1940's. The book is very detailed and it leads you through the entire investigation process that took place immediately after Whittaker Chambers publicly accused Alger Hiss of being a Communist spy in the 1930's. There was much corroborating evidence through eye-witness testimony before the Congressional committee(HUAC) and in the 2 trials detailed in this book. It was at times quite tedious and extremely detailed, which I found to be rather boring. But history does not work in the fast pace people are accustomed to in the movies and on television. Espionage is a dangerous game to play and any sudden moves can get you killed. Most spies always try to hide in plain sight, which Alger Hiss was able to do quite well for many years. The end of the Cold War and the opening of the secret files in the KGB and VENONA transcripts allowed the author unprecedented access to evidence which proved devastating to Hiss's claims that he was not a spy after getting out of prison many years ago. Thank God for the end of the Cold War! Otherwise, we may never have known the whole story of Hiss's espionage activities. A great book if you have patience with all the details.