Those in the West lived in fear of the ubiquitous communist spy. Even making allowances for the paranoia of those who specialised in anti-communist activities, it must be acknowledged that the Soviets took advantage of the common struggle against Nazism to infiltrate communist agents in western countries. Even better than spies and in cases that were more dangerous or insidious, they placed men in influential positions whose sole purpose in any circumstance was to advocate in favour of the USSR and its satellite countries. As a result, we have to pay very close attention to what was happening in the USA. In the early post-war years the news was troubling: after a number of defections by eastern agents, it would appear that the highest echelons of the US administration had been penetrated by communists. It was in this climate of widespread suspicion that the Hiss affair unfolded.
To borrow a contemporary phrase, Alger Hiss was a real ‘golden boy'. Life had always smiled on him: he came from a good family, received an excellent education at the best east coast schools and certainly had what would be called a ‘presence'. He was the embodiment of a young man who always gave the impression that he had just left the tennis club.
Hiss began his legal profession at one of the largest law firms in Boston, but very quickly decided that he wanted pursue a career at the highest levels of government administration. He was a member of the legal team at the Department of Agriculture and also worked on a special senate committee responsible for the armament industry before working for the Justice Department. Sewing up his career, he held many high-ranking positions, including working as the executive secretary at the conference that was to give birth to the United Nations.
Politically, Hiss was the darling of the Roosevelt administration and shared the progressive ideas of the American president. In the years of the ‘New Deal', it was about being liberal. But for the Republicans and conservatives in general, that meant being too far to the left. Whatever the case, Hiss was close to Roosevelt, and even went as his advisor to the famous Yalta Conference, alongside Stalin and Churchill. A conference where westerners and Soviets would decide the dividing up of the world.
After the war, Hiss became president of the prestigious Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Even after the death of Roosevelt and under his replacement President Truman (another Democrat), Hiss remained an influential figure and one of the pillars of the liberal camp and counted many high-ranking officials as his friends. This is what made the scandal even greater when it was made public. Hiss' main accuser was a man called Whittaker Chambers. A former communist, Chambers claims that his accusations dated back to 1939, when he had warned one of Roosevelt's aides that Hiss was a communist spy; information that was immediately passed on to the White House. At the time however, the president treated the news with contempt and, not without reason, refused to order an investigation.
This can easily be explained as for years, the man who created the ‘New Deal' had been a target for conservatives. Each of his reforms were regarded as being communist-inspired in some way and the Un-American Activities Committee continually harassed those who sided with the president. The general consensus in vogue in the United States was that the difference between Stalin's communism and Roosevelt's New Deal was practically nothing, and equivalent only to the width of a human hair.10 Roosevelt's lack of response when informed of the suspicions surrounding his assistant is therefore understandable.Yet according to Chambers, other, more important names were also on the note that he sent to the White House. Was this just a way of making sure that the note was actually submitted to President Roosevelt?
During the war, other bits of information were submitted to the FBI and always at Chambers' instigation. At the time, the FBI was directed by the infamous J. Edgar Hoover, a man who was well-known for not being particularly favourable to communists. Nevertheless, it would appear that the FBI did not take the accusations seriously.
In 1945, a KGB agent stationed in Canada, Igor Gouzenko, defected to the United States and provided information about Soviet spies stationed in London and Washington. Two months later, a woman called Elizabeth Bentley, who had been working for the Soviets, was turned by an FBI agent. What she had to say was very important, declaring that she had been recruited to the heart of a network that included many employees of the US government, some of whom were very well-placed. She gave up dozens of names, including several in Truman's senior administration. However, Alger Hiss was nowhere on her list, although it did include the name of one of his close friends, Harry Dexter White, the former assistant to the Secretary of State, who quickly died from a heart attack after the revelation was made.
At first, the FBI was ordered to carry out their investigations quietly, in order to avoid any scandal. However, when Elizabeth Bentley was called before a grand jury and then before the Un-American Activities Committee, the case created much more noise. Her revelations were sensational, although some journalists who were close to the Democrats tried to ridicule the woman whom the press called ‘the red queen of espionage'.
However, worse was yet to come for the Liberals as the members of the commission, chaired by a Republican senator, were about to pull another ace from their sleeve: Chambers. He confirmed Bentley's revelations and added to them, so much so that by the end of 1948, the case had taken on a national importance and forced President Truman to confront the voters.
William Manchester
11
To
