![]() ![]() But the grand jury returned a two-count indictment of perjury: it charged that he had lied about giving Chambers the official documents in 1938, and when claiming that he had not even seen Chambers after January 1, 1937.Īfter his first trial in 1948 ended in a hung jury, Hiss was retried in 1950 ( United States v. Because of the Statute of Limitations, Hiss could not be tried on charges of Espionage in 1948 for allegedly passing documents to the Soviets in 1938. He denied Chambers's accusations and dramatically questioned Chambers himself in a vain attempt to clear his name.Ī grand jury was impaneled and held hearings in December 1948. Hiss was soon called before HUAC to be grilled by Nixon. In a highly publicized event, Chambers took Nixon to his Maryland farm, where the microfilm was hidden in a hollow pumpkin. The charges particularly excited committee member Nixon, a California freshman, who used them to establish his credentials as a tough anti-Communist. He offered the committee microfilm of the confidential documents, which he claimed had been prepared on Hiss's own typewriter. But even by HUAC's standards, the accusations against Hiss were spectacular. The process of naming names was triggered by the committee's threat of legal action against witnesses who did not cooperate. He charged that Hiss had secretly been a Communist party member in the 1930s, and most dramatically, he accused Hiss of giving him confidential State Department documents to deliver to the Soviets in 1938.Īccusations of Communist affiliation were common at HUAC hearings-in a sense, they were its chief business. In August 1948, HUAC heard testimony from Whittaker Chambers, an editor at Time magazine, who had previously admitted to spying for the Soviet Union. This was the work of HUAC, first established in 1938 and increasingly busy in the years of suspicion that followed World War II. House of Representatives had spent several years investigating Communist influence in business and government. As a statesman, Hiss had proved himself in no small way his career had earned him the highest confidence of his government in times of crisis.īut soon Hiss was swept up in a round of damaging public accusations. Office of Special Political Affairs, and, in 1946, election to the presidency of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Next came a leading role in the establishment of the United Nations, appointment to the administration of the U.S. roosevelt at the Yalta Conference, at which the Allied powers planned the end of the war. In 1945, Hiss advised President franklin d. He then moved to the State Department, where he assumed the post of counselor at global conferences during World War II. A Harvard graduate in 1929, the International Law specialist served in the Departments of Agriculture and Justice from 1933 to 1936. It also fueled a passion for anti-Communist investigations and legislation that preoccupied Congress for the next several years.īefore coming under suspicion, Hiss had a meteoric rise in public service. His case became a cause célèbre for liberals, who regarded him as a victim of the era's anti-Communist hysteria. In 1950, Hiss was convicted of two counts of perjury, for which he served forty-four months in prison. nixon, of California, led to a Grand Jury investigation. But a relentless probe by the committee's lead investigator, Representative richard m. He steadfastly maintained his innocence in hearings before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Not only had Hiss held government positions of extreme importance, but he was also one of the architects of postwar international relations, having helped establish the United Nations. A former high-ranking federal official with a seemingly impeccable reputation, Hiss was accused in 1948 of having spied for the Soviet Union. For the United States, the prosecution of Alger Hiss was a pivotal domestic event of the Cold War.
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