Hiss, Alger

(1904–1996)

   The fate of Alger Hiss continues to intrigue and divide American political opinion more than 50 years after his conviction for perjury for lying about his role as a Soviet agent. Hiss was one of the most brilliant New Dealers of the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration. He had been a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, then rose to a senior position in the State Department before the age of 40. But in November 1948, Whittaker Chambers testified to the House Un-American Affairs Committee that Hiss had served as a Soviet agent for more than a decade.

   Hiss denied the charge in front of a federal grand jury and subsequently was charged with perjury. (The criminal statute on espionage had expired.) He was tried twice in federal court, the first trial ending in a hung jury, the second in conviction. Hiss spent the next 44 months in federal prison. He spent the last 44 years of his life contesting the conviction, claiming that it was the product of perjured testimony by Chambers and the unscrupulous ambition of then Congressman Richard Nixon. Most scholars now believe that Hiss was a Soviet agent: information from former Soviet intelligence officers, a deciphered Venona message that appears to refer to Hiss, and considerable physical evidence all point to his guilt. Hiss’s supporters believe that the evidence was doctored and that the trial was unfair.