1938. Chambers’ answer was as definite as it could be. “No: since the
time I went to his house and tried to break him away, I have never seen
him since.” Hébert then took over and exhibited a marked interest in
the house occupied by the Hiss ménage. When Chambers had first met Hiss
“he was living on Twenty-eighth Street.” Some time later, he had moved
to a house in Georgetown, possibly “on the corner of P Street.” He had
the impression “it was a three-story house with a kind of porch in back
where people sat.” After that, “he moved to a house on an up-and-down
street, a street that would cross the lettered street, probably just
around the corner from the other house and very near to his brother
Donald.” This house had a basement, dining room and a small backyard.
“I think he was there when I broke with the Communist Party.” When he
tried to persuade Hiss to leave the Party, too, the latter had been
living in a house “beyond Wisconsin Avenue.”
Before the sub-committee adjourned at 1:10 p.m., Nixon suddenly asked
Chambers if he was “willing to submit to a lie detector test on this
testimony.” The witness said he would if Nixon thought it was necessary.
MR. NIXON: You are that confident?
MR. CHAMBERS: I am telling the truth.
Before Messrs. Nixon, Hébert and McDowell returned to Washington that
afternoon, they had decided to recommend to the full Committee that
Hiss be recalled.
On Friday, August 13th, J. Parnell Thomas, the regular chairman, sent
a telegram to Hiss, asking him to appear before the Committee the
following Monday. That same Friday, Donald Hiss denied at a public
hearing “every statement made by Mr. Chambers with respect to me. I am
not, and never have been, a member of the Communist Party, or of any
formal or informal organization affiliated with, or fronting in any
manner whatsoever for, the Communist Party.” He had belonged to nothing
more subversive than the Y. M. C. A., the Washington Racquet Club and
the Harvard Law School Association. As for his accuser, “I have no
recollection of ever having met any person by the name of D. Whittaker
Chambers nor do I recognize his photograph which I have seen in the
public press.”
MR. NIXON: As I understand your statement, you have made an
unqualified statement that you have never known a man by the name of
Carl who resembled that man?
DONALD HISS: I have never known that man by the name of Chambers,
Carl, or any other name, sir.
When he suggested that whoever was lying ought to go to jail, Mundt
seconded the motion.
On August 16th, Alger Hiss faced the Committee once more, this time
in executive session. Reassured by the fact that the President of
the United States had publicly labeled his case as “a red herring,”
deliberately designed to hide the failures of the Eightieth Congress,
Hiss eased himself into the witness chair with a visible air of
confidence. Again, it was Nixon who asked most of the questions. The
first order of business was to try to determine whether Hiss had ever
known Chambers, under one name or another. Nixon handed the witness two
photographs and asked him “if you can remember that person either as
Whittaker Chambers or as Carl or as any other individual you have met.”
This time, Hiss admitted that “the face had a certain familiarity.”
Although, he would still like to see Chambers face to face, he was
“not prepared to say that I have never seen the man whose pictures are
now shown me.” But that was as far as he cared to go until he had the
opportunity of “seeing the man, hearing him talk, getting some much
more tangible basis for judging the person and the personality.”
MR. NIXON: Would your answer be any different if this individual were
described to you as one who had stayed overnight in your house on
several occasions?
MR. HISS: I think Mr. Nixon, let me say this: In the course of my
service in the government ... I have had a great many people who have
visited in my house. If this is a picture of anyone, I would find it
very difficult to believe that that individual could have stayed in my
house when I was there on several occasions overnight and his face not
be more familiar than it is.
When the chairman asked him whether he thought he would recognize a man
who had spent a week in his house in the past fifteen years, Hiss was
sure that he would “if he hadn’t had a face-lifting.”
MR. THOMAS: No doubt in your mind?
MR. HISS: I have no doubt whatsoever.
After a brief recess, Hiss announced that “I have written a name on
this pad in front of me of a person whom I knew in 1933 and 1934 who
not only spent some time in my house but sublet my apartment.” The
name of this man was George Crosley and the witness remembered him
as a free-lance writer who had occasionally interviewed him when he
was counsel to the Nye Committee. As he recalled it, “this fellow was
writing a series of articles ... which he hoped to sell to one of the
magazines.” In June of 1935, when the Hisses had purchased the P Street
house, they had rented their Wardman Park apartment to Crosley and
his family which consisted of a “strikingly dark” wife and an infant
daughter. Because all of Crosley’s furniture hadn’t arrived, “we put
them up 2 or 3 nights in a row, his wife and little baby.”
He had also thrown in an old Ford with the apartment. It was an early
Model A coupé with “a sassy little trunk on the back.” He had purchased
a new car--a Plymouth sedan--and, since Crosley “wanted a way to get
around,” he had decided to let him have the Ford.
MR. NIXON: You gave this Ford car to Crosley?
MR. HISS: Threw it in along with the apartment and charged the rent
and threw the car in at the same time.
MR. NIXON: In other words, added a little to the rent to cover the car?
MR. HISS: No; I think I charged him exactly what I was paying for
the rent and threw the car in in addition. I don’t think I got any
compensation.
MR. STRIPLING: You just gave him the car?
MR. HISS: I think the car just went right in with it.
No, he had not given Crosley a bill of sale; “I think I just simply
turned it over to him.” He didn’t know whether the writer had recorded
the title or not.
He had driven Crosley around Washington in the Ford on several
occasions. Once he had given him a lift to New York “when I was going
to make a trip to New York City anyway.”
MR. STRIPLING: Was Mrs. Hiss along?
MR. HISS: That I wouldn’t recall. She may have been.
MR. STRIPLING: Did you go to Paoli?
MR. HISS: If Mrs. Hiss was along; yes.
His tenant had left the apartment when the lease expired in September.
Although, Crosley had never paid his rent, Hiss had lent him some money
but “never got paid back.” He had not heard of him since 1935.
MR. STRIPLING: You wouldn’t say positively George Crosley and this
person are the same?
MR. HISS: Not positively.
MR. STRIPLING: You would not say positively?
MR. HISS: I think they are not. That would be my best impression from
the photographs.
At one point in the questioning, Hiss stated that both he and his wife
were amateur ornithologists. McDowell, who was no mean bird watcher
himself, asked him if he had ever seen a prothonotary warbler. The
witness replied that he had, “right here on the Potomac.” McDowell
replied that he once had observed one in Arlington. Hiss, lost in
reverie, seemed to forget that he was in a hearing room. “They come
back and nest in those swamps,” he told McDowell. “Beautiful yellow
head, a gorgeous bird. Mr. Collins is an ornithologist, Henry Collins.
He’s a really good ornithologist, calling them by their Latin names.”
Nixon brought him abruptly back to earth with a question about the
schools his son had attended from 1934 to 1937.
The three-and a half hour hearing drew to a close with a lawyers’
discussion between Hiss and Nixon as to the reliability of the lie
detector test. Nixon had asked the witness whether he was willing to
submit to Dr. Leonardo Keeler’s polygraph test, reminding him that
Chambers had agreed to do so. Hiss wanted to consult further. He had
“talked to people who have seen ... Dr. Keeler’s own test and that the
importance of a question registers more emotion than anything else.”
While he didn’t want to beg the question, he “would rather have a
chance for further consultation before I gave you the answer.” But he
would be interested in knowing if Mr. Nixon had ever used the test in
his own law practice.
MR. NIXON: No; I have not.
MR. HISS: But you do have confidence in it?
MR. NIXON: Frankly, I have made a study of it in the last week before
I put the question. In fact, for the last two weeks I have been
studying it and have been in correspondence with Mr. Keeler.
Ten days later, Hiss wrote to the chairman and informed him that since
“no Federal Court in the United States relies upon any ‘lie detector’
... I do not at present feel in a position to make a final decision
with respect to the Committee’s suggestion.”
Before Hiss left Washington, he was asked to return at 10:30 a.m. on
August 25th when he and Chambers would “have an opportunity to confront
one another.” The next morning, a member of the Committee’s staff
telephoned him at his New York office and asked him if he would be
able to meet with Mr. McDowell later that afternoon. Hiss replied that
he would. Shortly before 5:30 p.m., McDowell called and invited him
to come over to Room 1400 of the Hotel Commodore. Hiss asked Charles
Dollard, a colleague at the Carnegie Corporation, to accompany him, and
the two men walked the few blocks to the Commodore. When they entered
the hotel suite, Hiss was asked to sit in a chair facing Nixon and
McDowell, the only two members of the Committee present.
A few minutes later, a door behind him opened and Chambers was ushered
into the room. Nixon asked the two men to stand and face each other.
“Mr. Hiss,” he said, “the man standing here is Mr. Whittaker Chambers.
I ask you now if you have ever known that man before.”
MR. HISS: May I ask him to speak? Will you ask him to say something?
MR. NIXON: Yes. Mr. Chambers, will you tell us your name and business?
MR. CHAMBERS: My name is Whittaker Chambers.
MR. HISS: Would you mind opening your mouth wider?
Will you go on talking?
MR. CHAMBERS: I am senior editor of _Time Magazine_.
MR. HISS: May I ask whether his voice, when he testified before, was
comparable to this?
MR. McDOWELL: I would say it is about the same now as we have heard.
MR. HISS: I think he is George Crosley, but I would like to hear him
talk a little longer.
After Chambers had read a portion of a _Newsweek_ article about
Truman’s failure to appoint a new Secretary of Labor to replace Lewis
B. Schwellenbach, Hiss announced that, although his voice was less
resonant than that of the man he had once known, “I believe ... that he
must be George Crosley.” But the man he had known in 1934 and 1935 had
had terrible teeth. The teeth of the man he was now asked to identify
“look to me as though they have been improved upon or that there has
been considerable dental work done since I knew George Crosley.” Nixon
asked Chambers whether he had “had any dental work since 1934 of a
substantial nature.” It seemed that he had, “some extractions and a
plate.”
But Hiss still wasn’t certain. Chambers looked “very different in girth
and on other appearances--hair, forehead, and so on, particularly the
jowls.” But it was obvious to everyone in the room that he was beating
a slow but steady retreat. After Nixon made him go over his previous
testimony about subletting the 29th Street Apartment to the “Crosleys,”
He asked for--and received--permission to question his accuser.
MR. HISS: Did you ever go under the name of George Crosley?
MR. CHAMBERS: Not to my knowledge.
MR. HISS: You did not?
MR. CHAMBERS: No; I did not.
MR. HISS: Did you ever spend any time with your wife and child in an
apartment on Twenty-ninth Street in Washington when I was not there
because I and my family were living on P Street?
MR. CHAMBERS: I most certainly did.
MR. HISS: Would you tell how you reconcile your negative answers with
this affirmative answer?
MR. CHAMBERS: Very easily, Alger. I was a Communist and you were a
Communist.
Finally, Hiss was “perfectly prepared to identify this man as George
Crosley.” When Stripling asked him if he thought he could produce three
people who would swear that they, too, had known Chambers as Crosley,
Hiss said that he would try. The only ones he could think of offhand
were Stephen Raushenbush, Robert Wohlford and Elsie Gullender who had
worked with him on the Nye Committee in 1935. But he couldn’t remember
whether Chambers had ever called on any of these people.
McDowell then turned to Chambers and asked him whether he was prepared
to identify Hiss as the man “who was a member of the Communist Party at
whose home you stayed.” He was.
MR. McDOWELL: You make the identification positive?
MR. CHAMBERS: Positive identification.
While Chambers was talking, Hiss rose from his chair and walked over
toward him. Livid with anger, he invited “Mr. Whittaker Chambers to
make those same statements out of the presence of this Committee
without their being privileged for suit for libel. I challenge you to
do it and I hope you will do it damned quickly.” By the time he had
finished hurling his gauntlet, he was so close to Chambers that Louis
J. Russell, one of the Committee’s investigators, threw himself between
the two men. “I am not going to touch him,” Hiss exclaimed. “You are
touching me.” McDowell ordered Hiss to sit down and the hearing was
adjourned for a few minutes to clear the air.
The great confrontation was over. Before McDowell brought it to
its official close at 7:45 p.m., he announced that, in view of the
testimony, the full Committee would meet in Washington on August 25th
and that both men would be subpoenaed to appear before it. Hiss told
him that he would be happy to show up without putting the Committee to
the trouble of serving him with a subpoena. But there was still some
unfinished business, he told Messrs. McDowell and Nixon--he had been
asked to “make arrangements for Mrs. Hiss to come down from Vermont to
meet in executive session with a subcommittee” and he was prepared to
oblige if her presence was still required. Because Hiss was uncertain
about schedules, it was agreed that he would telephone Mr. Nixon at the
Commodore as soon as Mrs. Hiss arrived in town.
MR. HISS: May I come with her?
MR. McDOWELL: Yes.
MR. HISS: Thank you. Am I dismissed? Is the proceeding over?
MR. McDOWELL: Any more questions to ask of Mr. Hiss?
MR. NIXON: I have nothing.
MR. McDOWELL: That is all. Thank you very much.
MR. HISS: I don’t reciprocate.
MR. McDOWELL: Italicize that in the record.
MR. HISS: I wish you would.
Later that evening, Hiss called Nixon and told him that his wife had
arrived in town and would be available as originally scheduled. The
next morning, the Hisses, accompanied by Dollard, met with Nixon at
the Commodore. The hearing took only ten minutes. After Mrs. Hiss had
affirmed that she would tell the truth, she stated that she had known a
man by the name of George Crosley between 1934 and 1937. She remembered
that Crosley and his wife had spent a few days with them before moving
into their old apartment on P Street. As far as she could recall, she
had never taken a trip with this man whom she described as “a little
too smiley.” Before Nixon dismissed her, she informed him that, if he
wanted her opinion, the man who had called himself Crosley was nothing
but “a sponger.”
The next act in what was rapidly beginning to have all the appearances
of a Greek tragedy was scheduled to take place on August 25th in the
Caucus Room of the Old House Office Building. Long before Chairman
Thomas gavelled the hearing into being at 10:30 a.m., the chamber was
filled to overflowing with more people than it had ever held before.
Television cameramen, newspaper photographers, radio commentators,
and the less spectacular members of the Fourth Estate crowded every
corner of the long room. Thomas welcomed them all in the name
of the Committee. “We are glad,” he announced, “to have as many
representatives of the American public as is possible to crowd into
this room today.” He was also mighty happy to put Hiss and Chambers on
view together before a nationwide audience.
The first order of business was to determine whether anyone but Alger
Hiss had ever known of George Crosley’s existence. At the Commodore
confrontation, Hiss had suggested the names of three former Nye
Committee employees whom he thought might have run into Crosley
when the latter was scrounging for magazine fodder. Stripling’s
investigators had discovered that one was dead, another could not
be traced, and the third couldn’t remember ever having met anyone
named Crosley. A search of the records of the Library of Congress,
the Copyright Division and the Public Catalogue had uncovered only
two writers by that name--an obscure 1905 poet and a doctor who had
published a treatise on the effects of ultra-violet light. If George
Crosley had ever existed, he was now a case for the Missing Persons
Bureau.
With Crosley out of the way, the Committee turned to Fords and
photostats. Hiss had previously testified that after he had purchased a
new Plymouth in the Spring of ’35, he had either given Crosley-Chambers
“the use of the car” or “the car outright.” According to the records of
the District of Columbia’s Motor Vehicles and Traffic Bureau, Hiss had
bought the Plymouth on September 7, 1935. If the dates were correct,
then Hiss had given Chambers the old Ford _before_ he had obtained the
Plymouth.
Nixon was obviously fascinated by the business of the cars. Would Mr.
Hiss enlighten him as to whether he had sold, or given the car to
Crosley?
MR. HISS: I gave Crosley, according to my best recollection....
MR. NIXON: Well, now, just a moment on that point. I don’t want
to interrupt you on that ‘to the best of my recollection’ but you
certainly can testify ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ as to whether you gave Crosley a
car. How many cars have you given away in your life, Mr. Hiss?
MR. HISS: I have only had one old car of a financial value of $25 in
my life. That is the car that I let Crosley have the use of.
When Mundt reminded the witness that, a week earlier, he had sworn that
he had “sold him an automobile,” Hiss promptly swallowed his words and
conceded that, if that’s what the transcript said, it must be correct.
After Nixon had read into the record most of Hiss’ previous testimony
about the Ford roadster, he confessed to the chairman that he was
“amazed to hear Mr. Hiss say this morning that he can only testify to
the best of his recollection as to whether he ever gave Crosley a car
at all, that he is not sure as to whether or not he transferred the
car to Crosley, that he might have given it to him for his use only,
and that he is not even sure when the transaction occurred....” As far
as he was concerned, Hiss ought to “tell us exactly what did happen to
that car.”
The witness was only too happy to oblige. His testimony, “based upon
the best recollection I have, is that I gave Crosley the use of the
car, as I gave him the use of the apartment.” He thought that the
transfer had taken place at the same time as he had subleased the
apartment to the Crosleys but it could have taken place “several months
after the rental transaction.” When Mundt asked him whether he had
ever given the Ford “to anybody else in any way besides to Mr. George
Crosley,” Hiss insisted that he could not answer the question “without
consulting the records.”
The reason for the Committee’s preoccupation with the Ford’s
disposition became clear when Stripling called Louis Russell, one
of its own investigators. Russell testified that he had checked the
records of the District’s Director of Vehicles and Traffic and that he
had discovered that one Alger Hiss had assigned a 1929 Ford automobile
to the Cherner Motor Company on July 23, 1936. He identified a
photostatic copy of the assignment of title as a copy of the original
document which he had seen on file. It was signed by Hiss and notarized
by W. Marvin Smith, an attorney in the Solicitor General’s office.
After some shilly-shallying about “photostatic signatures,” Hiss
admitted that “it looks like my signature to me, Mr. Chairman.” He was
also prepared to go a little further and own that Mr. Smith had indeed
notarized his signature. When Stripling produced a sales slip which
indicated that the vehicle had been sold by the Cherner Motor Company
to one William Rosen a few hours after Hiss had turned it in, that was
the last trace of the saucy little car that was carrying the Committee
to glory.
Just before the noon recess, Hébert wanted to ask a question.
MR. HÉBERT: Mr. Hiss, now that your memory has been refreshed by the
development of the last few minutes, do you recall the transaction
whereby you disposed of that Ford that you could not remember this
morning?
MR. HISS: No, I have no present recollection of the disposition of the
Ford, Mr. Hébert.
MR. HÉBERT: In view of the refreshing of your memory that has been
presented here this morning?
MR. HISS: In view of that, and in view of all the other developments.
MR. HÉBERT: You are a remarkable and agile young man, Mr. Hiss.
In the afternoon, Hiss read a letter he had written to Chairman Thomas
the preceding day. After spelling out for the Committee his record as a
public servant, he read a list of questions which he wanted Chambers to
answer in public. He was informed that Chambers would “take the stand
directly after you finish on the stand today.” Before he subsided, Hiss
challenged Chambers “to make the statements about me with respect to
Communism in public that he has made under privilege of this Committee.”
It had grown dark when Chambers took the stand, and Thomas ordered
the lights turned on. Led by Nixon and Stripling, the portly witness
repeated much of his former testimony about Hiss and Communism. Since
his predecessor on the stand had raised a question about the editor’s
mental condition, Nixon asked him whether he had ever been “treated for
mental illness.”
MR. CHAMBERS: Yes; I have never been treated for a mental
illness--period.
MR. NIXON: You have never been treated in a mental institution?
MR. CHAMBERS: Never.
MR. NIXON: Never. Have you ever been treated for a mental illness
or been in an institution during the past four years, which was the
charge made?
MR. CHAMBERS: Of course, not; and anyone at _Time Magazine_ can tell
you that.
Just before eight o’clock, Nixon wanted to know if Mr. Hiss was the
witness’ closest friend. Chambers replied that he “was certainly the
closest friend I ever had in the Communist Party.”
MR. NIXON: Mr. Chambers, can you search your memory now to see what
motive you can have for accusing Mr. Hiss of being a Communist at the
present time?
MR. CHAMBERS: What motive can I have?
MR. NIXON: Yes, I mean do you--is there any grudge that you have
against Mr. Hiss over anything that he has done to you?
MR. CHAMBERS: The story has spread that, in testifying against Mr.
Hiss, I am working out some old grudge, or motives of revenge or
hatred. I do not hate Mr. Hiss. We were close friends, but we are
caught in a tragedy of history. Mr. Hiss represents the concealed
enemy against which we are all fighting, and I am fighting. I have
testified against him with remorse and pity, but in a moment of
history in which this nation now stands, so help me God, I could not
do otherwise.
The chairman’s gavel signified the end of the hearing.
Two days later, Chambers accepted Hiss’s challenge to repeat his
accusations in public. When he appeared on the _Meet the Press_ radio
program, Edward T. Folliard of the _Washington Post_ asked him, “are
you willing to say ... that Alger Hiss is or ever was a Communist?”
When Chambers replied that “Alger Hiss was a Communist and may be now,”
Folliard wanted to know if he was “prepared to go to court to answer a
suit for libel or slander?” The answer was short and to the point. “I
don’t think Hiss will go to court.”
On September 27th, Hiss proved him wrong by filing a $75,000 defamation
suit in a Baltimore federal court. Although Chambers announced that
he welcomed the litigation, he became convinced during some pre-trial
hearings that, unless he could document some of his charges, he was
reasonably sure of losing the suit. However, hidden behind a dumbwaiter
shaft in the Brooklyn home of Nathan Levine, one of his nephews, was a
bulky manila envelope. In it, were forty-seven typed copies of State
Department reports, five rolls of microfilm, and four memoranda in
Hiss’s handwriting. Chambers counted on these to save him from a civil
judgment. They didn’t fail him.
William Marbury, Hiss’ attorney in the Baltimore libel suit, had asked
Chambers whether he could produce “any documentary proof of your
assertions?” On November 17th, Chambers complied by dumping the copies
of official documents and the Hiss memos on the long conference table
in Marbury’s office. These, he claimed, Hiss had turned over to him in
1937 after meeting a Colonel Bykov, a Soviet secret agent. Hiss would
bring classified reports home for his wife to type. He would return the
originals to the files the next morning while the typed copies would be
delivered to Chambers for transmission to Bykov.