A Pumpkin Patch, a Typewriter, and Richard Nixon: The Hiss-Chambers Espionage Case

  This is my final Podcast, and the shortest one — just my last thoughts after decades of study.  The Hiss-Chambers Case will live on because it is important post-WWII American history, and also a great yarn, a feast for trial lawyers, and an example of the endless fight between totalitarianism and freedom, between shiny lies and messy reality.  I hope it fascinated and educated you as much as it...

Whittaker Chambers This Podcast, the second to last, is the longest one.  The Hiss-Chambers Case did not die.  Many new facts were discovered, the majority of them harmful to Hiss, starting in the 1970s.  The Freedom of Information Act led the US government (after a lawsuit) to produce about 40,000 pages of paper, mostly from the FBI.  Hiss made the files of his defense counsel available to resear...

As Chambers wrote to his friend Bill Buckley, most of us think the story of Oedipus ends when he learns he married his own mother and puts his eyes out.  In fact, however, Oedipus lived for years afterwards.  After the trials, Chambers lived for 10 years and Hiss for 45.  Neither escaped The Case, nor did their wives and children.  (Add this, by the way, to all the reasons that committing treason...

  Several people have told me that, of my 38 episodes, this is their favorite.  See if you agree.   It is all about the question Hiss could never answer:  how, if Hiss is innocent, did the 64 Typed Spy Documents get typed on his home typewriter.  You may recall that Hiss first told The Grand Jury that Chambers broke into his house in 1938 and typed them on it himself when no one was looking.  That...

Alger Hiss is taken to prison   Alger Hiss's conviction — technically for perjury, but effectively for treason — was a major event.  It was a disaster for The Establishment, especially liberal Democrats, and vindication for Republicans and populist Democrats.  The 18 month labyrinth of HUAC hearings, depositions in Hiss's libel suit, grand jury proceedings, and two criminal trials were the long, l...

Prosecutor Thomas F. Murphy  In this Podcast, we hear the closing speeches, and the verdict of the second jury.  In a mirror image of the first trial, this time it was Hiss's lawyer Claude Cross who was quiet, even plodding, and it was Prosecutor Murphy (like Hiss's barrister Stryker at the first trial) who delivered the barn-burner.  Then — after a year and a half of HUAC hearings, Hiss's libel s...

Edith Murray   This is a short podcast, describing a last-minute rebuttal witness for The Prosecution.  Into court came a black woman named Edith Murray.  Alistair Cooke (at 299) found her "lively."  She testified that, at times in 1935 and 1936, she had been the household servant (cleaning and cooking) for Whittaker and Esther Chambers.  She knew them as the Cantwells and was told that Mr. Cantwe...

Psychiatrist Dr. Carl Binger This Podcast presents the testimony of an eminent psychiatrist, Dr. Carl Binger.  He opined that Whittaker Chambers suffered from a mental illness, called "Psychopathic Personality," which causes its sufferers to make false accusations that they sincerely believe to be true.  Dr. Carl Binger was supposed to be, to use a baseball metaphor, The Clean-Up Hitter of The His...

Hede Hassing, a key witness in the 2nd trial The second trial: new Judge (an elderly Republican), a new jury (seven women!), a new lawyer for Hiss (Boston's distinguished, quiet Claude Cross), a new strategy by each side, and a lot more witnesses.  The next three Podcasts bring you three witnesses who did not testify at the first trial, but did at the second.     One journalist wrote that the mino...

Pic: Hiss Defense Attorney Lloyd Paul Stryker At last we hear the two great trial lawyers, Lloyd Paul Stryker for The Hiss Defense and Thomas Murphy for The Prosecution, sum up the evidence and loose their rhetorical flourishes.  Stryker, remember, was going for a hung jury, just trying to get one or two jurors to hold out for a Not Guilty verdict no matter what the others thought.  Murphy had to...

  Podcast #28 recounts the testimonies of three black Washingtonians named Catlett.  Claudia Catlett, the Hisses' household servant, had only one memory of Chambers being in the Hiss house.  She'd likely have seen him more if he'd been coming by regularly to pick up spy documents.  Two of her sons, teenagers when the alleged spying occurred, did handyman jobs for the Hisses and received The Hiss H...

Podcast #27 is short, covering the testimony of Mrs. Priscilla Hiss and the "character witnesses."  Mrs. Hiss corroborates her husband down the line.  However, she is notably nervous on the witness stand, and admits to changing her story in a few ways, all favorable to her husband, since The Grand Jury.  Favorable testimony by family members is risky.  It's a "dog bites man" story, no surprise.  Y...

In Podcast 26, Alger Hiss takes the stand!  In the courtroom corridor, Hiss said: "I have been waiting for this a long time."  (Smith at 383.). Lloyd Paul Stryker walked him through his golden resume, emphasizing all the times he had been trusted with secrets and remained loyal (as far as anyone knew).  Hiss denied every bad act of which Chambers had accused him and ended by telling the jury that...

  Each side in this Case had a male homosexual secret.  Remember that we're in 1949, when conservatives thought that male homosexuality was a sin and a crime and enlightened liberals thought that gay men were tragic mistakes of nature, mentally ill, women trapped in men's bodies, but fortunately there was talk therapy, shock treatment and, if all else fails, lobotomies.  (Homosexual men were subje...

  There were two disagreements between the Hisses and Chamberses.  First was whether Hiss had been a Communist and Soviet spy with Chambers in the mid- and late 1930s.  Who was telling the truth could not be proved.  Hiss would never confess and, from his point of view, it's almost impossible to prove that you did not do something years ago.  As for proof by external evidence, good luck.  When you...

This Podcast is the closest the trials get to high comedy.  Dreamy, arrogant State Department economist, Henry Julian Wadleigh, worked in the same area as Hiss (several levels below Hiss).  Wadleigh testifies that he passed State Department documents to Chambers in 1937 and 1938 without authorization.  He thus corroborates Chambers' testimony that Chambers was the hub of a spy ring in State in tho...

Photo: http://www.spartacus-educational.com Now comes the witness who, in my opinion, dooms Alger Hiss.  He gives expert testimony supporting Chambers' claim that the typed spy documents were passed to him by Alger Hiss after Mrs. Hiss typed them on the Hiss home typewriter.  Lloyd Paul Stryker did not ask this witness a single question on cross-examination.  Listen to this Podcast to learn who wa...

Robert Stripling & Richard Nixon  Everyone always asks about the topic of this Podcast #21: "What was in the secret State Department documents?"  These are the 126 pages that Chambers introduced as the last documents that Hiss gave him.  State Department men authenticated them as copies (or summaries or excerpts) of actual State Department documents, many marked CONFIDENTIAL and all dated between...

Lloyd Paul Stryker, Hiss's Defense Atty (Digital Commons) Whittaker Chambers, and then his wife Esther, testify in court.  Both their direct testimonies were rocky due to Stryker's objections and Judge Kaufman's rulings.  Their cross-examinations by Stryker were brutal. Chambers sat there and passively took blow after blow, but Mrs. Chambers shouted back at Stryker as forcefully as he had shouted...

Pic: Prosecutor Thomas Murphy    In this Podcast, I deliver, in my best courtroom voice, short versions of Prosecutor Murphy's down-to-earth opening statement for the government and Lloyd Paul Stryker's incandescent overture for the Hiss defense.  See which one you think is more impressive — Murphy's calm, rational promise of convincing evidence or Stryker's dazzling contrast of Saint Alger and th...

Federal Courthouse, NY, 1938 This is a short podcast to acquaint you with the actors about to come on stage in the drama of Alger Hiss and Whittaker Chambers. They are the government Prosecutor Thomas Murphy, Hiss's principal defense lawyer Lloyd Paul Stryker, Judge Samuel Kaufman, and the jury.   Additional Research   Murphy, a 6' 4" muscular giant of a man with an enormous walrus mustache, tried...

Pic: Library of Congress   Alger Hiss is going on trial for perjury.  This Podcast is a survey, at 23,000 feet, of the possible arguments for The Prosecution and for The Hiss Defense.  Of each side's possible arguments, which are strong and which are weak?  This may be of special interest to real trial lawyers, or to the inner Perry Mason who lurks within each of us.   If you were The Prosecution,...

Picture: Library of Congress   With this Podcast, we leave Washington and the political boxing ring and move to New York City and the courts.  There's still drama and tension, but no more pumpkin patches on dark and frigid nights, no more rescues of Congressmen from the high seas.  The process is more deliberate and the consequences are greater.  Starting now, Hiss and Chambers are each looking at...

Certainly, this Case was painful for Chambers — bringing him close to prison for perjury, ending the quiet and lucrative life he had enjoyed for years and costing him the only decent and decently paying job he had ever had. All the same, Chambers loved melodrama, and can you imagine any more satisfying melodrama than, on a dark and freezing night, leading two government investigators to a pumpkin...

In this Podcast, Chambers appears on Meet The Press and repeats his accusations. Hiss sues him for libel, after assembling a Dream Team of eminent lawyers to vindicate his reputation.(Chambers was superbly represented, too.)In a pre-trial interview called a deposition, Hiss's lawyer William Marbury asks Chambers to produce any written documents he has from Alger or Priscilla Hiss. Chambers, ever t...