What do you think?
Rate this book
Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case
Although almost a half-century has passed since the jury at Alger Hiss's second trial pronounced him guilty of perjury, the case remains controversial and the verdict leaves questions unanswered. The case has continued to make headlines and attract considerable media attention in the years since Perjury was first published in 1978, and this new edition of the book incorporates evidence available only in the past two decades, bringing the essential public story of the episode up to the present. The author has sought and gained access to many previously undiscovered, unavailable, or ignored sources of documentary and oral evidence, both in this country and abroad. His visits to over two dozen public archives uncovered important new material and verified numerous details about the case from the papers or recollections of Allen Dulles, John Foster Dulles, Felix Frankfurter, Richard Nixon, Harry S. Truman, and many others.
The Hiss-Chambers case caused widespread political damage and much human suffering. Although nothing written at a distance of almost five decades can undo its effects, this analysis can perhaps explain the passion that the case still arouses.
The Hiss-Chambers case caused widespread political damage and much human suffering. Although nothing written at a distance of almost five decades can undo its effects, this analysis can perhaps explain the passion that the case still arouses.
766 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1978
53 people are currently reading
251 people want to read
About the author
Allen Weinstein
41 books9 followersAllen Weinstein was a historian and educator who served as the Ninth Archivist of the United States. Weinstein was a cofounder of the National Endowment for Democracy in 1983. His work included research into Soviet espionage acitivties during the 1930s and 1940s, topics he covered in his books Perjury: The Hiss–Chambers Case and The Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America—The Stalin Era. Weinstein passed away on June 18, 2015 after suffering a pout of pneumonia.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
May 16, 2022
Allen Weinstein’s Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case remains the definitive account of the early Cold War’s defining espionage saga. Weinstein, writing in 1978, came to the case convinced like many liberals that Alger Hiss was a victim of Cold War hysteria: the polished diplomat and State Department official, who helped oversee creation of the United Nations and accompanied FDR to the Yalta Conference, couldn’t help seeming more credible than his accuser, the slovenly, haunted journalist Whittaker Chambers. But Weinstein demonstrates in painstaking detail that there’s little doubt of Hiss’s guilt, even if Chambers wasn’t entirely honest about his own role. Weinstein traces the parallel lives of these men, contrasting Hiss’s privileged background with Chambers’ traumatic youth full of suicides, infidelity and repressed homosexuality. Their friendship was improbable, but in the early ‘30s both men became drawn to Communism, joining a loose outfit of Soviet spies known as the Ware Network which infiltrated government bureaucracies under the auspices of the New Deal. While Chambers was a melancholy, tormented figure who viewed life in apocalyptic terms, Hiss was, in many ways, a case study in “fellow traveling.” In the era when Western progressives could still delude themselves that Stalin’s Russia was a socialist paradise, he found it easy to move from progressive causes to working for the USSR, passing them diplomatic cables and government secrets while working for congressional committees, the Department of Agriculture and the State Department. It’s unlikely that Hiss passed the Soviets much of great importance, mostly keeping the NKVD abreast of American diplomacy and trade policies, but even so it was a clear act of espionage, if not treason. Even without recourse to the Venona Documents, the deciphered Soviet cables revealed in the ‘90s, Hiss’s guilt is unmistakable here without massive prodigies of special pleading (something a few die-hard progressives continue to make today).
The real impact of the Hiss Case was to license a generation of Red-hunters who used real, albeit past Communist infiltration of the US government (which had largely ended by 1945, after the NKVD and KGB deactivated their spy networks in response to Elizabeth Bentley’s defection) to justify repression at home, a bellicose foreign policy - and, not incidentally, efforts to roll back New Deal reforms. The House Un-American Activities Committee, which stumbled into the case almost by accident, used the publicity around Chambers’ accusations to revive their fortunes. The case made Richard Nixon, then an obscure junior congressman, into a national figure as he doggedly pursued the case against the advice of colleagues (decades later, during the Watergate scandal, he unironically invoked the Hiss precedent to describe his own travails). The truculence of Harry Truman, who dubbed the hearings a “Red herring” and refused to cooperate with HUAC’s investigation, only strengthened the partisan lines of the Cold War, while seeming to justify conservative complaints about liberal “softness” on Communism.
Similarly, the hearings themselves bristled with high drama that obfuscated the important issues at play. The case turned on dramatic but trivial details, like Hiss’s sighting of a rare prothonotary warbler, or personalities, like Hiss’s relentless namedropping of liberal allies and Chambers’ orotund pronouncements about “the tragedy of history.” By the time Chambers unveiled incriminating microfilms hidden in a pumpkin patch, even HUAC’s investigators incredulously compared the case to a Dick Tracy caper. The high drama allowed the case to hinge on personal credibility more than facts, which political divisions in turn solidified. Much as later generations would thrill over Watergate or the OJ Simpson trial, the Hiss-Chambers saga became a national soap opera, more entertainment or sporting match than politics. Though certainly, the Cold War backdrop ensured its outsized importance, rendering Hiss’s familiarity with birds a matter of national security. Ultimately Hiss was convicted of perjury; conflict with the Soviet Union was well under-way, the Korean War was raging, and Rosenberg spy case suggested that Hiss was merely tip of the iceberg. The revelations of espionages past justified a Red Scare that ruined lives, divided the nation and helped destroy the American Left, to a degree that it never fully recovered.
And yet, Alger Hiss was guilty. If there was little enough doubt when Weinstein wrote Perjury, it was still sacrosanct in liberal and progressive circles (who predictably savaged this book upon release) that Hiss had been railroaded by Nixon, HUAC and other unscrupulous Red-baiters. If the Red Scare was bad, and it certainly was, then surely one of its foundational cases must have been an injustice. The Venona documents, along with later books on the case (Sam Tanenhaus’s biography of Chambers, say, or Christina Shelton’s Alger Hiss: Why He Chose Treason) settled the issue for all but a few holdouts, showing that for all Chambers’ occasional indiscretions, Hiss’s actions (and his own, narcissistic efforts to demand vindication after leaving prison) were far worse. And yet, many right wingers have used Hiss’s guilt to vindicate the Red Scare’s more odious abuses, from repressive anti-sedition laws and crackdowns on labor unions and other progressive groups, to the wild accusations of Joe McCarthy that the “twenty years of treason” continued long after Hiss and his cohorts left government - and to justify their slurs that liberals and progressives are uniformly treasonous. The case becomes instructive, then, about how ideology can blind one’s perception of historical truth; and, at the same time, how being “right” about something (whether ideologically or about a matter of fact) does not prevent an observer from being wrong about other, important things. Reprinted and expanded several times since its release, Weinstein’s book is still the best account of this case and all its lasting repercussions.
The real impact of the Hiss Case was to license a generation of Red-hunters who used real, albeit past Communist infiltration of the US government (which had largely ended by 1945, after the NKVD and KGB deactivated their spy networks in response to Elizabeth Bentley’s defection) to justify repression at home, a bellicose foreign policy - and, not incidentally, efforts to roll back New Deal reforms. The House Un-American Activities Committee, which stumbled into the case almost by accident, used the publicity around Chambers’ accusations to revive their fortunes. The case made Richard Nixon, then an obscure junior congressman, into a national figure as he doggedly pursued the case against the advice of colleagues (decades later, during the Watergate scandal, he unironically invoked the Hiss precedent to describe his own travails). The truculence of Harry Truman, who dubbed the hearings a “Red herring” and refused to cooperate with HUAC’s investigation, only strengthened the partisan lines of the Cold War, while seeming to justify conservative complaints about liberal “softness” on Communism.
Similarly, the hearings themselves bristled with high drama that obfuscated the important issues at play. The case turned on dramatic but trivial details, like Hiss’s sighting of a rare prothonotary warbler, or personalities, like Hiss’s relentless namedropping of liberal allies and Chambers’ orotund pronouncements about “the tragedy of history.” By the time Chambers unveiled incriminating microfilms hidden in a pumpkin patch, even HUAC’s investigators incredulously compared the case to a Dick Tracy caper. The high drama allowed the case to hinge on personal credibility more than facts, which political divisions in turn solidified. Much as later generations would thrill over Watergate or the OJ Simpson trial, the Hiss-Chambers saga became a national soap opera, more entertainment or sporting match than politics. Though certainly, the Cold War backdrop ensured its outsized importance, rendering Hiss’s familiarity with birds a matter of national security. Ultimately Hiss was convicted of perjury; conflict with the Soviet Union was well under-way, the Korean War was raging, and Rosenberg spy case suggested that Hiss was merely tip of the iceberg. The revelations of espionages past justified a Red Scare that ruined lives, divided the nation and helped destroy the American Left, to a degree that it never fully recovered.
And yet, Alger Hiss was guilty. If there was little enough doubt when Weinstein wrote Perjury, it was still sacrosanct in liberal and progressive circles (who predictably savaged this book upon release) that Hiss had been railroaded by Nixon, HUAC and other unscrupulous Red-baiters. If the Red Scare was bad, and it certainly was, then surely one of its foundational cases must have been an injustice. The Venona documents, along with later books on the case (Sam Tanenhaus’s biography of Chambers, say, or Christina Shelton’s Alger Hiss: Why He Chose Treason) settled the issue for all but a few holdouts, showing that for all Chambers’ occasional indiscretions, Hiss’s actions (and his own, narcissistic efforts to demand vindication after leaving prison) were far worse. And yet, many right wingers have used Hiss’s guilt to vindicate the Red Scare’s more odious abuses, from repressive anti-sedition laws and crackdowns on labor unions and other progressive groups, to the wild accusations of Joe McCarthy that the “twenty years of treason” continued long after Hiss and his cohorts left government - and to justify their slurs that liberals and progressives are uniformly treasonous. The case becomes instructive, then, about how ideology can blind one’s perception of historical truth; and, at the same time, how being “right” about something (whether ideologically or about a matter of fact) does not prevent an observer from being wrong about other, important things. Reprinted and expanded several times since its release, Weinstein’s book is still the best account of this case and all its lasting repercussions.
April 4, 2017
Everything that you ever would want to know about the Hiss perjury case is included in the book. A very interesting read, nearly 600 pages, and full of information.
Of course the debate of the guilt of Alger Hiss went on for 40+ years, but the case was finally closed with the release of former Soviet Union (and Hungary) documents, as well as the release of the Venona cables, all of which exposed the guilt of Hiss.
The question not answered is what is intriguing to this day. Reading the book, I felt as though there was always something unsaid. I doubt if the author of the book knew the answer to the question, but I have a feeling he knew that there was a hole in the story.
What was that question, and what was the answer, will most probably never be revealed. What we do know is that Alger Hiss was guilty of spying for the Soviet Union, while he was working for the State Department. That means that part of the negotiations at Yalta, and the building of the United Nations, were done by an American who was in the pocket of the Soviet Union.
I wonder what those negotiations would have looked like without the involvement of Alger Hiss.
Of course the debate of the guilt of Alger Hiss went on for 40+ years, but the case was finally closed with the release of former Soviet Union (and Hungary) documents, as well as the release of the Venona cables, all of which exposed the guilt of Hiss.
The question not answered is what is intriguing to this day. Reading the book, I felt as though there was always something unsaid. I doubt if the author of the book knew the answer to the question, but I have a feeling he knew that there was a hole in the story.
What was that question, and what was the answer, will most probably never be revealed. What we do know is that Alger Hiss was guilty of spying for the Soviet Union, while he was working for the State Department. That means that part of the negotiations at Yalta, and the building of the United Nations, were done by an American who was in the pocket of the Soviet Union.
I wonder what those negotiations would have looked like without the involvement of Alger Hiss.
June 21, 2015
Hiss: The All-American Deceiver.
-
A saga of suicide, murder, betrayal, lies, deceit w Hiss,
"the consummate spy," front-center. Not even a retard could
think he was innocent. LeCarre meets Dame Agatha.
The Hiss Trial is considered one of the most dramatic in American Hiss-tory.
-
A saga of suicide, murder, betrayal, lies, deceit w Hiss,
"the consummate spy," front-center. Not even a retard could
think he was innocent. LeCarre meets Dame Agatha.
The Hiss Trial is considered one of the most dramatic in American Hiss-tory.
July 30, 2016
Please give me a helpful vote on Amazon -https://www.amazon.com/review/RQP1T1K...
Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case by Allen Weinstein
When this book came out in 1978 it was declared to be the definitive work on the mystery of the Hiss-Chambers case. Weinstein had started out with the belief that Hiss had been wrongfully convicted, and, with his aim of showing that Hiss was innocent, Weinstein was given access to Hiss and Hiss’s supporters and to their internal and confidential documents. A consideration of all the evidence turned Weinstein from a Hiss defender to a historian who was convinced that Hiss had done what he was accused of doing. Weinstein’s conclusions were buttressed – and, in fact, confirmed – by subsequent disclosures, such as documents from the post-Soviet intelligence world, the CIA’s release of intercepted Soviet communications, information obtained from the FBI through FOIA requests, and the intervention of the ACLU, and, perhaps, by the willingness of witnesses to share information in the 1970s that they were reluctant to share in the 1940s.
Coming at this book after reading Whittaker Chambers’ Witness and Alistair Cooke’s A Generation on Trial is illuminating. Weinstein provides a damning backstory to the public face of the Hiss trial that corroborates Chambers’ account. (Both Chambers and Cooke were limited in their source of information. They could only share what they knew and they only knew either, in Chambers’ case, his backstory, and in Cooke’s case, only the public version shared in trial.) For example, we learn from Weinstein that foreman in the first trial was suspected by Prosecutor Murphy of being biased for Hiss based on what seemed like colorable reports about the foreman’s bias, albeit based on things said by the foreman’s wife that “if it was up to him, Hiss will get away with it.” (p. 445.) The request was refused. During his closing, Murphy made a point of telling the jury that the foreman had no authority other than to announce the verdict. (p. 490.) Nonetheless, the foreman – Hubert James – was steadfast in advocating Hiss’s innocence and was able to induce three others to join with him. (p. 492.)
Neither of the books by Cooke or Chambers contained any of this information. Perhaps, it was too much “inside game” to be included, or, perhaps, the meaning of Murphy’s statement flew over Cooke’s head. Weinstein, however, points out that the foreman was “related by marriage to a man who would soon become an adviser to Hiss.” (p. 494.) As an attorney, I know two things: first, that weird things happen in jury selection - after all, what are the odds that out of 12 people selected at random, any one of them would have that kind of connection? – but it does happen, as I know from personal experience. Second, I know that no one would have seen it coming. James’ strange statements would have been inexplicable to Murphy and the judge, but once you get that one, small detail, the mind clicks and everything becomes clear.
So, from Weinstein, we learn something about the strange fact that the first jury could not come to a decision.
Another useful bit of backstory Weinstein provides is the motivation for Hiss’s actions. The best evidence that Hiss had going for him was the inexplicable nature of his actions. Specifically, why would someone so “establishment” have been such a traitor? The inexplicability of Hiss’s alleged conduct is matched by the inexplicability of Chambers suddenly throwing away his prestigious position at Time to suddenly make accusations against a man who, if we believe Hiss’s account, he had known for a few months over a decade before.
However, from Weinstein we learn that Priscilla Hiss was deeply involved in radical politics. Cooke mentions the detail about Priscilla being a registered Socialist, which Priscilla waived off as a mistake, but nothing more is said about the connection with radical politics and the official position of the Hiss’s was that of a bourgeoisie couple. In fact, as Weinstein points out, Priscilla’s involvement in radical politics was very deep and active. Moreover, Alger was clearly desperately in love with her. He had courted her, only to have lost her to another, and then had a new opportunity to achieve his desiderata when she divorced. I didn’t see anything in his background that suggested radicalism, but after he married Priscilla he became involved in all manner of radical politics. Clearly, the time was suitable for such an interest in the era of the Great Depression and the rise of fascism, but it is also true that Priscilla was deeply involved with Alger’s treachery, so much so, in fact, that Alger’s lawyers believed that she was the spy, and not Alger.
Once the information of Alger’s radicalization is provided, Hiss’s association with Chambers, and his disloyalty, become explicable and unsurprising. As I said, none of this was mentioned by Cooke or Chambers, and it seems that it did not make its way into trial. I wonder why that is the case? Cooke does not mention any in limine motions on the subject, and, certainly, Murphy would have had the resources of the FBI to perform such a background investigation.
Another bit of background information is the involvement of the Catlett in the aggressive project of the Hiss family, which included Alger’s brother Donald, in finding the typewriter. In Cooke’s book, Mike Catlett is depicted as a buffoon, shucking and jiving to the amusement of the jury. The reader knows – just knows – that Mike Catlett is lying, but the motivation for such lying is unclear. The answer is that Catlett was trying to hide his own involvement in actively searching for the typewriter at the behest of Donald Hiss while maintaining that the typewriter had been given by the Hisses to his family at an early enough date so as to preclude the possibility that the Hisses could have used the typewriter for espionage.
Another interesting bit of information is how much Alger was suspected prior to Chambers coming forward. Thus, in September of 1945, Igor Gouzenko, a Russian code clerk at the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa, Canada, defected with documents that proved the existence of a larger Russian espionage network in Canada and the United States. (p. 375.) Gouzenko informed the FBI that the Soviets had an agent who was an assistant to the Secretary of State. (p. 375.) Chambers had identified Hiss as a Russian agent to the US government, via Assistant Secretary of State Adolf Berle, in 1939, and had reaffirmed that disclosure on several other occasions to the FBI. Similarly, the CIA had the Venona intercepts that were pointing to a Soviet mole close to the Secretary of State.
And, yet, with all that information, nothing was done. The indifference of the government to Soviet penetration explains Chambers’ paranoia about the risk to his life and liberty at the hands of the US government. It also explains why so many Americans were ready to believe the truth that there were Soviet agents in the government that the government was knowingly harboring (albeit McCarthy’s subsequent accusations may have been overstated.)
Weinstein also brings up another line of corroboration unknown to Cooke or Chambers, namely the interrogation of Noel Field by Hungarian intelligence. Field was an American who had been employed by the State Department. Field was a Soviet agent during the late 1930s. When he was in Europe in the 1950s, the Soviets imprisoned Fields. During his interrogation by the Hungarians, Field implicated Hiss as a Soviet agent.
So, the fascinating thing is how much evidence implicates Hiss, and how Hiss’s guilt should have been an “open secret” to the American intelligence community. And, yet, the notion that there really were Soviet spies in America is pooh-poohed as paranoia and the search for very real Soviet spies has been mischaracterized as a “witch hunt.” As Weinstein points out, when Hiss died in 1996, the media treated Hiss as having been vindicated, based on an in accurate statement by a Russian general trying to be charitable, ignoring the mountain of evidence to the contrary.
This is a long and detailed book. I do think that reading the earlier books before reading this book is a useful exercise for those with the time. As the Hiss-Chambers case recedes into history, what the issues were and what people fought over blurs. Reading the original material, for me, made this book come alive.
Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case by Allen Weinstein
When this book came out in 1978 it was declared to be the definitive work on the mystery of the Hiss-Chambers case. Weinstein had started out with the belief that Hiss had been wrongfully convicted, and, with his aim of showing that Hiss was innocent, Weinstein was given access to Hiss and Hiss’s supporters and to their internal and confidential documents. A consideration of all the evidence turned Weinstein from a Hiss defender to a historian who was convinced that Hiss had done what he was accused of doing. Weinstein’s conclusions were buttressed – and, in fact, confirmed – by subsequent disclosures, such as documents from the post-Soviet intelligence world, the CIA’s release of intercepted Soviet communications, information obtained from the FBI through FOIA requests, and the intervention of the ACLU, and, perhaps, by the willingness of witnesses to share information in the 1970s that they were reluctant to share in the 1940s.
Coming at this book after reading Whittaker Chambers’ Witness and Alistair Cooke’s A Generation on Trial is illuminating. Weinstein provides a damning backstory to the public face of the Hiss trial that corroborates Chambers’ account. (Both Chambers and Cooke were limited in their source of information. They could only share what they knew and they only knew either, in Chambers’ case, his backstory, and in Cooke’s case, only the public version shared in trial.) For example, we learn from Weinstein that foreman in the first trial was suspected by Prosecutor Murphy of being biased for Hiss based on what seemed like colorable reports about the foreman’s bias, albeit based on things said by the foreman’s wife that “if it was up to him, Hiss will get away with it.” (p. 445.) The request was refused. During his closing, Murphy made a point of telling the jury that the foreman had no authority other than to announce the verdict. (p. 490.) Nonetheless, the foreman – Hubert James – was steadfast in advocating Hiss’s innocence and was able to induce three others to join with him. (p. 492.)
Neither of the books by Cooke or Chambers contained any of this information. Perhaps, it was too much “inside game” to be included, or, perhaps, the meaning of Murphy’s statement flew over Cooke’s head. Weinstein, however, points out that the foreman was “related by marriage to a man who would soon become an adviser to Hiss.” (p. 494.) As an attorney, I know two things: first, that weird things happen in jury selection - after all, what are the odds that out of 12 people selected at random, any one of them would have that kind of connection? – but it does happen, as I know from personal experience. Second, I know that no one would have seen it coming. James’ strange statements would have been inexplicable to Murphy and the judge, but once you get that one, small detail, the mind clicks and everything becomes clear.
So, from Weinstein, we learn something about the strange fact that the first jury could not come to a decision.
Another useful bit of backstory Weinstein provides is the motivation for Hiss’s actions. The best evidence that Hiss had going for him was the inexplicable nature of his actions. Specifically, why would someone so “establishment” have been such a traitor? The inexplicability of Hiss’s alleged conduct is matched by the inexplicability of Chambers suddenly throwing away his prestigious position at Time to suddenly make accusations against a man who, if we believe Hiss’s account, he had known for a few months over a decade before.
However, from Weinstein we learn that Priscilla Hiss was deeply involved in radical politics. Cooke mentions the detail about Priscilla being a registered Socialist, which Priscilla waived off as a mistake, but nothing more is said about the connection with radical politics and the official position of the Hiss’s was that of a bourgeoisie couple. In fact, as Weinstein points out, Priscilla’s involvement in radical politics was very deep and active. Moreover, Alger was clearly desperately in love with her. He had courted her, only to have lost her to another, and then had a new opportunity to achieve his desiderata when she divorced. I didn’t see anything in his background that suggested radicalism, but after he married Priscilla he became involved in all manner of radical politics. Clearly, the time was suitable for such an interest in the era of the Great Depression and the rise of fascism, but it is also true that Priscilla was deeply involved with Alger’s treachery, so much so, in fact, that Alger’s lawyers believed that she was the spy, and not Alger.
Once the information of Alger’s radicalization is provided, Hiss’s association with Chambers, and his disloyalty, become explicable and unsurprising. As I said, none of this was mentioned by Cooke or Chambers, and it seems that it did not make its way into trial. I wonder why that is the case? Cooke does not mention any in limine motions on the subject, and, certainly, Murphy would have had the resources of the FBI to perform such a background investigation.
Another bit of background information is the involvement of the Catlett in the aggressive project of the Hiss family, which included Alger’s brother Donald, in finding the typewriter. In Cooke’s book, Mike Catlett is depicted as a buffoon, shucking and jiving to the amusement of the jury. The reader knows – just knows – that Mike Catlett is lying, but the motivation for such lying is unclear. The answer is that Catlett was trying to hide his own involvement in actively searching for the typewriter at the behest of Donald Hiss while maintaining that the typewriter had been given by the Hisses to his family at an early enough date so as to preclude the possibility that the Hisses could have used the typewriter for espionage.
Another interesting bit of information is how much Alger was suspected prior to Chambers coming forward. Thus, in September of 1945, Igor Gouzenko, a Russian code clerk at the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa, Canada, defected with documents that proved the existence of a larger Russian espionage network in Canada and the United States. (p. 375.) Gouzenko informed the FBI that the Soviets had an agent who was an assistant to the Secretary of State. (p. 375.) Chambers had identified Hiss as a Russian agent to the US government, via Assistant Secretary of State Adolf Berle, in 1939, and had reaffirmed that disclosure on several other occasions to the FBI. Similarly, the CIA had the Venona intercepts that were pointing to a Soviet mole close to the Secretary of State.
And, yet, with all that information, nothing was done. The indifference of the government to Soviet penetration explains Chambers’ paranoia about the risk to his life and liberty at the hands of the US government. It also explains why so many Americans were ready to believe the truth that there were Soviet agents in the government that the government was knowingly harboring (albeit McCarthy’s subsequent accusations may have been overstated.)
Weinstein also brings up another line of corroboration unknown to Cooke or Chambers, namely the interrogation of Noel Field by Hungarian intelligence. Field was an American who had been employed by the State Department. Field was a Soviet agent during the late 1930s. When he was in Europe in the 1950s, the Soviets imprisoned Fields. During his interrogation by the Hungarians, Field implicated Hiss as a Soviet agent.
So, the fascinating thing is how much evidence implicates Hiss, and how Hiss’s guilt should have been an “open secret” to the American intelligence community. And, yet, the notion that there really were Soviet spies in America is pooh-poohed as paranoia and the search for very real Soviet spies has been mischaracterized as a “witch hunt.” As Weinstein points out, when Hiss died in 1996, the media treated Hiss as having been vindicated, based on an in accurate statement by a Russian general trying to be charitable, ignoring the mountain of evidence to the contrary.
This is a long and detailed book. I do think that reading the earlier books before reading this book is a useful exercise for those with the time. As the Hiss-Chambers case recedes into history, what the issues were and what people fought over blurs. Reading the original material, for me, made this book come alive.
January 3, 2013
An incredibly detailed and exceptionally well researched account of the Hiss-Chambers case.
Limitations: The author presents a somewhat biased perspective. More importantly, since the most recent edition was published in 1997, it does not include information from documents released after that date. Only a portion of the FBI files were released in 1976; the remainder have been sealed until 2026. Perhaps sometime after that date the full truth will become known.
Limitations: The author presents a somewhat biased perspective. More importantly, since the most recent edition was published in 1997, it does not include information from documents released after that date. Only a portion of the FBI files were released in 1976; the remainder have been sealed until 2026. Perhaps sometime after that date the full truth will become known.
June 24, 2019
This book delivers a deep, forensic level of detail into the case of Alger Hiss, a rising star in the State Department, right hand to FDR at Yalta, a member of the political elite... and a Communist spy. This book delivers a comprehensive analysis of the case of Alger Hiss, and the social outcast who first worked with Hiss to steal State Department secrets, before becoming disillusioned with the evils of Communism, after which he exposed Communist spy rings in America.
Though a number of theories have been posited in an effort to portray Hiss as innocent, the evidence in this book proves unequivocally that Hiss was guilty of perjury and of spying, and that Senator Joseph McCarthy - for all of the vitriol directed at him from liberal politicians and pundits, and Communist sympathizers - was absolutely right... the U.S. government was infested with Communists.
Though a number of theories have been posited in an effort to portray Hiss as innocent, the evidence in this book proves unequivocally that Hiss was guilty of perjury and of spying, and that Senator Joseph McCarthy - for all of the vitriol directed at him from liberal politicians and pundits, and Communist sympathizers - was absolutely right... the U.S. government was infested with Communists.
September 11, 2018
I was excited to read this, but it ended up being a real slog. I would have like more context for the trials and anti-communist movements, than minutiae about the inconsistencies in the testimony that may (or may not) have proved that Hiss was a Soviet agent. I really do not care whether the rug was stored in the close or not. And I realize that those were the details that both sides had to parse to make their case, but it did not make for compelling reading. I really would have liked more about why this captured the public imagination at the time and it's aftereffects.
August 22, 2025
I found Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case (1978 edition) to be absolutely fascinating. Allen Weinstein does a remarkable job unraveling one of the most important political and legal battles of the 20th century, and I was hooked from start to finish. The only thing I wish I’d known before buying is that there’s a later edition with the Venona files included, which would have added even more depth. Still, this edition is a great read on its own and well worth the time.
September 15, 2017
Hiss Was, Indeed, Guilty
This amazing account of the Hiss-Chambers trials is surely the last word on what was possibly the trial of the 20th Century. This is a scholarly view by an honest liberal, and breathtaking in not only its scope but in its detail.
This amazing account of the Hiss-Chambers trials is surely the last word on what was possibly the trial of the 20th Century. This is a scholarly view by an honest liberal, and breathtaking in not only its scope but in its detail.
March 1, 2020
The incredible strength of this book is its exhaustive thoroughness. Its weakness is the same.
September 22, 2020
Who lied?
This authors’s meticulous research and documentation of this subject leaves the reader still questioning who lied. An extensive list or theories is outlined as to how the documents could have been typed, where they came from and who typed the documents. Was Hiss guilty and why would Chambers implicate him as a communist? These questions still exist today.
This authors’s meticulous research and documentation of this subject leaves the reader still questioning who lied. An extensive list or theories is outlined as to how the documents could have been typed, where they came from and who typed the documents. Was Hiss guilty and why would Chambers implicate him as a communist? These questions still exist today.
May 4, 2020
Gradebook. Phenomenal research.
Nobody can question the degree of research put into this Book. Though slow and dry at times, This Book shouldanswer once and for all questions about Alger Hiss,s guilt.
Nobody can question the degree of research put into this Book. Though slow and dry at times, This Book shouldanswer once and for all questions about Alger Hiss,s guilt.
January 16, 2016
The last few chapters saved the book. The first few, when he is discussing all that went on during the case were somewhat dull and hard to follow, once he go into the court cases and the aftermath, it became interesting. It was hard keeping track of the typewriter. It traveled more extensively, allegedly, than almost any other typewriter in the world.
February 1, 2009
Meticulously researched and fair and balanced before Fox News even came into existence
June 21, 2015
A little slow and repetitive; but the last act is fulfilling. A cool look at history.
August 3, 2015
Not a fun read, but if you like thoroughly researched history and the subject of spies caught in the States you might like this.
June 3, 2016
It started out being interesting but I lost interest after reading the sample. Decided it wasn't worth $9.99
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews