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The View from Alger's Window: A Son's Memoir
The View from Alger's Window is Tony Hiss's remarkable memoir of the trial and imprisonment of one of the most famous victims of the Cold War witch-hunts: his father. Tony Hiss was seven years old when Whittaker Chambers first accused Alger Hiss of passing secrets to the Russians. For the rest of his childhood, Tony and his family experienced the cruelties and intimidations of the time.
Drawing on hundreds of letters Alger sent from prison, the author counters public perceptions of Hiss and shows the fundamental decency and essential goodness of his father. At the same time he lets us see how adversity drew this father and son together, allowing them to achieve a closeness they might never have been able to otherwise.
Beautifully written, wise, The View from Alger's Window sheds new light on a family, a time, an accusation, and a man whose guilt or innocence continues to inspire debate.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
Drawing on hundreds of letters Alger sent from prison, the author counters public perceptions of Hiss and shows the fundamental decency and essential goodness of his father. At the same time he lets us see how adversity drew this father and son together, allowing them to achieve a closeness they might never have been able to otherwise.
Beautifully written, wise, The View from Alger's Window sheds new light on a family, a time, an accusation, and a man whose guilt or innocence continues to inspire debate.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
- GenresHistoryNonfictionMemoir
272 pages, Paperback
First published May 18, 1999
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 7, 2016
This is Tony Hiss's second book about his father. No doubt he's had a lifetime spent in the shadow of the Hiss trial, and it has caused him to have some profound and poignant insights not only about his famous father, but also about having one's entire life spent with the association.
There are some great anecdotes in this book that were almost surreal. The story of Alger, working in the Lewisberg, PA prison, when a fellow inmate who is reading a book about FDR and Harry Hopkins, is able to ask Hiss what the men were really like. There are the little notations in Hiss's file that he would be capable of much greater work within the prison, but that 'external pressures' would not allow such an assignment. The story of Hiss's post-prison employment, selling various retail items, able to make sales not from his skills but due to cashing in, in some small petty way, on his notoriety to keep his family afloat, was similarly a strong admission.
But these anecdotes are hard to come by in a 244 page tome. It felt as though Tony was omitting much, or not capable of capturing and sharing many of the other anecdotes that would have revealed more about this infamous man.
And that's perhaps the most powerful opportunity for this book: humanizing Alger. The historical Hiss is such a plain character, a blank slate that people can either project their fears about Communist subversion, their belief that the elites in the country might be dishonest dealers, that a series of national setbacks could be explained to subversion rather than mistakes or geopolitics, that he becomes a way for Cold War anxieties to start their culture war.
Hiss was, in many ways, the start to a cultural Cold War, the catalyzing agent for McCarthy, and a powerful indictment of the New Deal. Tony Hiss acknowledges the events that the Hiss trial set in motion, but he doesn't capture, at all, the reasons why the Hiss trial was important, or any more important or relevant than a variety of other spy trials or accusations of treason.
The answer is partially from Hiss's pedigree as a Harvard man, first Secretary General of the United Nations, his social connections which included Supreme Court members, Secretaries of State, and various executive-level officials, but also his obvious grooming to become something greater. He was well-placed to become an even-greater agent of history and was stopped at a critical moment, the moment before he gained entry to the elites who are never prosecuted and never punished. Hiss was still, despite his many accomplishments, one of the masses who had not yet ascended into the ruling class.
The failure to fully capture the backward-looking issues related to the Hiss trial is also matched by a certain myopia in the author in the present during his father's life, and the future legacy his father will have.
The assessment of the present needed more stories about the father, told to reveal who he is. Chambers and even current authors about Hiss such as Christina Shelton, who are decidedly anti-Hiss, have all described him as a very 'gentle' man. His letters as reproduced by the son include some of that, but aren't fully explanatory to that end. The book includes no full-text letters between husband and wife, even though those were also within the trunk of correspondence unearthed by the son.
There is, to the greatest extent of any topic, lots of personal detail between father and son, and a great deal of reflection by the son. This has the perhaps unintentional feeling of grief and angst by the son for the father. The book was written three years after Alger's death at age 92 in 1996. Much of this detail wasn't revealing or of much interest to the reader, they felt like somewhat indulgent inclusions.
Modern books have become serious confessionals, and this book is slightly older than that more modern trend, but such a tone and style given the topic, would have been very powerful. When you're a Hiss, you're clearly held to a different standard, and exposing all the warts and wrinkles of the man would have shown the readers a reality that, more than anything, would have felt like honest hidden truth, if the results of the trial are to be disbelieved.
Perhaps that's the most powerful takeaway from the text, that this topic, given its nature of espionage, deceit and power politics, cannot be resolved or even well handled by someone whose emotional attachment to the topic is so intertwined with their identity, and who has literally lived this controversy their entire life. As yet another example, the book completely brushes past the question of his parent's divorce four years after leaving Lewisberg. It's resolved as saying that they likely both looked at one another as having captured the struggles they had both been through together, that they had been through too much together and decided to part amicably. While perhaps true, it feels like misdirection. It feels like a saccharine read of the reasons why two people came apart. It was an important part of the lives of the three most important people in the book, and it was given barely a paragraph.
There's also the occasional attempt to subtly exonerate his father, almost in a passive aggressive style. Tony Hiss obviously knows that everyone wants to know whether he thinks Alger could possibly be guilty, or if he ever said anything to solve this detective story once and for all, so he peppers his writing, consciously or not, with overt comments meant to influence the reader. There's a few dismissive comments about Allen Weinstein's "Perjury" which was an academic's review of the Hiss case, resulting in Weinstein's conclusion that Hiss was guilty. There are several comments about Whittaker Chambers, referencing his homosexual period as well as his style being an obsessive nut connected to Hiss. As someone who has read "Witness" - I found his comments to be hard to square with the quality of the contents of Chambers' work. This has the effect of never really facing Chambers' real accusations against his father, you can't distill an 808 page book by your father's main antagonist, who was recognized by the President of the US as the main intellectual influence on his life, with a dismissive sentence or two. It deserved more, a lot more. Certain "Witness" operated as a certain social albatross around their family, a way for the accusations to not simply die with the news cycle in 1948, but to exist throughout time, connected philosophically not just to anti-Communism, but to Americana itself. Having Hiss reconcile the contents of Witness was a necessary response and answer, and how Witness affected their family's prison time and time thereafter was another necessary component of this book that was missing.
But the great omission was something he hinted at but never fully fleshed out: the question not of whether Alger Hiss was innocent or guilty, but rather why everyone assumes he's guilty, and what impact his legacy would have if he were ever proven innocent. This is what left me thinking about this case for days and weeks as I slowly consumed this book, why had I always naturally assumed Hiss's guilt, and what would it mean if such a man were innocent as charged. In modern life we don't take any accusations at face value: OJ *might* be innocent. Bill Clinton *might* be innocent. But we're used to accusations generally proven right over time, especially public political ones like this. When things become this large of a media storm, usually there's at least a kernel of truth to the charge. Other books on Hiss resolve this by pointing to diplomatic cables and historical archives that are, frankly, notoriously unreliable. We assume Hiss's guilt because of something about the man that speaks to not only our own fears and anxieties, but also something about him. His face looks like someone with something to hide. He looks conniving. His placement and resume looks like someone who was ambitious for a purpose. There was some fatal flaw within the New Deal, perhaps in steamrolling opposition, perhaps in pursuing change at a pace that outstripped the public's patience, but Hiss became the manifestation for those problems and it exploded upon him.
The scope and scale of Hiss's espionage, if true, is one issue. But his continued placement as a historical icon suggests he represents something much greater. The Rosenbergs gave atomic secrets that changed geopolitics permanently. Hiss at Yalta may have done the same through power diplomacy, but it's never been proven. The scope of his treason is always abstract and oblique.
But what if the man were innocent. What if his life were run through the news cycle and spit out, unable to be defended by the elites, unable to get a review by the Supreme Court for which he once clerked. What if a man who was at the highest levels of power, was made powerless by a rogue accusation by a man who could have fabricated it all. What if a man could rise to the top through adversity, only to have it all taken from him because his name was in a laundry list of 150 supposed subversives - why did Alger take all of the blame, why was he not immune to the consequences as all the others were?
How different would the Hiss story be if the man spent his life burdened by the falsehood he could never answer, he could never resolve, he could never reconcile? Tony Hiss knows his father was innocent and gives us little gems into his life, but fails to capture that theory with its placement within American society and to really explore all that it means.
Great concept, mixed execution, needed more pruning.
60/100
There are some great anecdotes in this book that were almost surreal. The story of Alger, working in the Lewisberg, PA prison, when a fellow inmate who is reading a book about FDR and Harry Hopkins, is able to ask Hiss what the men were really like. There are the little notations in Hiss's file that he would be capable of much greater work within the prison, but that 'external pressures' would not allow such an assignment. The story of Hiss's post-prison employment, selling various retail items, able to make sales not from his skills but due to cashing in, in some small petty way, on his notoriety to keep his family afloat, was similarly a strong admission.
But these anecdotes are hard to come by in a 244 page tome. It felt as though Tony was omitting much, or not capable of capturing and sharing many of the other anecdotes that would have revealed more about this infamous man.
And that's perhaps the most powerful opportunity for this book: humanizing Alger. The historical Hiss is such a plain character, a blank slate that people can either project their fears about Communist subversion, their belief that the elites in the country might be dishonest dealers, that a series of national setbacks could be explained to subversion rather than mistakes or geopolitics, that he becomes a way for Cold War anxieties to start their culture war.
Hiss was, in many ways, the start to a cultural Cold War, the catalyzing agent for McCarthy, and a powerful indictment of the New Deal. Tony Hiss acknowledges the events that the Hiss trial set in motion, but he doesn't capture, at all, the reasons why the Hiss trial was important, or any more important or relevant than a variety of other spy trials or accusations of treason.
The answer is partially from Hiss's pedigree as a Harvard man, first Secretary General of the United Nations, his social connections which included Supreme Court members, Secretaries of State, and various executive-level officials, but also his obvious grooming to become something greater. He was well-placed to become an even-greater agent of history and was stopped at a critical moment, the moment before he gained entry to the elites who are never prosecuted and never punished. Hiss was still, despite his many accomplishments, one of the masses who had not yet ascended into the ruling class.
The failure to fully capture the backward-looking issues related to the Hiss trial is also matched by a certain myopia in the author in the present during his father's life, and the future legacy his father will have.
The assessment of the present needed more stories about the father, told to reveal who he is. Chambers and even current authors about Hiss such as Christina Shelton, who are decidedly anti-Hiss, have all described him as a very 'gentle' man. His letters as reproduced by the son include some of that, but aren't fully explanatory to that end. The book includes no full-text letters between husband and wife, even though those were also within the trunk of correspondence unearthed by the son.
There is, to the greatest extent of any topic, lots of personal detail between father and son, and a great deal of reflection by the son. This has the perhaps unintentional feeling of grief and angst by the son for the father. The book was written three years after Alger's death at age 92 in 1996. Much of this detail wasn't revealing or of much interest to the reader, they felt like somewhat indulgent inclusions.
Modern books have become serious confessionals, and this book is slightly older than that more modern trend, but such a tone and style given the topic, would have been very powerful. When you're a Hiss, you're clearly held to a different standard, and exposing all the warts and wrinkles of the man would have shown the readers a reality that, more than anything, would have felt like honest hidden truth, if the results of the trial are to be disbelieved.
Perhaps that's the most powerful takeaway from the text, that this topic, given its nature of espionage, deceit and power politics, cannot be resolved or even well handled by someone whose emotional attachment to the topic is so intertwined with their identity, and who has literally lived this controversy their entire life. As yet another example, the book completely brushes past the question of his parent's divorce four years after leaving Lewisberg. It's resolved as saying that they likely both looked at one another as having captured the struggles they had both been through together, that they had been through too much together and decided to part amicably. While perhaps true, it feels like misdirection. It feels like a saccharine read of the reasons why two people came apart. It was an important part of the lives of the three most important people in the book, and it was given barely a paragraph.
There's also the occasional attempt to subtly exonerate his father, almost in a passive aggressive style. Tony Hiss obviously knows that everyone wants to know whether he thinks Alger could possibly be guilty, or if he ever said anything to solve this detective story once and for all, so he peppers his writing, consciously or not, with overt comments meant to influence the reader. There's a few dismissive comments about Allen Weinstein's "Perjury" which was an academic's review of the Hiss case, resulting in Weinstein's conclusion that Hiss was guilty. There are several comments about Whittaker Chambers, referencing his homosexual period as well as his style being an obsessive nut connected to Hiss. As someone who has read "Witness" - I found his comments to be hard to square with the quality of the contents of Chambers' work. This has the effect of never really facing Chambers' real accusations against his father, you can't distill an 808 page book by your father's main antagonist, who was recognized by the President of the US as the main intellectual influence on his life, with a dismissive sentence or two. It deserved more, a lot more. Certain "Witness" operated as a certain social albatross around their family, a way for the accusations to not simply die with the news cycle in 1948, but to exist throughout time, connected philosophically not just to anti-Communism, but to Americana itself. Having Hiss reconcile the contents of Witness was a necessary response and answer, and how Witness affected their family's prison time and time thereafter was another necessary component of this book that was missing.
But the great omission was something he hinted at but never fully fleshed out: the question not of whether Alger Hiss was innocent or guilty, but rather why everyone assumes he's guilty, and what impact his legacy would have if he were ever proven innocent. This is what left me thinking about this case for days and weeks as I slowly consumed this book, why had I always naturally assumed Hiss's guilt, and what would it mean if such a man were innocent as charged. In modern life we don't take any accusations at face value: OJ *might* be innocent. Bill Clinton *might* be innocent. But we're used to accusations generally proven right over time, especially public political ones like this. When things become this large of a media storm, usually there's at least a kernel of truth to the charge. Other books on Hiss resolve this by pointing to diplomatic cables and historical archives that are, frankly, notoriously unreliable. We assume Hiss's guilt because of something about the man that speaks to not only our own fears and anxieties, but also something about him. His face looks like someone with something to hide. He looks conniving. His placement and resume looks like someone who was ambitious for a purpose. There was some fatal flaw within the New Deal, perhaps in steamrolling opposition, perhaps in pursuing change at a pace that outstripped the public's patience, but Hiss became the manifestation for those problems and it exploded upon him.
The scope and scale of Hiss's espionage, if true, is one issue. But his continued placement as a historical icon suggests he represents something much greater. The Rosenbergs gave atomic secrets that changed geopolitics permanently. Hiss at Yalta may have done the same through power diplomacy, but it's never been proven. The scope of his treason is always abstract and oblique.
But what if the man were innocent. What if his life were run through the news cycle and spit out, unable to be defended by the elites, unable to get a review by the Supreme Court for which he once clerked. What if a man who was at the highest levels of power, was made powerless by a rogue accusation by a man who could have fabricated it all. What if a man could rise to the top through adversity, only to have it all taken from him because his name was in a laundry list of 150 supposed subversives - why did Alger take all of the blame, why was he not immune to the consequences as all the others were?
How different would the Hiss story be if the man spent his life burdened by the falsehood he could never answer, he could never resolve, he could never reconcile? Tony Hiss knows his father was innocent and gives us little gems into his life, but fails to capture that theory with its placement within American society and to really explore all that it means.
Great concept, mixed execution, needed more pruning.
60/100
October 1, 2010
For anyone who doesn't know about the Ålger Hiss spy case from the 1950s, this book won't resonate. For those who do, this is an intimate, intense and lovely portrait of a man by his son. Alger Hiss' guilt or innocence is still debated, but Tony Hiss, through letters to and from his father in prison, and by the memories of both those who knew Alger well and others who knew him little but were touched by him, causes the reader to ask could a man caplable of such letters also be guilty of suuch betrayal? Tony, with language eloquent and thoughtful, reveals a man who instead of becoming bitter, grows and strives in prison, embracing mankind and the world in a much richer way than before.
This is a poigant, lyrical love letter from son to father.
This is a poigant, lyrical love letter from son to father.
September 7, 2010
Beautiful book, very touching and well researched.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews