Alger Hiss's looking-glass wars : the covert life of a Soviet spy

318 Pages·2004·1.78 MB·English

by  White

Alger Hiss’s
Looking-Glass Wars:
The Covert Life of a
Soviet Spy
G. EDWARD WHITE
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
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Alger Hiss’s
Looking-Glass
Wars
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Alger Hiss’s

Looking-Glass

Wars

The Covert Life
of a Soviet Spy
G. EDWARD WHITE

3
2004
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3

Oxford New York

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Copyright © 2004 by G. Edward White

Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.

198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016

www.oup.com

Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,

or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording,

or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

White, G. Edward.

Alger Hiss’s looking-glass wars: the covert life of a Soviet spy / by G. Edward White.

p. cm.

ISBN 0–19–515345–6

1. Hiss, Alger.

2. Spies—United States—Biography.

3. Communists—United States—Biography.

4. United States. Dept. of State—Officials and employees—Biography.

5. Subversive activities—United States—History—20th century.

6. Espionage, Soviet—United States—History—20th century.

I. Title.

E743.5.H55 W47 2004

364.1'31—dc22 2003015933

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
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For Susan Davis White
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Also by G. Edward White
The Eastern Establishment and the Western Experience (1968)

The American Judicial Tradition (1976, 2d. ed. 1988)

Patterns of American Legal Thought (1978)

Tort Law in America: An Intellectual History (1980, 2d. ed. 2003)

Earl Warren: A Public Life (1982)

The Marshall Court and Cultural Change (1988, 2d. ed. 1991)

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: Law and the Inner Self (1993)

Intervention and Detachment: Essays in Legal History and Jurisprudence (1994)

Creating The National Pastime: Baseball Transforms Itself, 1903–1953 (1996)

Oliver Wendell Holmes: Sage of the Supreme Court (2000)

The Constitution and the New Deal (2000)
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CONTENTS

List of Illustrations viii

Preface ix

Introduction xiii

ONE
Family and Marriage 3
TWO
Exposure 35
THREE
Prison 81
FOUR
The Campaign for Vindication 117
FIVE
The Campaign Gains Momentum 143
SIX
The Intervention of Allen Weinstein 173
SEVEN
The Russian Connection 201
EIGHT
Alger Hiss’s Looking-Glass Wars 237
Afterword
251

Notes
255

Index
289
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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Alger Hiss with Contemporaries, 1918 2

Alger Hiss and Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1930 15

Alger and Priscilla Hiss, 1935 34

The Woodstock Typewriter 67

Hiss’s 1951 Prison “Mugshots” 80

Hiss’s 1954 Prison “Mugshots” 101

1967 Advertisement for Friendship and Fratricide 116

Alger Hiss in 1967 135

Hiss at 1975 Ceremony Reinstating His Law License 142

Hiss and His Lawyers at the Reinstatement Ceremony 166

A Close-up of Hiss in 1975 172

Hiss at Harvard Law School, 1977 185

General Dmitri Volkogonov, Hiss’s “Exonerator” 200

Hiss and Isabel Johnson Celebrate His 1992 “Exoneration”
215
Artist ’s Rendition of Hiss Asserting His Innocence, 1978 236
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PREFACE

Readers of my previous books might wonder why I came to write on Alger
Hiss. My work in twentieth-century American history has centered on legal
topics, with a particular emphasis on constitutional law and judges. Hiss was
a lawyer, but this book does not focus on him in that capacity. It is about his far bet­
ter known lives as accused Communist and Soviet spy, convicted perjurer, defender
of his innocence, and tireless campaigner in pursuit of his vindication. It is also
about the changing reaction of sectors of the American public to Hiss, and to the do­
mestic and international issues with which he was identified.
My interest in Hiss did not derive from any of my former scholarly interests. It
originated when I learned, in the late 1960s, that my father-in-law, John F. Davis, had
provided legal representation for Alger Hiss in 1948. John Davis had been Hiss’s
counsel at an August 25, 1948, hearing in which Hiss appeared before the House of
Representatives’s Committee on Un-American Activities to deny accusations made
about him by Whittaker Chambers. John continued to work with the Hiss defense
team for the remainder of 1948, in which Hiss filed a libel suit against Chambers and
appeared before a New York grand jury that eventually indicted him for perjury, and
throughout Hiss’s 1949 and 1950 perjury trials. John was not among the counsel of
record in the libel suit, nor did he represent Hiss in court during either of the trials.
He was nowhere near as closely involved with the Hiss defense efforts as Edward
McLean, William Marbury, or Harold Rosenwald, who coordinated them and, along
with Hiss, developed the principal defense strategies. But John was nonetheless an
active member of the Hiss defense between August 1948 and January 1950, corre­
sponding frequently with McLean and Marbury.
John played no part in any of Hiss’s legal proceedings after his 1950 conviction,
which consisted of retrial motions, appeals, petitions to the United States Supreme
Court, and a 1978 petition to vacate Hiss’s 1950 perjury conviction. He never