INVESTIGATIONS: Burden of Proof

By the time Alger Hiss and Whittaker Chambers stood up to each other in public last week, it was clear to everyone that they had known each other quite well in the mid-’30s. Those were the days when Hiss was publicly on the rise as a bright young New Dealer and Chambers was an undercover Communist agent. The point which the House Un-American Activities Committee wanted to demonstrate was that—as Chambers had testified—they had been Communists together.

Hiss stoutly continued to deny the charge. But he had backtracked once before. He had first denied ever having known Chambers, then admitted that he knew him as “George Crosley,” a freelance writer. Would the rest of his story stand up under searching examination and a public confrontation with Chambers?

Last week, with television and newsreel cameras whirring, Hiss and Chambers faced each other in the big, air-conditioned House caucus room. To Hiss, Chambers was still “George Crosley.”* To Chambers, Hiss was Hiss—”the closest friend I ever had in the Communist Party.”

Then, for more than six hours, the committee’s questioners tried to pin Alger Hiss down to fine details. Lawyer Hiss, a Harvard Law School graduate and a onetime secretary to Oliver Wendell Holmes, was not an easy man to pin down. He was cool, deliberate and professional, at times tripping up and correcting his questioners, at all times insisting on giving a precise answer. Knowing better than anyone that a possible perjury charge hung on his every word, he almost never offered a flat yes or a flat no. His favorite phrase, as he fenced tediously with the committee, was: “To the best of my recollection.” He used it and similar phrases 198 times.

“If So … Cocktails.” He was questioned most sharply by Committee Investigator Robert E. Stripling and California’s Congressman Richard Nixon. A good example of his testimony was his reply to the question: Had he ever been in Henry Collins’ apartment in St. Matthews Court? This, Chambers had testified, was the Washington meeting place of the elite Communist group, of which he said Hiss was a member. Had Hiss ever been there when Lee Pressman, John Abt or Charles Kramer were there?

Hiss: I may have been in one or another place of Mr. Collins’ abode when one or another or more than one of the other people you have referred to may have been present. If so, it was on some social occasion—dinner, cocktails, something of that sort.

Stripling: I believe you have testified, Mr. Hiss, that to your knowledge none of these people were members of the Communist Party.

Hiss: I did not testify that to my knowledge they are not.

Stripling: What did you testify?

Hiss: I testified that I had no basis of knowing whether they were or were not.

Stripling: I believe you testified that you didn’t know a single Communist.

Hiss: To the best of my knowledge, none of my friends is a Communist.

Nixon: Have you ever seen George Crosley, Whittaker Chambers or Carl [Chambers’ chief name as a Communist agent] or Crosley under any other name in the apartment of Henry Collins?

Hiss: To the best of my recollection, I am confident I have not.

Nixon: Will you testify that you did not see Crosley in the apartment of Henry Collins?

Hiss: I will testify that to the best of my knowledge and recollection I have never seen Crosley in the apartment of Henry Collins.

Nixon: Well, of course, you are leaving open the possibility that you might have seen him in the event that that should come out in the proof before the committee.

Hiss: You can put it that way if you choose, Mr. Nixon.

Nixon: You won’t say categorically that you did not see him in the apartment of Henry Collins?

Hiss: I do not see how one can say categorically that one has not seen anybody. If he was attending social functions, if there were a large number of people at some occasion and he was present, I could not testify with absolute positive finality.

Incriminatory Car. Hiss also could not testify with absolute finality about the disposition of his 1929 model A Ford roadster. Chambers had testified that the car had been turned over by Hiss to the Communist Party for the use of some hard-up organizer. Hiss said he had turned it over to “Crosley” in 1935. But the committee showed Hiss a transfer of the Ford’s ownership to one William Rosen executed almost a year later.

Had Hiss ever got the car back from “Crosley”? He could not remember if “Crosley” had kept it or if it “came back” to him. Hiss agreed that the signature on the photostat of the transfer looked like his, but he still had no memory of the transaction.

(One day later, in closed session, the committee heard a witness named William Rosen, a Washington valet-shop operator. When he was asked about the car he refused to answer on the constitutional grounds that he might incriminate himself. This was also his reply when he was asked if he had ever been a Communist. He said he did not know Hiss.)

Under protracted questioning, Hiss could offer no additional evidence to back up his contention that Chambers was “Crosley.” He was unable to name anyone but his wife who had ever seen them together or anyone who knew Chambers as “Crosley.” But he had some angry counter-questions of his own. He wanted the committee to ask Chambers if he had ever been treated for a mental illness. He also dared Chambers to come out from behind the shield of congressional immunity, and make his accusations again, so that Hiss could sue for slander or libel.

“A Tragedy of History.” Then, while Hiss took a seat among the reporters, the committee summoned Chambers to the witness chair. What had Chambers thought of Hiss’s testimony? Said Chambers: “Mr. Hiss is lying.” Had he ever been in a mental hospital? “I have never been treated for a mental illness—period.”

Chambers was asked what motive he could have for accusing Hiss of being a Communist. Chambers’ voice was close to breaking, and some of his listeners thought that he was close to tears as he answered: “The story has spread that … 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.”

Two nights later, Chambers accepted Hiss’s challenge to make his charge public. On radio’s Meet the Press program, he repeated his statement that Hiss had been a Communist.

Said Chambers: “I do not think Mr. Hiss will sue me.”

This week the committee issued an interim report on its work and pursued new leads. After a long hunt for him, it caught up with J. Peters, a man with a Groucho Marx likeness who, Chambers said, was the Communist underground boss who introduced him to Hiss. Confronted by Chambers and asked if he knew him, Peters refused to answer on the grounds that he might incriminate himself. He gave that same answer to some 30 other questions. But he did admit that he knew Earl Browder.

Summing up the Hiss-Chambers case, the committee reported that Hiss had been “vague and evasive,” while Chambers had been “forthright and emphatic.” “The verifiable portions of Chambers’ testimony,” the committee said, “have stood up strongly; the verifiable portions of the Hiss testimony have been badly shaken.” The hearing has “definitely shifted the burden of proof from Chambers to Hiss.”

Commented the New York Herald Tribune, which has previously taken a skeptical view of the committee’s work: “The committee has turned up a great deal more than a ‘red herring’ . . . has been unearthing important facts . . . has thrown valuable light upon the Communist problem.”

* The committee proved that if there ever was a free-lancer named George Crosley, he had an extremely tough time of it. A search of the Library of Congress’ extensive catalogues showed that one G. Crosley had had a book, of poems published in 1905 (when Chambers was four years old) and one G. E. Crosley, a medical doctor, had written a pamphlet on ultraviolet light in 1936. There was no record of a “George Crosley” having broken into print any time, anywhere during Chambers’ lifetime.