THE JUDICIARY: Change of Scene

THE JUDICIARY Change of Scene

Next time Alger Hiss stood trial for perjury in connection with the Whittaker Chambers “pumpkin papers” espionage case (TIME, Aug. 16, 1948 et seq.), he wanted some changes made. Dispensing with the flamboyant talents of Manhattan Lawyer Lloyd Paul Stryker (who got a hung jury last time), Hiss hired a new lawyer: Mississippi-born, Harvard-trained Claude B. Cross, 55, a conservative Bostonian who specializes in business law, but who donated his services in 1947 to the defense of convicted Traitor Douglas

Chandler. Then Hiss asked Manhattan’s U.S. district court for a change of scene as well.

Because the press reports of his first trial had been of “such unprecedented volume and in some respects of such extraordinary virulence,” said Hiss, he thought there was no chance of getting a fair trial in Manhattan. To back up his argument, he produced photostats of 40 New York newspaper articles which he considered prejudicial to his defense and the affidavits of two of the four jurors who voted for his acquittal in his first trial. Both of them swore that they had received threatening letters and postcards, urging them: “Drop dead or go to Russia.” Hiss wanted the new trial to be held in Vermont, where he had spent the summer, and where “the press coverage of the first trial was very limited.”

This week the court granted Hiss three weeks’ delay, but reserved judgment on the change of scene.