Alger Hiss

Recollections of a Life

By Alger Hiss

Book Review/Commentary

By Richard E. Noble

The first thing that you have to remember about Alger Hiss is that he is not Rudolf Hess. Rudolf Hess is that Nazi guy, who flew to England for some yet to be explained reasons and was tried and convicted at the Nuremberg trails.

Alger Hiss was also tried and convicted, but in the United States, for being a Communist and supplying information to the Russians in 1938.

Alger Hiss was a graduate of Harvard Law school; was a clerk to Supreme Court Justice, Oliver Wendell Homes, Jr.; was one of F.D.R.’s bright young men; was in the State Department; served on the Agriculture committee; on the Nye committee investigating improprieties and profiteering in the armament industry; was with Roosevelt at Yalta; served on the international committee which drafted the U.N. charter; and was president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. But, after tangling with McCarthy, Nixon, J. Edgar Hoover and a guy named Whittaker Chambers, he ended up selling paperclips and rubber bands for a living. He was also disbarred and went to prison for nearly four years.

It seems that he spent the remainder of his life trying to clear his name and turn over his 1948 conviction. His two biggest mistakes it seems to me were; agreeing to serve on the Nye Commission which was assigned to investigate war profiteering by people like the DuPonts, and Curtiss Wright and Pratt & Whitney companies; and not allowing Whittaker Chambers to give him a blowjob. A little co-operation on this petition might have wiped some of the frost off old Whittaker’s pumpkin.

But blowjob aside, aggravating the DuPonts and others in the Armament industry by announcing that the charges against them were fair and justifiable, just as they were during World War I, was not a smart move. And further stating that the only way to end corruption in the armament industry was to end war altogether was just adding insult to injury. I mean, when you consider that the DuPonts actually tried to raise a private army to violently overthrow the Roosevelt administration ... come on now?

Franklin and Harry Hopkins were now dead. The Stalin connection was over. Harry Truman was having tea with the old Clividon set and the entire world was reinvesting in Krupp Industries.

This was not a time to be investigating war profiteers. It is also interesting to consider why we spent so much time investigating Communists after the war, as opposed to Nazi sympathizers. After all, I don’t mean to shock anybody out there, but the commies, both Russian and Chinese, were our allies, and the Nazis were our enemies, dahhh, remember?

In Alger Hiss’ last book, “Recollections of a Life” Alger makes his last plea for exoneration, and he makes a very, very good case. He had been anxiously awaiting files to be released under the freedom of information act which were guaranteed to take no more than ten days, but took four and a half years. Oh well?

In any case, information from the newly released Russian files, supposedly contradicts Alger’s testimony once again. I wish Alger was still around to defend himself on this one, but now he is dead also. I wonder, could he have refused Molotov’s offer of a blow job, or are the DuPonts manufacturing gun powder in Russia too? From the looks of Molotov, I’d bet on the latter.

Recently the debate has come forward once again. The adopted son of the Hiss’s, Timothy Hobson, has come forward to advance their innocence. He and his half brother Tony Hiss – who has dedicated his life to clearing his dad’s name – are proclaiming Alger Hiss’s conviction to have been a blatant tragedy perpetrated by a series of lies and falsifications.

It seems that Timothy, a ten year old in 1937 and a household witness to any supposed spying or espionage was not allowed to testify in defense of his parents at the trial in 1947 because he had received an Undesirable Discharge from the military on the grounds that he was a homosexual.

What is truly unbelievable is that it is this one case and this one individual, Alger Hiss that marks a turning point in the politics of the American people.
When Alger Hiss was convicted of perjury (not espionage or treason) America turned from the liberalism of FDR and his pro-Russian and anti-German/Nazi-ism position to the Cold War and the pro-German/Marshall Plan anti-Russian Bolshevik position. This poor man and this tragic case are like the linchpin in one of the biggest policy changes and turnarounds in all of American History. Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time!