Six Crises Read online

  John Rankin of Mississippi added, “I want to congratulate the witness that he didn’t refuse to answer the questions on the ground that it might incriminate him. And he didn’t bring a lawyer here to tell him what to say.”

  When the hearing adjourned Rankin left his seat to shake hands with Hiss. He had to fight his way through a crowd for, when the gavel came down, many of the spectators and some of the press swarmed around Hiss to congratulate him. He had won the day completely. It would not be an exaggeration to say that probably 90 per cent of the reporters at the press table and most of the Committee members were convinced that a terrible mistake had been made, a case of mistaken identity, and that the Committee owed an apology to Hiss for having allowed Chambers to testify without first checking into the possibility of such a mistake. Most of the news stories the next day and the editorials during the week were to express the same opinion—blasting the Committee for its careless procedures and, for the most part, completely overlooking the possibility that Chambers rather than Hiss might have been telling the truth.

  One of the reporters who regularly covered the Committee came up to me afterwards and asked, “How is the Committee going to dig itself out of this hole?” Mary Spargo of the Washington Post, who had been covering the Committee for some time, told me bluntly, “This case is going to kill the Committee unless you can prove Chambers’ story.” I ran into another barrage of questions when I went to the House restaurant after the hearing for lunch. Ed Lahey of the Chicago Daily News, whom I respected as one of the most honest and objective reporters in Washington, walked up to me literally shaking with anger. His eyes blazed as he said, “The Committee on Un-American Activities stands convicted, guilty of calumny in putting Chambers on the stand without first checking the truth of his testimony.”

  As I was eating lunch I got the report of President Truman’s opinion of the case. At his press conference he labeled the whole spy investigation a “red herring,” cooked up by a Republican Congress to avoid taking action on price controls, inflation, and other legislation important to the welfare of the people. Later, a Presidential Order directed that no federal agency was to release information on government personnel to committees of Congress, thus blocking that avenue of investigation.

  • • •

  When the Committee reconvened in executive session later that afternoon, it was in a virtual state of shock. Several members berated the staff for not checking Chambers’ veracity before putting him on the stand.

  One Republican member lamented, “We’ve been had. We’re ruined.”

  Ed Hébert, a Louisiana Democrat, suggested that the only way the Committee could get “off the hook” would be to turn the whole file over to the Department of Justice and hold no more hearings in the case. “Let’s wash our hands of the whole mess,” he said. That appeared to be the majority view, and if Hébert had put his suggestion in the form of a motion, it would have carried overwhelmingly. I was the only member of the Committee who expressed a contrary view, and Bob Stripling backed me up strongly and effectively.

  I argued, first, that turning the case over to the Department of Justice, far from rescuing the Committee’s reputation, would probably destroy it for good. It would be a public confession that we were incompetent and even reckless in our procedures. We would never be able to begin another investigation without having someone say, “Why do you amateurs insist on getting into these cases? Why don’t you leave the job where it belongs—to the experts in the Department of Justice?” Beyond that, I insisted that we had a responsibility not to drop the case but rather, now that we had opened up the whole question, to see it through. I reminded the Committee members that Chambers had testified that on four different occasions he had told his story to representatives of government agencies and that no action had ever been taken to check the credibility of his charges. Judging from that record, we could only assume that if we turned the investigation over to the Department of Justice, the case would be dropped. And the truth would never be determined.

  I pointed out my suspicions: that while Hiss had seemed to be a completely forthright and truthful witness, he had been careful never to state categorically that he did not know Whittaker Chambers. He had always qualified his answer by saying that he did not know a man “by the name of Whittaker Chambers.” I argued that while it would be virtually impossible to prove that Hiss was or was not a Communist—for that would simply be his word against Chambers’—we should be able to establish by corroborative testimony whether or not the two men knew each other. If Hiss were lying about not knowing Chambers, then he might also be lying about whether or not he was a Communist. And if that were the case, the charges were so serious—in view of the vitally important and sensitive positions Hiss had held—that we had an obligation running to the very security of the nation to dig out the truth.

  Bob Stripling, speaking from his years of experience as an investigator of Communist activities, made one very telling argument in support of my position. He reported that before and during the hearing, a calculated whispering campaign had been initiated against Chambers. The rumors were that he was an alcoholic, that he had been in a mental institution, that he was paranoiac. This, of course, did not establish that Chambers was telling the truth or that Hiss was a Communist. But, Stripling pointed out, this was a typical Communist tactic always employed to destroy any witness—and particularly any former Communist—who dared to testify against them.

  Finally my arguments prevailed and Karl Mundt, as acting Chairman, appointed me to head a Sub-committee to question Chambers again—this time in executive session, with no spectators or press present. Stripling was directed to subpoena Chambers to a hearing in New York two days later, on August 7.

  • • •

  When I arrived back in my office that afternoon, I had a natural sense of achievement over my success in preventing the Committee from dropping the case prematurely. But as I thought of the problems ahead of me I realized for the first time that I was up against a crisis which transcended any I had been through before.

  I had put myself, a freshman Congressman, in the position of defending the reputation of the Un-American Activities Committee. And in so doing, I was opposing the President of the United States and the majority of press corps opinion, which is so important to the career of anyone in elective office. Also, my stand, which was based on my own opinion and judgment, placed me more or less in the corner of a former Communist functionary and against one of the brightest, most respected young men following a public career. Yet I could not go against my own conscience and my conscience told me that, in this case, the rather unsavory-looking Chambers was telling the truth, and the honest-looking Hiss was lying.

  Life for everyone is a series of crises. A doctor performing a critically difficult operation involving life and death, a lawyer trying an important case, an athlete playing in a championship contest, a salesman competing for a big order, a worker applying for a job or a promotion, an actor on the first night of a new play, an author writing a book—all these situations involve crises for the individuals concerned. Crisis, by its nature, is usually primarily personal. Whether an individual fails or succeeds in meeting and handling a crisis usually affects only his own future and possibly that of his family and his immediate circle of friends and associates.

  Up to this time in my own life, I had been through various crises which had seemed critical at the time. In college, each examination was a minor crisis; I had to get high enough grades to qualify for a scholarship if I were to be able to go on to law school. Passing the California Bar Examinations in which for three days, seven hours a day, of written tests I was in effect putting on the line everything I had learned in four years of college and three years of law school—this had been the most difficult experience of my prepolitical career. My first day in court and my first jury trial seemed to me crucial experiences at the time. But these crises had been primarily personal as far as their outcome was concerned.

&nb
sp; Only when I ran for Congress in 1946 did the meaning of crisis take on sharply expanded dimensions. The outcome of the election would naturally have a profound effect on me. If I failed, my family and close friends would share my disappointment. But, in addition, I realized in that campaign that I must not only do the best I could because of my personal stake in the outcome but also that I must call up an even greater effort to meet the responsibility of representing the institution which had nominated me for office, the Republican Party, as well as fulfilling the hopes of literally thousands of people I would never meet, Republicans and Democrats, who were working for my election and would vote for me.

  But on that evening of August 5, as I reviewed Hiss’s testimony, I realized that this case presented a crisis infinitely greater and more complex than anything I had faced running for Congress in 1946.

  The most immediate consequence of whatever action I took would be its effect on the lives of two individuals, Hiss and Chambers. One of them was lying and therefore guilty of perjury. But on the other hand, one of them was an innocent man who would, in my opinion, never be proved innocent unless someone on the Committee diligently pursued the search for the truth.

  Beyond the fate of these two individuals, I recognized that the future of the Committee on Un-American Activities was at stake. The Committee in 1948 was under constant and severe attack from many segments of both press and public. It had been widely condemned as a “Red-baiting” group, habitually unfair and irresponsible, whose investigations had failed to lead to a single conviction of anyone against whom charges had been made at its hearings. It was, the critics said, doing more of a disservice to the country because of its abridgment of civil liberties than any alleged services it might be rendering in uncovering Communist subversives.

  The Committee had survived many past attacks for its failure to prove the charges of witnesses appearing before it. But I was convinced that a failure in this case would prove to be fatal. The President of the United States himself, the great majority of the press corps, and even some of the Committee’s own members were mounting an all-out attack on its alleged “sloppy” procedures.

  No one was more aware than I that the Committee’s past record had been vulnerable to attack. This was due in part to how it had conducted its investigations, but possibly even more to what it was investigating. The extent to which congressional investigations are generally approved is largely determined by whose ox is gored. If it is a J. P. Morgan, a Jimmy Hoffa, or a Frank Costello being investigated, most of the press and the public couldn’t seem to care less what procedures the Committee uses. But particularly in those years immediately after World War II, a congressional investigation of Communist activities was just like waving a red flag in the face of potential critics. This was not because the critics were pro-Communist—only a small minority could be accurately so designated. It was, rather, because such investigations seemed in that period to involve an attack on the free expression of ideas. The Communist Party, in most intellectual circles, was considered to be “just another political party” and Communism just “an abstract political idea”—a generally unpopular one to be sure, but one that any individual should have the right to express freely without running the risk of investigation or prosecution.

  The Hiss case itself and other developments in the period between 1947 and 1951 were to effect a significant change in the national attitude on these issues. But I recognized on that August evening in 1948 that even though a committee investigating Communism followed impeccably correct procedures and proved to be right, it would receive very little credit. Where its procedures were loose and it proved to be wrong, it would be subjected to scathing and merciless attack—and along with it, all its members who participated in the investigation.

  Despite its vulnerabilities, I strongly believed that the Committee served several necessary and vital purposes. Woodrow Wilson once said that congressional investigating committees have three legitimate functions: first, to investigate for the purpose of determining what laws should be enacted; second, to serve as a watchdog on the actions of the executive branch of the government, exposing inefficiency and corruption; third, and in Wilson’s view probably most important, to inform the public on great national and international issues. I had served on the Committee long enough to realize that congressional investigations of Communist activities were essential to further all these purposes. I knew that if the Committee failed to follow through on the Hiss case, the effectiveness of all congressional investigations, and particularly those in the field of Communist activities, might be impaired for years.

  But more important by far than the fate of the Committee, the national interest required that this investigation go forward. If Chambers were telling the truth, this meant that the Communists had been able to enlist the active support of men like Alger Hiss—in education, background, and intelligence, among the very best the nation could produce. If this were the case, then surely the country should be informed and Congress should determine what legislative action might be taken to deal with the problem.

  When I listened to the radio later that evening and saw the next morning’s newspapers, I had some second thoughts about the wisdom of my insisting on continuing the investigation. I knew there was a strong bias against the Committee among the press corps, and I had expected some critical comment. But I was not prepared for an assault on the Committee and its members which, in fury and vehemence, had never even been approached in the Committee’s past history. The overwhelming majority of the reporters seemed to assume that Chambers was an out-and-out liar bent on destroying an innocent man. And almost every one of my Republican colleagues in the House who expressed an opinion the day after Hiss testified voiced doubts as to Chambers’ credibility and as to the wisdom of continuing the investigation.

  What particularly disturbed me was a conversation I had with Congressman Christian Herter of Massachusetts, for whom I had developed great respect and admiration. I had served as a member of a special Committee he had headed the year before to study United States foreign aid programs in Europe. Herter had always voted for the appropriations for the Committee on Un-American Activities and I knew he had some good contacts in the Department of State. When I asked him about the Hiss case, he told me that the consensus in the State Department and among people who knew Hiss was that he was not a Communist. “I don’t want to prejudge the case,” said Herter, “but I’m afraid the Committee has been taken in by Chambers.”

  I replied that it was too late to turn back now, that I myself honestly did not know which man was telling the truth, but that I thought the Committee had an obligation to see the case through: “If Chambers is lying, he should be exposed. If Hiss is lying, he should be exposed.”

  Herter said that he thoroughly approved of this course of action.

  That night I read and reread the testimony of both men. I tried to disregard those sections which bore on Chambers’ charge that Hiss had been a Communist. I concentrated my sole attention on one question—had Hiss known Chambers?—because it was obvious from reading Chambers’ testimony that not only did he claim to know Hiss, but that he knew him very well.

  What should one man know about another if he knew him as well as Chambers claimed to know Hiss? I worked into the small hours of the morning making notes of literally scores of questions that I might ask Chambers which would bear on this point.

  After the experience of the last two days, I was determined never to go into another hearing of the Committee on Un-American Activities without being at least as well prepared as the witnesses themselves.

  • • •

  August 7 was a Saturday and the Committee met in a large empty wood-paneled courtroom on the first floor of the Federal Courthouse in New York’s Foley Square. Chambers sat alone on one side of a long counsel table in the front of the courtroom, with the members of the Sub-committee—Congressmen Hébert, John R. McDowell, Pennsylvania Republican, and myself—across from him. Stripling sat wi
th us and behind us were the Committee’s three other investigators—Louis Russell, Donald Appell, and Charles McKillips—and Ben Mandel, our research director. The only other person present was the Committee’s stenographer, who recorded the official transcript.

  After Chambers had taken the oath as a witness, I began the questioning by going straight to the main issue: since he claimed to know Hiss and Hiss denied knowing him, I asked him to tell the Committee everything he knew about Hiss. Then, for almost three hours, I bombarded him with questions covering every fact I could think of which one man should know about another if they were friends. The answers came back one after another, unequivocally, and in the most minute detail.

  He had first met Hiss in 1935 and had seen him on scores of occasions through 1937.

  He had collected Communist Party dues from him.

  He had stayed at the Hiss home on several occasions, once for a week.

  Hiss and his wife had a cocker spaniel dog which they had boarded at a kennel on Wisconsin Avenue in Washington when they went on vacations to Maryland’s eastern shore.

  Hiss was called “Hilly” by his wife; he called her “Dilly”; friends commonly referred to them as “Hilly” and “Dilly,” but not in their presence.

  He described Mrs. Hiss as a short, highly nervous woman with a habit of blushing bright red when she was excited or angry. He told us Mrs. Hiss’s maiden name, her birthplace, her background.

  He described Hiss’s stepson.

  He told us of Hiss’s boyhood hobby of fetching spring water from Druid Hill Park and selling it in Baltimore.

  He described the interiors and exteriors of three different houses the Hisses lived in while he knew them.