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Subject: Stalin Biographer Offers Latest Twist in Hiss Case; No Evidence Diplomat
Date: Sat, 31 Oct 92 08:47:18 EST
Message-ID: <10.1992Oct31.084718@AmeriCast.com>

Stalin Biographer Offers Latest Twist in Hiss Case; No Evidence
Diplomat An argument can be made that some divisions in American
life never heal: Vietnam, the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg atom
espionage controversy and the case of Alger Hiss, now nearly a
half-century old. In the wake of assertions this week by a Rus-
sian historian that Soviet intelligence archives show no evidence
that Hiss spied for the Soviet Union, that ancient battle has
been rejoined.

The claims were made by Gen. Dmitri Volkogonov, whose respected
biography of Joseph Stalin was published last year. "Mr. A. Hiss
had never and nowhere been recruited as an agent of the intelli-
gence service of the U.S.S.R.," said Volkogonov in a letter to
John Lowenthal, a filmmaker, former law professor and longtime
student of the Hiss case. "Not a single document, and a great
amount of materials has been studied, substantiates the allega-
tion that Mr. A. Hiss collaborated with the intelligence services
of the Soviet Union."

Volkogonv told Lowenthal that the case "was a result of the Cold
War."

Hiss yesterday described himself as "overjoyed, pleased as punch"
and said, "I think J. Edgar Hoover acted with malice trying to
please various peope who were engineering the Cold War. . . . The
whole jury process was tampered with by the propaganda of the
time." He acknowledged that he knew his accuser, Whittaker
Chambers. But, as he has said for 44 years, insisted he knew him
only "as George Crosley, a journalist."

Chambers told the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)
that he and Hiss were Communist Party members in the 1930s and
that Hiss, when he was a State Department employee, had passed
him secret documents.

Volkogonov said that there is no evidence that Hiss was a member
of Communist Party. Of Chambers, Volkogonov said he found no evi-
dence of espionage: "I only found that he was member of the Com-
munist Party, the American Communist Party."

Volkogonov's findings are being sharply disputed.

The Hiss case still excites passions because, apart from catching
so many strains of American life and politics, it was an extraor-
dinary human drama. Hiss was the very model of a polished di-
plomat: he accompanied President Franklin D. Roosevelt to Yalta
and, in early 1947, was chosen as president of the Carnegie En-
dowment for International Peace.  Chambers was a writer for Time
magazine. He had bad teeth, a checkered past and the look of
disreputable informer.

The accusations led to two trials, one of which resulted in 1950
in Hiss's conviction and four-year imprisonment on two counts of
perjury - namely, lying about receiving the secret documents and
lying about his ties to Chambers. The case launched at least one
major political career: that of then-Rep. Richard M. Nixon, and a
small publishing industry.

Allen Weinstein, whose 1978 book, "Perjury," documents the case
for Hiss's guilt, said of the new findings:  "We don't know what
he's (Volkogonov) seen, we don't know what he hasn't seen. It
took this man 10 years to do his biography of Stalin. It took me
five years to do my biography of Hiss. Now on the basis of a
packet of material, we have a judgment?" William F. Buckley Jr.,
the conservative columnist-author who befriended Chambers in the
'50s, said, "There is nothing a Soviet general can say that can
upset what was presented, that Hiss did certain things - namely
that papers in Hiss's handwriting were handed to Chambers, plus
people identified him as a Soviet agent. . . . There is no way
that a Soviet general has the power to vaporize judicial find-
ings. The notion that Hiss has been exonerated is a huge laugh."

In the '50s, Chambers became a conservative hero and was vilified
by the left, which held him partly responsible for the "red
scare" and McCarthyism. Among his possessions when he died in
1961 was a letter from Andre' Malraux, who told him, "You are one
of those who did not return from Hell with empty hands." Hiss,
87, frail and losing his sight, never stopped asserting his inno-
cence.

When "Perjury" was published, Victor Navasky, editor of the li-
beral Nation magazine, challenged the findings, saying Weinstein
had quoted some sources out of context. Weinstein said the
sources recanted because they disagreed with his judgment that
Hiss was guilty.

The battle continues. Navasky called Volkogonov's claims "a very
powerful statement, and a moving one as well. It's a major
development in the case." Weinstein said, "Is there any new evi-
dence? There are new assertions." Weinstein also asks, "We know
that (Volkogonov) looked at KGB files, but Chambers, by
everybody's account, worked for military intelligence. Has Volko-
gonov looked at military intelligence files? Does (Russian intel-
ligence chief Yevgeny) Primakov endorse this statement?"

Said Navasky, "It's not just a Russian general; he's in charge of
all military intelligence, and they did an exhaustive serarch."

In next week's issue of Nation, a Navasky editorial will say: ".
. . We await with glorious anticipation the consternation that
General Volkogonov's apparent vindication of Hiss, after all
these years, will cause in the neoconservative and far-right com-
munities." Said Buckley, "Now and then, you run into a book in
which you see that Dreyfuss isn't really innocent, or Socrates is
really guilty."<02:11 10-31C9999-----

Copyright 1992, The Washington Post.  This story is from the
Washington Post's Capitol Edition On-Line and is not to be ar-
chived or redistributed.

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