Dreamers and Deceivers (29 page)

Mundt seemed particularly concerned about the prominent role Hiss played at the Yalta Conference, which had become a political hot potato. According to one theory, pro-communist advisors had manipulated the sickly, weak president to further their agenda. If Hiss was, in fact, a communist, that would explain a lot—such as why the United States had agreed to surrendering half of Europe to Soviet influence. But Hiss did not take the bait, instead making it clear to Mundt that he shared some of the congressman’s anger over the fruits of Yalta.

As for Chambers’s allegations, Hiss’s rebuttal consisted of a powerful, sweeping set of denials to each and every charge hurled against him. He expressed his disappointment that the committee did not interview him privately before the ridiculous accusations were made in public. “Denials do not always catch up with charges,” he gently reminded them.

As his testimony continued, Hiss noticed that Congressman John McDowell of Pennsylvania was among the first to begin looking sheepish. His reelection was not going well. The embattled congressman apologized for any damage done to Hiss, a man whom “many Americans, including members of this Committee, hold in high repute.” Chairman Mundt also made the point of expressing his appreciation to Hiss for cooperating in such a forthright fashion.

Not to be outdone by either McDowell or Mundt, Mississippi Democrat John Rankin rushed from behind the dais and pushed his way through the crowd that had gathered around Hiss immediately after the committee adjourned. “Let me congratulate you on a performance unlike any we’ve seen in a decade,” Rankin told Hiss, shaking his hand admiringly.

Hiss squeezed Rankin’s hand firmly. Running over simple-minded politicians was as easy as he thought it would be.

Moments Later

U.S. Capitol

Washington, D.C.

August 5, 1948

Away from the microphones, there was no hiding from the truth: Richard Nixon knew that the hearing had gone terribly and that his colleagues on the committee were panicked.

Alger Hiss had, in a calm, controlled, and humorous demeanor,
clearly carried the day inside and outside the committee room. He’d come off as a man with better things to do, yet someone who still performed his civic duty admirably.

Karl Mundt was among the first to buckle. “We’ve been had,” he said, with a loud sigh. “We’re ruined.”

“We should just wash our hands of the whole mess,” Louisiana Democrat Eddie Hébert advised. “Cut our losses now. Let the Justice Department handle the cleanup.”

Nearly all of the committee members agreed. Alger Hiss had gotten the best of them, and they knew they had better find something else soon to distract the public from this fiasco. It was the prevalent view, but it was not the only one.

Nixon had a different impression of Hiss’s appearance than other committee members. He found the Ivy League elitist to be insolent and condescending. He was preoccupied with Hiss’s answer to what seemed like a simple question: Who, Nixon had asked him, was involved in getting you to come to Washington in the first place?

Hiss’s response had been smug: “I would rather limit myself than use names loosely before your committee as so many witnesses do.”

After going back and forth with him on the point, Nixon had finally said, “I would like to have a direct answer to the question.”

Hiss reluctantly complied, naming several members of Washington’s establishment, including Justice Frankfurter. It had mollified Nixon, but only for the moment. Nixon believed that Hiss was playing with him. He could have answered the question easily the first time, but instead he seemed to enjoy making Nixon work for it. The man was so smug, so sure of himself, so utterly unfazed by the accusations against him, that it was all a little too perfect. Sure, there was manufactured outrage, he’d hit all the right notes, but none of it seemed quite real. There was, of course, also the matter of Whittaker Chambers’s assertions. Everyone on the committee now seemed to be discounting them, but Chambers himself did not back down from his allegations in the slightest.

One of these two men—Chambers or Hiss—Nixon realized, was an accomplished liar. It gnawed at him that the Washington establishment was so quick to absolve a man who was part of their clique. How
did they know with such conviction that Hiss was the one telling the truth?

“I understand the concerns being expressed,” Nixon told his colleagues. “But retreating now would only make the committee look worse.” He volunteered to personally take the lead on the investigation.

At this key juncture, with the future of the committee hanging in the balance, Robert Stripling, the committee’s veteran investigator, spoke up and backed Nixon. Either Hiss or Chambers had lied under oath to a committee of the United States Congress. Stripling, like Nixon, strongly believed it was Hiss. There was something about the way he’d handled the questions, curiously hedging so many of his answers.

With Stripling’s backing, Mundt agreed to take the freshman up on his offer to lead the investigation. Nixon’s colleagues were visibly pleased by the decision, but Nixon knew they were thinking about themselves, not him. Nobody cared about throwing the ambitious but unknown young Californian to the wolves.

Roosevelt Hotel

New York City

August 8, 1948

It was troubling news. There was no doubt about it. If what Nixon’s colleague from Wisconsin, Charles Kersten, had told him was true, then Nixon’s hopes for the investigation, and his moment in the spotlight, were sure to be dashed.

A day earlier, Kersten learned that members of the Carnegie Foundation board were pressuring John Foster Dulles to issue a statement in support of Mr. Hiss. A titan of the Wall Street legal community, the Republican Party’s éminence grise on foreign affairs, and a close advisor to the Dewey campaign, Dulles was widely expected to be sworn in as secretary of state once New York governor Thomas Dewey trounced Truman in the November presidential election. If Dulles came out in support of Hiss, it would mean the end of the investigation. No Republican in Congress would want to tangle with a party leader of Dulles’s stature or come crosswise with the Dewey administration.

On the train from Washington to a New York City hotel, where they were set to meet with Dulles, Nixon and Kersten had fretted. What would they say to persuade him to stay out of this? What would they do if he refused?

In his suite at the Roosevelt Hotel, which served as “Dewey for President” headquarters, Dulles, joined by his brother Allan, welcomed the congressmen warmly and showed Kersten and Nixon to their seats. The Dulles brothers listened to Nixon’s concerns carefully, and then both reviewed the transcripts of Chambers’s original testimony.

Nixon and Kersten waited patiently on the sofa in silence. Minutes passed, then minutes more. Finally, John Foster Dulles put down the papers, rose from his chair, and folded his hands behind his back. Then he paced back and forth in front of the fireplace with his head down for what seemed like an eternity.

At last he stopped, his careful eyes turning toward Nixon and Kersten. “There’s no question about it,” Dulles concluded. “It’s almost impossible to believe, but Chambers does appear to know Hiss.”

Dulles told Nixon that he would not write a letter in support of Hiss and that it was, in fact, clear there was a real case against him. “In view of the facts Chambers has testified to, you’d be derelict in your duty as a congressman if you did not see the case through to a conclusion.”

Nixon exhaled and smiled broadly. He was back in business.

Commodore Hotel

New York City

August 16, 1948

Situated conveniently adjacent to Grand Central Terminal, the Commodore was impressive in both scope and grace. One end of the hotel was specially stocked with telephones, stock tickers, even stenographers—everything busy men of affairs required.

Room 1400 of the Commodore became the HUAC’s New York City headquarters. There, the Nixon subcommittee met, far away from the D.C. media frenzy, to further their investigation into Alger Hiss.

The first step, Nixon knew, was to prove that Hiss had lied in his August 5, 1948, testimony about ever knowing Whittaker Chambers.

Under questioning, Chambers gave Nixon and his colleagues extensive details about his relationship with the Hisses. He told them all about the times he had stayed with the family and he knew details like family nicknames, loan balances, and personal hobbies. He could even describe the cars parked in their family garage. The details about Hiss were so extensive that Chambers was either telling the truth or was a complete and total psychopath. Nixon talked with him long enough to conclude the latter wasn’t likely. Sure, Chambers was an odd duck, but he didn’t seem insane or delusional.

As Hiss entered the hotel room and sat before members of the subcommittee, Nixon still saw the same smug, self-satisfied man who’d bested them days earlier. But this time, Nixon was determined to reach a different outcome.

As the subcommittee grilled Hiss on the details that Chambers knew about him, Hiss began to backtrack ever so slightly. Now that he thought about it, he acknowledged, Nixon might be describing a man he had known as George Crosley when he’d been on detail from the Department of Agriculture to a U.S. Senate committee. But this Crosley, Hiss said, was nothing but a passing acquaintance. And Hiss would have to see him in person to know for sure if it was the same man.

Nixon watched as his colleague, John McDowell, leaned forward. “Mr. Hiss, have you ever seen a prothonotary warbler?”

It was not every day that a United States congressman asked a suspected communist about the sighting of a rare songbird, and Nixon was curious to see if Hiss would dodge it. “I have,” Hiss replied, politely. “On the Potomac.”

Nixon struggled to keep his expression blank. What Hiss did not know was that Chambers had told the committee that Hiss and his wife were bird-watchers who had gotten very excited about seeing that particular warbler—one of the rarest, most prized sightings by mid-Atlantic birders. Only someone very intimate with Hiss and his wife—certainly more intimate than a passing acquaintance like “George Crosley” had been—would have known this and many other small details about Hiss’s private life.

Nixon marveled that even as Hiss’s lie about Chambers began to unravel, he remained a picture of absolute grace and calm. He seemed wholly unflappable—and that gave Richard Nixon an idea.

24 Hours Later

Commodore Hotel

New York City

For once, Alger Hiss could not conceal his fury. The bastards had lied to him! They were trying to trap him. Someone—probably that beady-eyed character Nixon—had already leaked his testimony to the morning’s newspapers, all carefully slanted to make his answers look suspicious.

Hiss had been called back to the Commodore less than a day after he’d spoken with the subcommittee to meet privately with Nixon, McDowell, and one other person. Perhaps, Hiss surmised, this was an effort to apologize for the leak and to make some sort of amends.

Hiss entered Room 1400 and stopped dead in his tracks. In the suite were investigative staff members, plus a stenographer to transcribe every word he uttered. The congressmen hadn’t told Hiss he’d actually be returning for a formal appearance. Nor had they mentioned that the “other person” in attendance was in fact Whittaker Chambers himself.

Almost before he knew what was happening, Hiss was formally sworn in again.

Nixon explained that it was important to the subcommittee to determine whether Chambers and Crosley were one and the same person before proceeding any further in a public forum.

“I’m not prepared to testify,” Hiss protested. He lashed out at the congressmen, accusing them of leaking his previous day’s testimony to the press. He was so animated that at one point, a committee staffer, concerned Hiss might strike Chambers, grabbed him by the arm.

After much back and forth, Hiss finally acknowledged that he did know Chambers, but only as George Crosley. In response, Chambers replied that he had never assumed such an identity.

When Chambers identified Hiss for the record as the man who he
had known as a member of the Communist Party, Hiss took the opportunity to go on the offensive. He knew that Chambers had been given immunity for his testimony to the committee and he used it against them.

“May I say for the record at this point, that I would like to invite Mr. Whittaker Chambers to make those same statements out of the presence of this committee and without those statements being privileged from a lawsuit for libel.” Then his eyes locked directly on to his accuser. “I challenge you to do it, and hope you will do it damned quickly.”

U.S. Capitol

Washington, D.C.

August 25, 1948

The morning portended another Washington summer scorcher. The mercury already registered 93 degrees and, although Congress had long since recessed for the summer, the Caucus Room was packed. The Chambers-Hiss duel had won national headlines, with supporters on both sides of the case absolutely convinced of the others’ mendacity. Twelve hundred people watched the hearing live, while many others lingered in the hallway, hoping to overhear scraps of testimony.

In the middle of everything, like a conductor and his orchestra, was the freshman congressman Richard M. Nixon.

At 10:30
A.M.
, the committee was gaveled to order. Unlike his earlier appearance, this time Hiss arrived with his lawyer. He and Chambers were asked to rise and face one another. Hiss, clad in an impeccably tailored light gray suit and a striped tie, could not hide his disdain.

Stripling asked Hiss whether he had ever seen Chambers. Hiss replied that he had known Chambers, but only as “Crosley,” and had not seen him since 1935.

Stripling then turned to Chambers. “Have you ever seen this man?” the investigator intoned. Chambers identified Hiss and said they had last seen each other in 1938.

With that, both witnesses were asked to sit.

The hearing quickly turned into a detailed examination of leases and automobile loans as the committee tried to ascertain how well Hiss had really known Chambers. Hiss, who had not been able to identify anyone else who had known Chambers as “Crosley,” objected. “The important charges are not questions of leases, but questions of whether I was a Communist,” he said.