Word: algerism
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...that Hiss passed the documents, that Hiss knew Chambers extremely well, and a much more complex sense of the spectrum along which the loyalties of individuals to a radical faith might have led. I don't think it is a necessary part of the argument to require that Alger Hiss was, in that marvelous phrase of the 50s, a "card-carrying Communist." Whether or not Alger Hiss was indeed a member of the Communist Party, for all intents and purposes he behaved as either a dedicated Communist or a strong sympathizer, which is a perfectly honorable thing to do. What...
Weinstein: For a historian it presents a problem I have no easy solution to--I know if I were a reader who had not done any work on the case and was told that Richard Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover said one thing and Alger Hiss, or Defendant X, said another, I think instinctively perhaps my own attitude would be to be very skeptical about the accusations against Defendant X until I had proof to the contrary. For Mr. Nixon Alger Hiss remained a vital symbol throughout his public career. I think he probably dreamed about the Hiss case...
...think my own book outlines an enormous amount of evidence to suggest that Whittaker Chambers knew Alger Hiss closely in the 1930s, in the period Mr. Hiss denies having known Chambers, that it can be demonstrated that Mr. Hiss saw Chambers, met with him, knew him in the period after mid-1936 when he last claimed to have seen Chambers. Almost all of the personal statements Mr. Chambers made about Mr. Hiss in connection with that relationship--including some I disbelieved at the time of the American Scholar article--turned out to be quite valid. Let me give...
Weinstein: Exactly. It's what is in my book, basically. The lives of both of these men were ruined. Alger Hiss I think never understood that, precisely how it was ruined. I think there is in some way a lack of awareness about the cost to him, because overtly, at least, what are the costs? Twenty-five hundred dollar evening lecture appearances all over the country; a 60 Minutes television program coming out; a sort of informal retrial through his suit and all the rest. Well, that sounds quite charming, but someone should go talk to Mrs. Hiss sometime...
...connection with the stimulus for this second Red Scare, were dreadful. The divisions in the intellectual community could have fought McCarthy much more cohesively if it hadn't been as divided as it was over this case, over this symbol of how far you go and whether you believe Alger Hiss or you don't believe Alger Hiss. People instead of collecting themselves to battle HUAC and McCarthy and any excesses of the executive branch were busy arguing in the prints over the guilt or innocence of this man. The one thing I will say about Alger Hiss is that...