Word: hiss
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Rosenbergs' sons avowed purpose is to clear their parents' name, and they, and Alger Hiss, who filed a separate suit, will be combing FBI files in a quest for a single document or set of documents proving government maleficence--some have labelled their efforts, and those of Hiss, a search for a "smoking gun." And, indeed, that does seem to exactly their intention as they review the files...
...interviews with current and former Soviet agents. He promises to document thoroughly his research in order to pave the way for other scholars, and says there will be no anonymous sources in his books. Weinstein also draws a fundamental distinction between his efforts and those of the Meeropols and Hiss. "I can live with anything that appears in these files, and that is a comfortable situation...
Whether the Rosenbergs were technically guilty of conspiracy to commit espionage as the government charged, or whether Alger Hiss actually turned over confidential State Department documents to Whitaker Chambers during the late 1930's, may seem to be somewhat particularistic and historically insignificant questions. But if these specific cases can shed light on the entire McCarthy period, if the Freedom of Information Act can help explain the FBI's method of investigation in two cases which contributed so much to the creation of a national anti-communist hysteria, then clearly Weinstein's research and that of Hiss and the Meeropols...
...Freedom of Information suits filed by Weinstein, by Hiss and by Michael and Robert Meeropol, serve a contemporary political purpose, in addition to fulfilling the demands of history. As Weinstein says, the real issue in the suits became a question of whether the Justice Department could control the FBI. Long after Elliot Richardson '41, as a Watergate-shuffle Attorney General, had promised that these specific files would be made completely public, the FBI was still holding out. The bureau presented irrelevant national security arguments, released completely blue-pencilled 17-page reports, claimed a lack of manpower for copying the documents...
Actually, the FBI never really kept its files entirely secret. For years the bureau granted selective access, showing files that it chose to, withholding documents at whim. In fact, FBI files, even the tightly guarded ones on Alger Hiss, have been floating around in private hands since as long ago as 1945. Apparently they were leaked to favorable parties for potentially helpful political purposes by the bureau itself...