Word: hissing
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...sense, this is a dual biography. Tony Hiss is as frank about his own life as he is his father's. He displays what seems to be a characteristic sense of humor; informing us, for example, that the infamous rug Whittaker Chambers alleges he gave Alger Hiss as payment from the Russians is now his prize possession. There are his own bad times too--he had to learn how to adjust to an overconcerned mother and a father in prison as well as the normal challenges of adolescence. Like his father, though, Tony Hiss says he is now a happy...
What will probably hurt the reception of Laughing Last is Tony Hiss's handling of the Hiss case itself. Because he is not making a legal argument, or reviewing the evidence, he touches only briefly upon the major issues. He is content to recapitulate his father's well-known version of the story, which is already in the public record, and to quote the opinions of former Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, who finds the case a shocking miscarriage of justice. Because of the sketchiness of his defense, some people are going to say that he has failed...
Still, we are given a fair share of fresh insights into the motivations of Alger Hiss throughout the living nightmare of the HUAC accusations and the trials. For one thing, his father's originally incredulous attitude towards the charges, perceived by some as patrician arrogance, is cleared up by Tony Hiss--until the vote of the jury in the first perjury trial (8-4 for conviction) Alger Hiss honestly thought no one could take Chambers seriously. And more importantly, Hiss, we discover, had to face not only the immense pressure of the trials but also that of keeping his marriage...
...ALGER HISS get into the spot he did? Tony Hiss sees the case as another example of his father's inability to protect himself. In a way, he finds Alger Hiss to be the perfect fall guy--a loyal and decent man unable to use in his own defense some of the same weapons his enemies have brought to bear against him. There is little bitterness or handwringing on Tony Hiss's part; the thesis of his book is that rather than destroying or humiliating Alger Hiss, adversity has brought out his best qualities. It is a mixed picture though...
Laughing Last probably won't change anyone's opinion about the Hiss case. But for that matter, it is doubtful Allen Weinstein, the Smith College professor who claims Alger Hiss was lying all along, will make any converts when his book appears in the spring. The case is too complex, the evidence often hard to make sense of, and the passions still running too high for a dispassionate analysis. Substantive questions do remain and they are left unanswered by Laughing Last, though they probably will not be answered completely by anyone in the near future...