Word: hissing
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...first 13 days of its second run in Manhattan's federal court, the perjury trial of Alger Hiss had progressed with a singular absence of melodrama. Whittaker Chambers spent seven days as a witness, much of the time under crossexamination, stepped down with both his testimony and his Buddha-like calm intact. His shocking tale was corroborated as before by his wife and a long list of Government witnesses. Voices were seldom raised; time and repetition had lent a curious matter-of-factness to an incredible affair...
...piece of testimony, produced at a congressional hearing but barred from the first trial by Judge Samuel Kaufman, was admitted to the second trial by Judge Henry Goddard. Hiss, who had a Ford roadster, had bought a new Plymouth. Said Chambers: "He wanted to get rid of the Ford. He proposed to turn it over to the Communist Party for the use of some poor organizer . . . Later Mr. Hiss told me that he had turned the car over according to an arrangement made between him and J. Peters." If the Government could prove that such a transfer had actually taken...
Conception of an Oath. In contrast to the first trial, proceedings went calmly and methodically. Once Hiss's lawyer, Claude B. Cross, suggested: "I don't like to interrupt, but I believe that is irrelevant." Big, austere Judge Goddard stroked his chin. "You are probably right. But it really isn't prejudicial to your client. Let's let it stand...
...Where Hiss's first lawyer, Lloyd Stryker, had snarled and roared, Lawyer Cross closed almost impersonally with Chambers in crossexamination. His object, the same as Stryker's: to destroy the credibility of the Government's chief witness...
...recite the drab facts of his early career. In the closing hours of the trial's fifth day, Cross brought the questioning back to the chief and only really relevant aspect of the case: the old relationship of the two men. How had Chambers returned the documents to Hiss's house, as he stated, sometimes as late as 2 a.m.? How had he gotten in? Said Chambers: "I believe I had a key." He might simply have rung the bell, he was not sure. But Hiss's door, ran the burden of his testimony, always opened...