Word: hissing
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...psychobiographies, on a turn-of-the-century Viennese anti-Semite and on Lee Harvey Oswald. In preparing his Nixonalysis, Abrahamsen interviewed dozens of people, including several Nixon relatives (but no members of his immediate family), onetime Colleagues Robert Finch and Roy Cohn, Watergate Prosecutor Richard Ben-Veniste, and Alger Hiss...
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...
...fairness to the premises of this book, however, the younger Hiss is not trying to play Sherlock Holmes or to refute his father's critics point by point. He is trying to share his perceptions of a very private man, a man he cannot conceive of having committed the crime with which he was charged. And he succeeds as presenting himself as a powerful character witness for Alger Hiss--the book is worth reading for that testimony alone. But the vindication his father is now seeking, if it is to be won, will not be found through an effort like...