Word: hissing
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Crimson: Like the Kennedy assassinations, conspiracy theories abound about the Hiss case. Have you discovered anything that would link the FBI, or anyone involved in the case, to a frame-up of Hiss, whether through forgery by typewriter or tampering with witnesses...
...roots of the various conspiracy theories you can find them back in the literature at the time of the case. There's been relatively little new since then except for extensions of some of the earlier theories. Also interesting in this connection is the fact that Mr. Hiss himself apparantly has minimized the importance of the John Dean quote (in Blind Ambition) about what he alleges that Nixon told Charles Colson--about building a typewriter in the case. Colson insists that the actual quote was something to the effect that the case was built around the typewriter, which of course...
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...
Crimson: In 1971, in an American Scholar article, you claimed there was reasonable doubt about Hiss' guilt. Now, more recently, you've concluded Hiss was lying--a strong charge. What evidence do you think supports this...
Weinstein: I believe Mr. Hiss was charged with perjury and I believe perjury involves lying. If I had said Mr. Hiss was rightfully convicted of perjury perhaps I suspect a good deal of the emotional force and reaction to my article would have been blunted...