Word: hissingly
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...leitmotif that plays repeatedly throughout the book is Chambers anger and distress that all "the best people" heaped muck on him and sided with Hiss. The author wastes no opportunity to demonstrate the presence of the socially elite in the Communist camp. He frequently singles out Harvard which he appears to regard as an exclusive sanctuary for the rich and well born...
...have a firm opinion on the Hiss case will have difficulty in arriving at a critical decision about Whittaker Chambers' Witness. If they feel Hiss is innocent, they will consider the book hogwash. If they feel Hiss is guilty they will hail the book as a testament of faith, a saga of heroism, a magnificent tragedy, a seering political analysis, and a prophetic warning...
Anyone who has doubts about the Hiss case will have doubts about Witness, because after reading 799 pages of Chambers' exceptionally clear, if occasionally frilly, prose, he will inevitably ask: "This is interesting, but is it true...
...Underground Espionage Agent." On Sept. 2, 1939, Chambers spent four hours with Adolf A. Berle, Assistant Secretary of State in charge of U.S. security matters. The notes Berle took that evening were headed "Underground Espionage Agent," and in these Berle notes, Alger Hiss was listed as "Member of the Underground Communists-Active." Berle's four pages of notes outline the entire conspiracy. If the 1948 investigation had taken place when Chambers first volunteered his data in 1939, this outline would have been filled in when it could have done the most good...
...material, then reversed himself and produced a four-foot stack of secret Government telegrams and typescripts. Says he: "I never asked for immunity. Nor did anyone at any time ever offer me immunity, even by a hint or a whisper." For weeks it was widely thought that Chambers, not Hiss, would be indicted...