Word: libelous
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Sitting in the jammed, floodlighted congressional committee room last summer, he made his enormous, softly worded accusation-that Alger Hiss, a former high State Department official, had also been a Communist. The nation was shocked. Hiss shocked it again. He vehemently denied every accusation and filed a $75,000 libel action against his detractor. Chambers, who thought that his own word as an ex-Communist was enough, produced no more evidence to back his charge...
When Alger Hiss challenged ,Whittaker Chambers to repeat in public his accusation that Hiss had been a Communist, Chambers took him up on it. Two nights later, on the radio, he repeated the charge, in effect challenging Hiss to sue him for libel or slander (TIME, Sept. 6). Last week Hiss took Chambers' dare, filed a $50,000 suit in Baltimore's Federal Court, charged that Chambers' statements were "untrue, false and defamatory." Said Chambers: "I welcome Mr. Hiss's daring suit . . . But I do not believe that Mr. Hiss or anybody else...
Just before adjournment last week, Congress passed a new law defining libel as "anything which offends the dignity of any public official, whether the article refers directly to the person, or by allusion to him or the governmental organization of which he forms a part." Penalties run up to three years in jail. A neat clause prohibits the introduction of evidence to prove the offender's statements. Henceforth, Perón and La Señora could expect a good press...
Alger Hiss, former holder of several Federal posts, sued Whittaker Chambers for $50,000 slander and libel damages in Baltimore yesterday. Hiss charged that the Time editor's statements about his alleged Communist Party membership were false. In Washington, the House Un-American Activities Committee urged spy trials for four persons, including two atomic bomb scientists...
...counter-questions of his own. He wanted the committee to ask Chambers if he had ever been treated for a mental illness. He also dared Chambers to come out from behind the shield of congressional immunity, and make his accusations again, so that Hiss could sue for slander or libel...