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Definition. Alger Hiss was an American government official who became embroiled in a high-profile espionage case during the early years of the Cold War.
- Early Life and Career
- Explosive Accusations and Hearings
- The Pumpkin Papers Controversy
- Legal Battles
- Later Life and Death
- Legacy
- Sources
Alger Hiss was born November 11, 1904, in Baltimore, to a middle class family. A brilliant student, he was awarded a scholarship to Johns Hopkins University. After graduation, he received another scholarship to attend Harvard Law School. After graduation from law school, Hiss received a prestigious clerkship with Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendel...
In the summer of 1948, during congressional battles between the Truman administration and conservatives in the early Cold War era, hearings of the House Committee on Un-American Activities drew Hiss into a colossal controversy. On August 3, 1948, Whittaker Chambers, an editor at Time magazine and a former communist, named in a testimony people he s...
The legal skirmishing between Chambers and Hiss faded from the headlines for a few months but erupted again in December 1948. Chambers led federal investigators to secret government documents he said Hiss had passed to him in the late 1930s. In a peculiar and dramatic twist, Chambers claimed he had stored stolen government microfilms, which he said...
Based on the allegations of Chambers and the evidence he produced, Hiss was indicted on two counts of perjury by a federal grand jury in December 1948. The charges related to the testimony Hiss had given before HUAC, when he denied having given classified documents to Chambers in 1938 and also denied seeing Chambers after 1937. Hiss was never charg...
For four decades after leaving prison, Alger Hiss maintained his innocence. In 1957 he published a book, In the Court of Public Opinion, in which he argued that Nixon and others had persecuted him as a way of discrediting the New Deal. Congress had passed a law preventing him from drawing a pension for his government service. And he eventually foun...
The Hiss case helped to propel the political rise of an ambitious young congressman from California, Richard M. Nixon. Seizing on the publicity generated by his public denunciations of Hiss, Nixon emerged from obscurity to become a national figure. Hiss always maintained his innocence, and for decades the dispute about what Hiss did or didn't do he...
Scott, Janny. "Alger Hiss, Divisive Icon of Cold War, Dies at 92. New York Times, 16 November 1996, page 1."Alger Hiss." Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2nd ed., vol. 7, Gale, 2004, pp. 413-415. Gale Virtual Reference Library."Hiss, Alger." Gale Encyclopedia of American Law, edited by Donna Batten, 3rd ed., vol. 5, Gale, 2010, pp. 281-283. Gale Virtual Reference Library.Longley, Eric. "Hiss, Alger (1904–1996)." St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture, edited by Thomas Riggs, 2nd ed., vol. 2, St. James Press, 2013, pp. 677-678. Gale Virtual Reference Library.Jan 25, 2013 · Alger Hiss, a well-educated and well-connected former government lawyer and State Department official who helped create the United Nations in the aftermath of World War II, was headed to prison...
Jul 1, 2014 · Alger Hiss was U.S. State Department official who was accused of being a Soviet spy in 1948 and convicted of perjury in 1950 concerning his dealings with Whitaker Chambers, who accused him of membership in a communist spy ring. Why was Alger Hiss famous?
2 days ago · Police - Law Enforcement, US History, Reforms: The United States inherited England’s Anglo-Saxon common law and its system of social obligation, sheriffs, constables, watchmen, and stipendiary justice. As both societies became less rural and agrarian and more urban and industrialized, crime, riots, and other public disturbances became more ...
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The federal government of the United States empowers a wide range of federal law enforcement agencies (informally known as the "Feds") to maintain law and public order related to matters affecting the country as a whole.
