Chambers, Whittaker, << HWIHT tuh kuhr >> (1901-1961), a confessed spy, was the United States government’s chief witness in the 1949 perjury trials of Alger Hiss. Chambers said Hiss, a former Department of State official, was one of several Communists in the government who gave him secret government documents. Chambers produced microfilms of secret papers he had hidden in a pumpkin on his farm (see Hiss, Alger ).
Chambers was born on April 1, 1901, in Philadelphia. He joined the Communist Party in 1925. He was an editor for the Communist Daily Worker newspaper until 1929 and a messenger for the Soviet spy system in Washington, D.C., in the 1930’s. Disillusioned, he left the Communist Party in 1938. Chambers worked on the editorial staffs of Time and Life magazines from 1939 to 1948. He died on July 9, 1961.
