Hiss, Alger (1904-1996), became the center of a national controversy over Communist infiltration in the United States government during the Administration of President Harry S. Truman in the 1940’s and 1950’s. A number of Republican congressmen, including Representative Richard M. Nixon, had charged the government with employing Communists who acted as secret agents for the Soviet Union.
The controversy reached a climax in 1948. Whittaker Chambers, a confessed former Communist spy, accused Hiss, a former high official in the U.S. Department of State, of having given him secret government documents in the 1930’s. Hiss denied the charge but resigned from his position as head of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Chambers produced microfilms of confidential government papers that he had hidden in a pumpkin on his farm in Maryland. He said Hiss had given him the secrets to send to the Soviet Union.
Hiss was brought to trial in 1949. He was charged with perjury for denying accusations that he gave away secret documents and for claiming that he had not seen Chambers since Jan. 1, 1937. By law, Hiss could not be charged for spying because too much time had passed. Important government officials, including two associate justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, testified for Hiss. But the jury could not agree on a verdict.
Hiss was brought to trial on the same perjury charges late in 1949. The government introduced new evidence in an attempt to prove that Hiss’s personal typewriter had been used to copy 42 confidential government documents. On Jan. 21, 1950, the jury found him guilty. Hiss was sentenced to five years in prison. He was paroled after serving 3 years and 8 months, and he continued to declare his innocence. He died on Nov. 15, 1996.
Hiss was born on Nov. 11, 1904, in Baltimore and graduated from Johns Hopkins University and Harvard Law School. He served in the Department of State from 1935 to 1947. He participated in the Dumbarton Oaks Conference and the Yalta Conference. He served as secretary-general of the United Nations founding convention.
