Alger Hiss innocent?
Well I shared the general leftist view that Hiss must have been innocent, the drift of historical evidence has steadily undermined that view. I'm with the academics who don't seem completely convinced by Kai Bird's argument. This one will run.
Top Cold War spy 'innocent'
Historian says new evidence shows Alger Hiss did not give US secrets to Russia, but intelligence experts remain unconvinced
David Smith
April 8, 2007 The Observer
It is the Cold War spy case which still bitterly divides America. The shaming of Alger Hiss as a Soviet agent who fed US secrets to Moscow casts a shadow as long as that of Philby, Burgess and Maclean's betrayal of Britain. But nearly 60 years after the diplomat's fall, a leading historian claims that new evidence shows Hiss was innocent.
Kai Bird, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist, told a conference that Hiss should be posthumously cleared and that he had identified another US official as the real spy.
The denunciation of Hiss in 1948 proved a turning point in American history, kickstarting the career of the young congressman Richard Nixon, who gained election to the Senate in 1950 and selection as the Republican Party's vice-presidential running mate of Dwight Eisenhower in 1952.
The Hiss case, along with that of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, who were executed for spying, goes to the heart of America's continuing anguish over Senator Joseph McCarthy's zealous crusade against 'anti-American activities' by US citizens. Their guilt or innocence remains an enduring controversy.
Hiss was accused of feeding secrets to the Soviet military intelligence agency GRU under the code name Ales. But Bird told a symposium at New York University last week that there was fresh evidence to suggest that Ales was another US official named Wilder Foote.
Bird claimed to have identified nine possible suspects among the US State Department officials present at the Allied leaders' Yalta conference in 1945. A process of elimination based on their subsequent travels to Moscow and Mexico City excluded eight of them, including Hiss. 'It left only one man standing: Wilder Foote,' Bird said.
The key, according to Bird, was that Ales's contact at the Soviet embassy in Washington knew that Hiss had returned from Mexico City, whereas Ales is known to have remained there. That information was in a secret Soviet cable that was intercepted and decoded by US intelligence agencies and is now part of the so-called Venona Papers, a collection of such documents made public several years ago. Bird said more research would be required to prove that Foote was Ales but that 'he fits the itinerary in every way, and Hiss simply does not'.
Hiss spent nearly five years in prison for perjury. He died in 1996 aged 92. Foote, a member of a well-known Boston family, died in 1974 after a career as a diplomat and owner of a string of newspapers. Foote's grandson rejected the new allegation. In an email he told the Associated Press that his grandfather 'was cleared of any suspicion' of wrongdoing by the FBI and the McCarthy committee investigating spy activities. He said: 'He was and still is innocent. I can only assume that Mr Bird has ulterior motives to besmirch my grandfather's name, possibly for Mr Bird's own celebrity. Quite convenient for him that everyone involved is dead and cannot speak in their own defence against allegations.'
A leading Cold War expert in Britain said the claim would stoke an acrimonious debate. Professor Richard Aldrich, of the school of politics and international studies at Nottingham University, said: 'Along with the Rosenbergs, the Hiss case is one of the great set pieces of the Cold War and the stakes are very high. The American left liberals and the Republican right have lined up on each side and it's become extremely partisan. It is not only fought out in historical journals, but these people tend to sue each other.
'The position a year ago was that most historians had come to the conclusion that Hiss was probably guilty. The balance of evidence pointed that way, but we didn't have a smoking gun. Although I'm inclined to think he's guilty, I'm not as convinced as some historians that the case is proven. There have always been problems and loose ends.'
But Professor Christopher Andrew of Cambridge University, a leading expert on the history of the intelligence services, said that Bird's claims would not change his mind.
'Part of Hiss's KGB file has come out that proves the obvious point he was guilty as charged,' he said, adding that the decisive proof would be presented within a year in a new book by Gerald Haines of the Library of Congress.
Top Cold War spy 'innocent'
Historian says new evidence shows Alger Hiss did not give US secrets to Russia, but intelligence experts remain unconvinced
David Smith
April 8, 2007 The Observer
It is the Cold War spy case which still bitterly divides America. The shaming of Alger Hiss as a Soviet agent who fed US secrets to Moscow casts a shadow as long as that of Philby, Burgess and Maclean's betrayal of Britain. But nearly 60 years after the diplomat's fall, a leading historian claims that new evidence shows Hiss was innocent.
Kai Bird, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist, told a conference that Hiss should be posthumously cleared and that he had identified another US official as the real spy.
The denunciation of Hiss in 1948 proved a turning point in American history, kickstarting the career of the young congressman Richard Nixon, who gained election to the Senate in 1950 and selection as the Republican Party's vice-presidential running mate of Dwight Eisenhower in 1952.
The Hiss case, along with that of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, who were executed for spying, goes to the heart of America's continuing anguish over Senator Joseph McCarthy's zealous crusade against 'anti-American activities' by US citizens. Their guilt or innocence remains an enduring controversy.
Hiss was accused of feeding secrets to the Soviet military intelligence agency GRU under the code name Ales. But Bird told a symposium at New York University last week that there was fresh evidence to suggest that Ales was another US official named Wilder Foote.
Bird claimed to have identified nine possible suspects among the US State Department officials present at the Allied leaders' Yalta conference in 1945. A process of elimination based on their subsequent travels to Moscow and Mexico City excluded eight of them, including Hiss. 'It left only one man standing: Wilder Foote,' Bird said.
The key, according to Bird, was that Ales's contact at the Soviet embassy in Washington knew that Hiss had returned from Mexico City, whereas Ales is known to have remained there. That information was in a secret Soviet cable that was intercepted and decoded by US intelligence agencies and is now part of the so-called Venona Papers, a collection of such documents made public several years ago. Bird said more research would be required to prove that Foote was Ales but that 'he fits the itinerary in every way, and Hiss simply does not'.
Hiss spent nearly five years in prison for perjury. He died in 1996 aged 92. Foote, a member of a well-known Boston family, died in 1974 after a career as a diplomat and owner of a string of newspapers. Foote's grandson rejected the new allegation. In an email he told the Associated Press that his grandfather 'was cleared of any suspicion' of wrongdoing by the FBI and the McCarthy committee investigating spy activities. He said: 'He was and still is innocent. I can only assume that Mr Bird has ulterior motives to besmirch my grandfather's name, possibly for Mr Bird's own celebrity. Quite convenient for him that everyone involved is dead and cannot speak in their own defence against allegations.'
A leading Cold War expert in Britain said the claim would stoke an acrimonious debate. Professor Richard Aldrich, of the school of politics and international studies at Nottingham University, said: 'Along with the Rosenbergs, the Hiss case is one of the great set pieces of the Cold War and the stakes are very high. The American left liberals and the Republican right have lined up on each side and it's become extremely partisan. It is not only fought out in historical journals, but these people tend to sue each other.
'The position a year ago was that most historians had come to the conclusion that Hiss was probably guilty. The balance of evidence pointed that way, but we didn't have a smoking gun. Although I'm inclined to think he's guilty, I'm not as convinced as some historians that the case is proven. There have always been problems and loose ends.'
But Professor Christopher Andrew of Cambridge University, a leading expert on the history of the intelligence services, said that Bird's claims would not change his mind.
'Part of Hiss's KGB file has come out that proves the obvious point he was guilty as charged,' he said, adding that the decisive proof would be presented within a year in a new book by Gerald Haines of the Library of Congress.
posted by badmatthew at 3:57 pm
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