May 17, 2023
Lloyd Paul Stryker, Hiss's Defense Atty
(Digital Commons)
Whittaker Chambers, and then his wife Esther, testify in
court. Both their direct testimonies were rocky due to
Stryker’s objections and Judge Kaufman’s rulings. Their
cross-examinations by Stryker were brutal. Chambers sat there and
passively took blow after blow, but Mrs. Chambers shouted back at
Stryker as forcefully as he had shouted at her. But each got
to say what needed to be said — that Hiss passed Chambers State
Department documents in 1937 and 1938 and that the two families
were friends. At the second trial, both Chamberses were more
relaxed and forthcoming because they had been through it all before
(isn’t everything easier the second time?) and because the judge at
the second trial gave all the witnesses more leeway. Everyone
agreed their testimonies at the second trial were more
effective.
FURTHER RESEARCH:
Episode 20: Lengthy accounts of
the Chamberses’ direct and cross examinations are in Weinstein at
440-56 (first trial) and 499-501 (second) and Cooke at 121-48 (Mr.
C, first trial), 151-61 (Mrs. C, first trial), 287-91 (Mr. C,
second trial) and 295-96 (Mrs. C, second trial). Mrs.
Chambers, who has not appeared much in these Podcasts until now, is
described by Weinstein (at 451) as “small, slim-boned, plain faced”
and by Cooke (at 151) as “a small severe figure . . . , a very
dark, thin-lipped woman in spectacles who sat nervously back in the
witness chair.” Chambers, in his memoir "Witness," describes
(at 232) Stryker’s cross-examination of her as “brutal
bullying.”
Chambers also describes meeting his future wife at a textile
workers’ strike at Passaic, New Jersey, in 1930. He describes
her as brave, forthright and militant, with “dark brown eyes . . .
of a candor and purity such as I had never seen in any other woman
in the Communist movement.” He was surprised to learn that
she was a pacifist. (Witness at 231-32. See also
Weinstein at 118-19.)
Questions: Do you think that Stryker went too far with
his brutal cross-examination of Mrs. Chambers? In 1948, women
were “The Fair Sex” and men were supposed to be gentlemen.
But what choice did he have after she had corroborated most of her
husband’s testimony?
The trials were the first time that anyone heard Mrs. Chambers
tell her story. She professed ignorance of her husband’s
spying. But most significantly, she described an extensive
social relationship with Mrs. Hiss — lots of get-togethers typical
for young married wives and mothers in the mid-1930s, at specific
locations in Washington (Mount Vernon, Haynes Point, and
Georgetown) and Baltimore (various squares and parks and Hutzler’s
Department Store). Any pro-Hiss juror must have wondered —
was Mrs. Chambers just as insane as her husband, or was she lying
in perfect harmony with her husband’s lunacy? Did not her
details lend credibility to her story, and by inference to her
husband’s?