Jun 14, 2023
There were two disagreements between the Hisses and
Chamberses. First was whether Hiss had been a Communist and
Soviet spy with Chambers in the mid- and late 1930s. Who was
telling the truth could not be proved. Hiss would never
confess and, from his point of view, it’s almost impossible to
prove that you did not do something years ago. As for proof
by external evidence, good luck. When you join the Communist
underground you don’t sign a contract and send a copy to the
Justice Department.
But on the other issue — whether (as the Hisses said) the
families had had a short, unpleasant business relationship that was
effectively over in 1935 or (as the Chamberses said) they had had a
close personal friendship that lasted into 1938 — external evidence
might be found.
This Podcast takes you through Prosecution evidence that the
two families had engaged in significant financial transactions in
1935, 1936, and 1937. The transactions were documented in a small
pile of regularly kept business and government records, and
concerned two cars and an oriental carpet that Chambers gave
Hiss. All these indicated a close personal friendship lasting
at least into 1937. Perhaps most convincing was the
chief witness about rug, the man who bought it for Chambers and
sent it to Washington. (It arrived there, according to the
records of the package room at Union Station, in January 1937.).
The witness was Chambers’ best friend, college classmate, European
traveling companion in 1923, Associate Professor of Art History at
Columbia in 1949, and soon-to-be-called the world’s greatest art
historian, Dr. Meyer Schapiro.
FURTHER RESEARCH:
The details about one of the cars, the 1929 Model A Ford with
the hand-operated windshield wipers and, according to Hiss, “a
sassy little trunk on the back,” came out in the HUAC hearings and
were discussed in Podcast #13. (Also discussed in Podcast #13
was another transaction — evidence showing the two families being
interested in the same obscure parcel of land miles away from where
either of them lived. But that was not introduced at the
trials.). Concerning the other car (the one in which Chambers said
he and his family fled the Communist underground), see Weinstein at
240-44; concerning the rug, see Weinstein at 230-33.
Questions: Does it surprise you that Chambers remembered
several of these incidents only after someone else brought them
up? Do Chambers’ stories, without the supporting paper, sound
plausible? How many document-fakers would it take to create
all the pieces of paper supporting Chambers’ stories, and how many
invisible document-planters would it take to slip them into the
records of numerous banks, businesses, and government Bureaus where
they were found in 1948 and 1949? Can you think of a less
likely participant in a right-wing frame up than Dr. Meyer
Schapiro, a Jewish socialist Art History Professor at
Columbia? Do Hiss’s recollections of all these incidents,
which are consistent with his innocence, sound plausible to
you? Might you be willing to give him the benefit of the
doubt if he needed only one rococo exculpatory recollection?
But three?
Before we get to the Hiss defense, the next podcast explores a
‘sleeper’ issue in the case. But, as of now, at the
conclusion of the Prosecution’s case, has the Prosecution proved
beyond a reasonable doubt that Hiss lied to the grand jury when he
denied passing Chambers government documents without authorization
after January 1, 1937? If you were on the jury and the
Defense put on no evidence and rested on ‘the golden thread’ of
Anglo-American criminal law, the presumption of innocence, would
you, based on what you have heard so far, vote Hiss guilty or not
guilty?