*Ø* Blogmanac January 21, 1950 | The Alger Hiss case
1950 Alger Hiss , former official in the US State Department and probable spy for the Soviet Union, was found guilty of perjury (as the statute of limitations for espionage had expired), in New York City. Hiss, who always maintained his innocence, was sentenced to five years in prison. The verdict was upheld at the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court. Hiss was sentenced to five years on January 25 and served 44 months before being released in November, 1954.
Although in the 1990s evidence (the ‘Venona files’) came to light from the former Soviet union that Hiss might indeed have been guilty of endangering his country, the matter is still one of some debate. The media line has tended to make Hiss a martyr to anti-Communist ‘witch-hunts’, and his main detractor, Whittaker Chambers (April 1, 1901 - July 9, 1961), a persecutor of an innocent man.
Chambers, a former communist, on August 3, 1948, testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee and presented a list of what he said were members of an underground communist network working within the United States government in the 1930s and 1940s. One of the names on that list was that of Alger Hiss. Chambers said that in 1937 he introduced Mr Hiss to a Russian agent named Colonel Bykov and that Hiss ever since had been passing American classified material to the Russians.
Chambers’s accusations were very well supported with documentation he alleged he had received from Hiss while Chambers was a Communist ...
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
1950 Alger Hiss , former official in the US State Department and probable spy for the Soviet Union, was found guilty of perjury (as the statute of limitations for espionage had expired), in New York City. Hiss, who always maintained his innocence, was sentenced to five years in prison. The verdict was upheld at the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court. Hiss was sentenced to five years on January 25 and served 44 months before being released in November, 1954.
Although in the 1990s evidence (the ‘Venona files’) came to light from the former Soviet union that Hiss might indeed have been guilty of endangering his country, the matter is still one of some debate. The media line has tended to make Hiss a martyr to anti-Communist ‘witch-hunts’, and his main detractor, Whittaker Chambers (April 1, 1901 - July 9, 1961), a persecutor of an innocent man.
Chambers, a former communist, on August 3, 1948, testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee and presented a list of what he said were members of an underground communist network working within the United States government in the 1930s and 1940s. One of the names on that list was that of Alger Hiss. Chambers said that in 1937 he introduced Mr Hiss to a Russian agent named Colonel Bykov and that Hiss ever since had been passing American classified material to the Russians.
Chambers’s accusations were very well supported with documentation he alleged he had received from Hiss while Chambers was a Communist ...
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
Pip Wilson posted item above at 1:45 PM | Permalink
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