Alger Hiss(1904-1996)
Baltimore-born Alger Hiss was a graduate of Harvard Law School. He was
a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice
Oliver Wendell Holmes and a
protégé of renowned legal scholar Felix Frankfurter. He was a counsel
to the Nye Committee in Congress when it was investigating the
munitions industry in 1934, and in 1936 he was made an aide to the
Assistant Secretary of State, specializing in Far Eastern affairs, and
later became director of that office in the State Department. In 1946
during testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee
investigating alleged Communist "infiltration" in government, Hiss was
accused by former Communist Party member
Whittaker Chambers of being a
Communist and of passing atomic secrets to the Russians. Hiss denied
ever being a Communist and said that he had never even met Chambers.
Nevertheless, Hiss was indicted for perjury and went on trial in June
of 1949. That trial ended in a hung jury. At a second trial in November
of that year he was convicted and sentenced to federal prison, where he
served 44 months. He was released in 1954.
