Basement in Chevy Chase

Twelve of the accused had their say before the House Un-American Activities Committee in the Communist espionage investigation last week. When the week was over, the contradiction of stories was greater than ever.

Only two of the witnesses admitted that they knew dark-haired Elizabeth Bentley, the self-confessed Communist spy. (But none admitted knowing that she was a spy.) Many of the people named by Miss Bentley--either as co-spies or as purveyors of confidential Government information--admitted that they knew each other. Three also said that they had been visitors at a small, red brick house in suburban Chevy Chase.

That was the home of Russian-born Nathan Gregory Silvermaster, described by Miss Bentley as the kingpin of one Communist spy ring. There, Miss Bentley had testified, Mrs. Silvermaster and William Ludwig Ullman, an Air Forces major who lived with the Silvermasters, had photographed documents and other data which Miss Bentley carried to her Russian employers. Silvermaster had denied that he was a spy, but he refused to answer other pertinent questions on the ground that he might incriminate himself.

Powered Tools. Lauchlin Currie, onetime White House assistant, readily admitted that he had been entertained "several times" at Silvermaster's house. Once he had gone to the basement with Ullman, who showed his powered tools to Mr. Currie's son. He had seen no photographic equipment, he said.

When he took the witness stand, neat, small-shouldered Lauchlin Currie, a straightforward, earnest witness, was accompanied by his friend Dean Acheson, former Under Secretary of State. He made a categorical denial of ever having been a Communist or ever having given inside Government information to anybody not authorized to receive it.

He thought there was nothing odd about the fact that he knew several of the people accused by Elizabeth Bentley: George Silverman (a friend of his Harvard days), Victor Perlo, Harry White, Robert Talbot Miller III. Some were economists and he knew "literally hundreds of economists throughout the Government." One friend of Currie's who was no economist was Anatoli Gromov, onetime secretary of the Russian embassy. Miss Bentley testified last week that on one occasion Gromov had given her $2,000 for her information. Currie readily admitted knowing Gromov. "I met him at social occasions and was entertained at his house on one occasion. He made no effort to draw me out. The conversation was on cultural matters."

"A Charming Fellow." When round-faced Harry Dexter White, onetime Assistant Treasury Secretary, took the stand, more flat contradictions went into the record. He said that he did not know Elizabeth Bentley or Whittaker Chambers (TIME, Aug. 16). As to Chambers' story that he had pleaded with White to break away from the Communist party line: "Something I would remember very definitely would be if a gentleman met me and tried to convince me not to go into or not to leave a Communist ring. That I would have remembered. That I did not do."

White also knew Gregory Silvermaster. They had been friends, he said, for ten years or so. "If I thought he was a Communist I would not have associated with him," he said. "I think that Mr. Silvermaster is a very charming fellow, a good singer." He had been in the Silvermaster basement--but only to play ping-pong.

White knew many of the accused--Alger Hiss, Lee Pressman, George Silverman, Victor Perlo. Committee Chairman J. Parnell Thomas asked him: "Could it be possible that a friend of yours could be a member of the Communist Party and you wouldn't know it?" White's answer: "A--there are Communists. B--I have friends. C--those friends might be Communists."

"An Attractive Woman." One of the accused who admitted knowing not only Elizabeth Bentley but also her tutor in espionage, Jacob Golos, was Robert Talbot Miller, a husky, handsome Princeton graduate ('31), and onetime State Department information specialist. Miller, who also had been in Silvermaster's house, said that he had never given Miss Bentley any information and had never talked about Communism with her or Silvermaster. He is now with a Manhattan public relations firm which handles the account of the Polish government.

Another who knew Miss Bentley was Duncan Lee, a baby-faced Yaleman and Rhodes Scholar, who had risen to be a lieutenant colonel in the supersecret Office of Strategic Services. Lee testified that he and his wife had met Miss Bentley at a Washington cocktail party and had found her "an attractive, well-informed and well-educated woman." She introduced him to Jacob Golos.

He said that he had given her not one scrap of information and never knew that she was a Communist agent. "As we got to know her better," he said, "her views became extremely left wing. My wife and I felt that we must stop seeing her . . ."

Miss Bentley took the witness chair again and testified that Lee knew all along that she was a Communist, that she had been told by another member of her ring to get in touch with him, that she told Lee what information she wanted.

The Only Conclusion. Said Louisiana's Congressman F. Edward Hebert: "Either you or Mr. Lee is lying today." Said Miss Bentley: "I guess that's the only conclusion you can draw." The committee was wondering who, among the others who testified, was lying. Some just denied everything.

Donald Hiss, Alger's brother, flatly denied Chambers' accusation that he was a member of the Communist "apparatus." Said he: "If I am lying, I should go to jail. If Mr. Chambers is lying, he should go to jail."

George Silverman refused to answer whether or not he knew Miss Bentley on the constitutional ground that he might incriminate himself. That was his answer to almost every question.

High-voiced William Ullman, who shared the Silvermaster house, would not admit that he had ever been to its basement--on the ground of selfincrimination. But he did deny that he had taken or helped to take photostats of documents, or that he ever turned over any documents to Silvermaster or Miss Bentley.

Frustrated and angry, South Dakota's Karl Mundt shot another question: "Do you believe a man can be a loyal American citizen and a member of the Communist Party at the same time?" That, said Ullman, was a question he had not considered. Said Mundt: "Consider it now and give me an answer." Ullman and his lawyer whispered. Then Ullman said: "I just don't feel competent to give an answer."

With that, the committee decided that it was not competent to carry on without some evidence more solid than mere accusations and denials. It called off its public hearings for three weeks, gave two subcommittees the task of pursuing the truth.

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