To Be Continued

At his Maryland farm, where he had hidden the pumpkin papers, Whittaker Chambers sat in an easy chair near a big Christmas tree that curled against the ceiling. Before him last week sat three eager listeners: South Dakota's Karl Mundt, California's Richard Nixon of the House Un-American Activities Committee, and the committee's retiring chief investigator, Robert Stripling. Chambers, under oath, puffed on a pipe as he gave further testimony in the Communist spy inquiry and interspersed it with his observations on the evidence already gathered.

Chambers said he regretted that public attention had concentrated on what amounted to "a kind of duel between two men," meaning himself and Alger Hiss, the ex-State Department official he named as a fellow conspirator in Communist espionage. Said he: "The most important thing for everyone to understand is the duration and the dimension of the conspiracy rather than the characters of the persons involved or what seem to be the chief protagonists."

Actually, Chambers added, he had obtained Government documents from 1932 to 1938 from many, not only in the State Department, but in the Bureau of Standards, the Aberdeen Proving Ground and the Navy.

Behind the Mirrors. The pumpkin papers were only one week's catch; as a Communist courier, Chambers had delivered probably thousands of such documents. The secrets were often transmitted in strips of microfilm concealed between the glass and the backing of dimestore hand mirrors, and carried overseas by Communist couriers. Crew members of the Hamburg-American Line helped out; later, after Hitler came to power, the films were sent via the French Line. From 1935 to 1938, Chambers had two sources in the State Department (so far only Hiss has been named publicly). At one point, four "high sources" in Washington were so productive, Chambers said, that Moscow sent them rich Bokhara rugs in appreciation.

Chambers' principal source in the State Department would take the documents home in a briefcase. Chambers would call on him, pick up the documents, have them rushed to Baltimore to be microfilmed, then return the originals to the official the same night. By the time the documents were back in department files next morning, Chambers would be in New York, opening up his tobacco pouch from which he drew his microfilm copies to deliver to Colonel Boris Bykov, the chief Soviet military intelligence agent in the U.S.

Chambers testified that he knew of two Communist spy rings besides his own operating in the State Department and the armed services. No officers were involved, he said, but ranking civilian officials cooperated. Once Chambers was dispatched to the West Coast with $10,000 to finance operatives there. Spies were recruited for service in Japan, Germany, France, Finland and China. Chambers helped establish the Japanese ring, heard later that at least one of. his recruits was liquidated after losing enthusiasm for his work.

Before the Accusers. For five hours Chambers testified as a stenographer took notes. When he had finished, the Congressmen jubilantly announced that Chambers had given them enough work to keep busy for six months. There was ample reason, they concluded, to continue the House Un-American Activities Committee during the 81st Congress (where it would be under Democratic control). To save it from further public criticism of its methods, Republicans Mundt and Nixon proposed a few changes in procedure "which may have justified some honest criticism."

They recommended that witnesses have the right to counsel and a limited right to cross-examine accusers; that witnesses who "candidly" answer questions be allowed to make written or oral statements; and that a majority of the committee approve all sub-committee reports before they are rushed into headlines.

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