A Well-Lighted Arena

Whittaker Chambers and Algeu Hiss had been silhouetted dimly for ten months against smoky fires which smoldered at the foundations of state. The baleful glow did not light them sharply; as they swayed and grappled it was only possible to tell that they were locked in a strange and merciless combat and that one, or both, would inevitably suffer a total and deathlike disgrace.

Last week the Hiss-Chambers case was formally brought before a bar of justice in a Manhattan federal courtroom. In a strictly legal sense, only Alger Hiss was on trial. But in a larger sense both men were equally involved, and the court was simply a well-lighted arena in which they could fight their duel before their fellow citizens with weapons provided by the law.

"He Lied." Hulking (6 ft. 4 in.), brown-mustached Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Murphy rose to make his opening statement as undramatically as if he were reading a directors' report. He spoke dispassionately: the case of the U.S. v. Alger Hiss was a simple one--just a matter of two counts of perjury before a grand jury on Dec. 15, 1948.

"The defendant," he said in a businesslike voice, "had lied deliberately. He lied . . . when he said he never gave any restricted documents to Whittaker Chambers on or about February and March 1938. He lied . . . when he said he didn't see Chambers after January 1937."

The Government was going to put Chambers on the stand--there he would tell "in most explicit fashion" how Hiss had given him secret documents in 1937 and 1938. The jury would be shown 47 of them; Chambers would testify that Hiss brought documents home at night from his office in the State Department and that his wife, Priscilla Hiss, typed copies of them on an old, pica-type Woodstock typewriter.

The Government had tried hard to find the typewriter and had failed. But no matter--the Government had letters which had been written on the machine and expert witnesses would show that they corresponded to the typing on the documents. "You must decide," U.S. Attorney Murphy concluded, "whether he, Mr. Chambers, a former Communist and former espionage agent, is telling the truth. You must examine what motive he would have for lying. If you don't believe [him], we have no case under the federal perjury law."

He sat down after having spoken only 23 minutes.

Fiery Crucible. Then Defense Attorney Lloyd Paul Stryker strode toward the jury box--and the atmosphere of the trial suddenly changed. At 64, after 40 years as a pleader and advocate, frowning, crop-haired Lloyd Stryker was one of the most spectacular trial lawyers in the U.S. His voice ranged from a soothing whisper to a thundering roar as he began turning out flamboyant courtroom oratory.

The jury was fascinated. So was Judge Samuel Kaufman--he moved quietly from the bench to the witness chair to watch at close range while the master worked. Stryker agreed that his friend, Mr. Murphy, had stated the issues well--it was a case of Chambers' word against that of Alger Hiss. He began painting a word picture of Hiss--a model boy and a model student, a graduate of Johns Hopkins University and the Harvard Law School and a protegee of the great Oliver Wendell Holmes.

"Alger Hiss," he cried, "was good enough for Oliver Wendell Holmes, and...I shall summon, with all due reverence, the shade of that greatest member of the Supreme Court of the United States"" The defense attorney went on dramatically ticking off the "fiery crucibles" in which Hiss had represented the State Department--Yalta . . . Dumbarton Oaks . . . San Francisco. "Yea," he trumpeted, "though I walk through the valley of death I shall not fear, for I am with Alger Hiss."

Then he turned to "this man who calls himself Chambers, alias Adams, alias Crosley, alias Cantwell, and was a member of this nefarious, filthy conspiracy for twelve long years." Midway in his diatribe he veered to throw in a shocker. Discussing the secret documents which the State would present, Lloyd Stryker cried in triumph: "We have the typewriter! We'll let these FBIs come over and look at it all they like!"

He wound up with a dramatic shout: "In the tropics, in a place like Algiers, when a leper walks in the street, the cry is heard before him, 'Unclean! Unclean!' I say to you, 'Unclean!' at the approach of this moral leper."

"Lying Was Easy." That afternoon when Chambers first appeared in court--a chubby, bland-faced little man in a dark blue suit and a black tie--the quiet was broken by excited babble from the spectators. Chambers did not seem to hear. He stared without expression at gaunt, handsome Alger Hiss and his decorous, greying wife, Priscilla. He seated himself in the witness chair, took the oath, fixed his eyes on the ceiling toward the back of the room and, in a low, even voice, began his long story.

His direct testimony went on that afternoon and most of the next day. When he had concluded he had covered a great part of his life and had reiterated his accusation: that Hiss had willingly stolen and copied Government reports for a Russian intelligence officer named Boris Bykov, and that he, Chambers, had acted as their intermediary.

His tale of the meeting between Colonel Bykov and Hiss was in the best spy-thriller tradition: the meeting took place in a Brooklyn movie theater and the trio then moved surreptitiously to a Chinatown cafee. There, according to Chambers, Hiss agreed to get documents from the State Department for the Russian.

When Chambers finished his direct testimony a deadly cross-examination began. Defense Attorney Stryker leaped out of his chair at the moment the prosecutor sat down and advanced on the witness like a man about to kill a wild beast with his hands. Within minutes, Chambers had coolly admitted taking "a false and perjurous" oath in getting a Government job back in 1937. From then on, hour after hour, Stryker labored hard to wreck the witness' credibility.

Had Chambers written a play while he was at Columbia ... a play which was an offensive treatment of Jesus Christ? "Yes --highly offensive." Had he left college then? "Yes--after some very just criticism." Had Chambers gotten back by lying to a dean? Said the witness: "That was a long time ago."

"Lying was easy for you, wasn't it?" "It was like . . ." "Answer the question!" "I believe so."

Stryker took another tack--wasn't one of the tenets of communism a belief that marriage is a bourgeois convention--that living together in holy wedlock is a sham? Said Chambers: "The Communists prefer to have...members live together outside of matrimony."

Stryker leaned forward: "Tell me, Mr. Chambers, did you live in New Orleans...in a dive?" (Stryker read into the record a passage from another hearing in which Chambers had described "a wretched dive . . . entered by a long passage by which was a small, fetid stream.")

"Yes." "With a prostitute named 'One-Eyed Annie?'" Chambers stared incredulously, grinned, said, "No, I did not!" "With a prostitute named Ida Dales?" "Ida Dales was not a prostitute."

But had Chambers lived with her? He had--for a year. Had he taken her to his mother's home? He had. Had Chambers' mother permitted this woman in her house because she had lost one son and didn't want to lose another? Had Chambers put pressure on her?

"No pressure." "But this brother...he asked you to enter a suicide pact with him?" "Yes." "And he killed himself with gas?" "Yes." It Was False? Stryker began fashioning another noose. "When you were a Communist you would commit perjury...but in time you became a God-fearing citizen?" "Yes." "On Aug. 3, 1948 you were a God-fearing citizen?" "Yes." "It is a fact, is it not," cried Stryker triumphantly, "that you were asked by the grand jury [the same grand jury which indicted Hiss] whether there was any espionage and you said you had no recollection? Was that answer true or false?" "It was false." "Then you admit now that you committed perjury...in this building!" "That is right." Stryker whirled and sat down.

This week the cross-examination of Whittaker Chambers continued. In the "indispensable ordeal" which Chambers had predicted months before, he had yielded up the sins and secrets of a lifetime. He had confessed his faults and errors without equivocation; he had blackened his own character, probably for life, with coolness and without a murmur of protest. Alger Hiss, still a silhouetted figure, had yet to endure the soul-crushing test of the witness stand.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.