NEW YORK, April 7, 2007
Author: Hiss Innocent Of Espionage
Researchers Suggest Cold War Figure's Chief Accuser Was Motivated By Revenge After Advances Were Rejected
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Photo
Whittaker Chambers, left, named Alger Hiss (pictured right testifying before the House Unamerican Activities Committee in August 1948, as a spy for the Soviet Union, a charge Hiss denied. Researchers now claim Hiss, who served five years in prison, was innocent — and suggest that Chambers had ulterior motives to make his accusation. (AP Photos)
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The claim was presented Thursday at a daylong symposium, "Alger Hiss & History," at New York University. It provided new information that, if true, could point toward a posthumous vindication of Hiss, who was accused of spying for the Soviet Union and spent nearly five years in prison for perjury before his death in 1996 at age 92.
Also at the conference, a stepson of Hiss argued that Hiss' chief accuser invented the spy allegations after his sexual advances were rejected.
Author Kai Bird said there was new evidence to suggest that the real spy was another U.S. official named Wilder Foote. Hiss was accused of feeding secrets to the Soviet military intelligence agency GRU under the code name Ales.
Bird said he and co-researcher Svetlana A. Chervonnaya had identified nine possible suspects among U.S. State Department officials present at the U.S.-Soviet Yalta conference in 1945. A process of elimination based on their subsequent travels to Moscow and Mexico City excluded eight of them, including Hiss, he said.
"It left only one man standing: Wilder Foote," Bird said.
Foote died in 1974 after a career as a diplomat. During World War II, he was involved with U.S. lend-lease operations supplying the Soviets.
A grandson dismissed Bird's claim Friday.
In a telephone interview, Bird said more research would be required to prove that Foote was Ales but that "he fits the itinerary in every way, and Hiss simply does not."
Foote's grandson said in an e-mail to The Associated Press signed Wilder Foote 5 that his grandfather "was cleared of any suspicion" of wrongdoing by the FBI and the McCarthy Commission investigating spy activities. "He was and still is innocent."
"I can only assume that Mr. Bird has ulterior motives to besmirch my grandfather's name, possibly for Mr. Bird's own celebrity," Foote said.
Also Thursday, Timothy Hobson, Hiss' stepson, said Whittaker Chambers, whose bombshell allegations against Hiss broke the case open, had lied about his personal relationship with Hiss and had never visited the Hiss home as he claimed.
Hobson, 80, said that during the time Chambers claimed to have visited the home, he was recuperating from a broken leg and met every person who came calling.
Chambers was a former American communist party member who spied for the Soviets during the 1930s. He defected before World War II and accused others of being spies, but his claims did not attract FBI interest until after the war. He joined Time magazine in 1939 and as a writer and editor was a severe critic of communism. He died in 1961.
"It is my conviction that he was in love with Alger Hiss, that he was rejected by Alger Hiss and he took that rejection in a vindictive way," Hobson said.
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Just another gay Republican? I dunno...
Ya know, I kinda figured it. He does have his pistol.
Some guilty soul will be able to put into words that the Bu$h administration was the biggest group of traitors the world ever saw.
Why don't you two put on your pants and leave the house for once - on Easter Sunday, a walk in the frsh air would do you both good.
Pathetic droolers.
Hiss' treachery is amply documented, by Weinstein, a Liberal who initially planned to write a book favorable to ol' traitor Alger, but after examining Soviet and Hungarian archives, discovered that Hiss was the tip of an iceberg that included Victor Perlo, John Abt, and the notorious Noel Field and his wife.
Like today's Moveon.Org, Hiss was a Communist who infiltrated the Democratic Party. And the FDR Democrats were as stupid and foolish as they are today to accept him - giving him a high ranking position in the State Department where it was easy for him at Yalta to help betray Eastern Europe for 45 years.
Don't believe Chambers, then read Weinstein, or better yet, read the works of former Soviet Intelligence officers who knew Hiss well - and could confirm he was a traitor.
Hiss then - Pelosi, Dean, Murtha, Byrd now - the Democratic Party never changes its treasonous spots.
What party openly invited gaaays into their ranks and never did a thing about the child molester Studds or about Brenda, oops, Barney Frank's little prostitution ring?
What party has tried to dominate California and overturn the will of the people when they vote against Gaaaay marriage?
Hint - it wasn't the party that kicked out Marlene Foley yet tolerated Pelosi's "boy"friend Marlene aka Mark Leno in the California legislature - a freakzoid who wants to release perverts and child molesters from prison.
For little girl Zoot and her fellow fruity inventagod - here's your answer - THE DEMOCRATS. The party that openly supports Gaaaay marriage.
Typical - the fruits always try to pin their own proclivites on others. Bur don't forget gaaay ho craver Brenda Frank did encourage the two hetero 'hos from San Fran - Pelosi and Boxer, to open their own shop.
The Democrats - home of 'Hos, Homos, and Traitors.