Right now I’m reading Witness by Whitaker Chambers. He’s the guy who was a spy for the Soviet union in the 20’s and 30’s, and in the early 50’s he claimed that Alger Hiss, the famed government official, was a spy during that time, too. With the help of a Congressman named Richard Nixon, Hiss was eventually convicted of perjury for denying under oath that he was a spy (the statute of limitations for espionage had run out by that time).
A lot of people since then claimed that Hiss got railroaded and his reputation smeared by an unethical Nixon. Everything that I’ve read (including the superb Perjury by Allan Weinstein) points to the indisputable conclusion that Hiss was indeed a spy.
What I want to know is if there are still people out there who think Hiss was not a spy, and if so, why? I’d like to know if I’m missing an important part of this controversy.