Talk:Alger Hiss/Archive 1

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It's interesting that this article and Whittaker Chambers draw very different conclusions about the Verona transcripts. Possibly the conclusions drawn from these transcripts should be described only in the VENONA project article, or given very short and very neutral mention in both Alger Hiss and Whittaker Chambers. --Saforrest 23:08, Apr 5, 2005 (UTC)

Contents

Evidence of False Citations, Repeated Substantially

  • Ralph de Toledano and Victor, Seeds of Treason, (Los Angeles:Western Islands Rev. 1962), pp. 231-234.
  • Allen Weinstein, Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case (New York: Random House, 1997), p. 232.

nobs 23:06, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Note: A review of the discussion history will note that these actual page citations were provided AFTER this compliation was complete. Nobs refuses to show the right chronological order (one wonders why), and this is in my mind vandalism.--Timoteo III 07:09, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

nobs response to "attck" subhead is below, less vandalism please. --Timoteo III 22:30, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Concerning Sentence: Both Under Secretary Welles and Sayre testified that delivering the classifed documents to a foreign power would enable them to break America's most secret codes.[13]

1st Citation: Testimony of Francis B. Sayre and Sumner Welles, House Un-American Activities Committee, Washington D.C., 7 December 1948;

  • Editor nobs cites Congressional testimony as source. This testimony turns out to be sealed and private, yet he fails to account for this discrepancy.
  • Editor nobs provides no known public source where one can find the contents of a transcript
  • Editor nobs provides no known secondary source that would characterize Sayre's Congressional testimony as such

When questioned nobs makes this statement

The Welles, Sumner & Purifeouy testimony is in the HUAC record, 7 December 1948. Both Welles & Sumner testified that the four foot high stack of documents would enable a foreign government to decipher "the most secret codes" (there was no CIA or OSS in 1938; State Department would be using what would be considered "the most secret codes" at that time). Undersecretary Sayre testified,
Sayre: ...not only because of the substance of the cables, but because some of them were in the highly confidential codes; ... And for these telegrams to get out at the time they did meant that other governments could crack our codes and that, I think, is indescribably horrible.
Rankin: In other words, if they got the documents, if they were absolutely insignificant from the point of view of international importance, they could crack the codes without trouble.
Sayre: The other point is that some of the these cables reveal sources from which information was obtained, sources planted in foreign countries. Now you make a cable of this kind known, you cut off that source of information from another country, and you kill what you have been working on for years.
  • Googling specific words provided above yields only three pertinent web sites - search terms used are {sayre "most secret codes"} [1]
  • More, very damning googling: [2] [3] [4]
  • All sites are from a work "Far and Wide" by Douglass Reed, a noted anti-Zionist world conspiracy theorist. [5]
Little info: "After Far and Wide Reed was virtually banned by the establishment publishers and booksellers..."
  • Reed attributes the some of the words to Sayre (in an unidentified and undated press conference), but explictly states the contents of Sayre's testimony were private and unknown
  • There is no other known source connecting those words to Sayre
  • Reed is nevertheless uncited by the editor who falsely attributes it as a source in the Congressional Record, presumably to bolster its dubious credibility and hid its true origins.
  • Editor nobs refuses to acknowledge mistake, delibrately reinserts false citation information and the above dubious sentence in wiki multiple times without bothering to convince others of its veracity.

2nd Citation: Donald H.J. Hermann, Deception and Betrayal: The Tragedy of Alger Hiss, Paper delivered to the Chicago Literary Club, November 14, 2005; " The statute of limitations for espionage of ten years, protected Hiss against the charge of having passed secret material from State Department files to Chambers, of having placed in the hands of agents of the Soviet Union documents which enabled the Soviet Union to break important secret codes used by the United States." - This bit is completely from the author, with no reference or citation to any physical evidence or detective work by others. It is simply stated as fact by the author with no support.

  • Editor nobs is told that paper says nothing about Sayre and his relation to the above contested sentence. Silence prevails reply
  • Editor nobs never explains how paper proves that Sayre actually testified to the what the contested sentence implies
  • Editor nobs characterizes the paper as cutting edge research. Mr Hermann is a lawyer who dedicates his paper to everything but his actual professional expertise. Psychoanalysis, radical quotes on intelligence and cyprotgraphy are not even bolstered in the article by statements from people in the field. There is no evidence of independent research by the author; Hermann simply regurgitates well-known arguments of Hiss detractors with passing references to their orginal authors. There is no bibliography, no formal citations used by Hermman. The majority of the article concerns Alger Hiss's percieved psychological defects that supposedly turned him to the Soviets, in the authors view of course.
  • Editor nobs' citation again fails to support the statement, though it is at least referring to the correct document this time.

Suggestion by Complaintent: Editor nobs admit his error and simply move on towards being a constructive contributer again instead of a vandal.

Let me appologize, I have been distracted by another case & this article has had low priority, especially given the confusing postings by an anonymous editor & unregistered user, who may presumably be the same user. I will cite from a secondary source today, a book that was republished in at least four editions between 1949 and 1965, and I may have immediate access to at least four editions, and will give priority to it today. It's simply a matter of comparing if the so-called disputed language in all editions is intact, or relatively intact. it is a contemporaneous account, by a journbalist who attended hearings. My appologies, by my habits of application of the historical method require such a meticulous approach. nobs 18:58, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
I am now aware that you have an extensive arbitration case against you. That does not excuse false and shoddy work, rather you should have been extra careful. I simply want you to admit error and then delete the erroneous edit. That is not asking much.--Timoteo III 07:00, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
Also, upon citation, I would encourage the above anonymous poster to consider a statement to retract the B.S. above. Thank you. nobs 19:00, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
Complaints about scholarship, misleading statements, false sources etc are not BS, even you think so. Everytime I point out some of your sources are unreliable or grossly misused, you regress to calling valid criticism personal attacks. I don't know what to say.--Timoteo III 07:00, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Response to attack subhead

  • Ralph de Toledano and Victor Lasky, Seeds of Treason, (Los Angeles:Western Islands Rev. 1962), pp. 231-234.
  • Allen Weinstein, Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case (New York: Random House, 1997), p. 232.


168.122.236.22 (talk • contribs) please note: I will be happy to accept some modification in your above posting that it was hasty, inconclusive, or in error, and you mistakenly cited my name in a way that may be misinterpreted, without which it may be regarded as a personal attack, etc. And I would hate to stop assuming good faith in absence to evidence of the contrary, which this certainly is. nobs 19:57, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

To help clarify the blindly obvious, I am indeed User|168.122.236.22. I even manually wrote in timoteo at the bottom for one of my unlogged entries. A saner, rational mind may have recognized this, but let me not dare dream for sanity and honesty in this discussion. As for snark above, it is not my fault that your Sayre "work" reeks of unprofessionalism, false scholarship, and as this battle drags, quite possibly intentional intellectual dishonesty. It has taken you this long to even provide the pages and authors of your supposed "source" that you somehow quoted ("the most secret codes" ha ha) without remembering that info, though Douglass Reed appears to be closer and closer to the truth everyday. I have only complained about your, ahem, historical method or -should it be spoken truefully, complete lack thereof, nothing more. If you are so ashamed of your "contributions" that you view a simple compilation as a personal attack, then I will be more than happy to remove your sins from this article. Futhermore, I suggest you get into the habit of actually reading the links you provide, as I suspect it may improve the quality of your edits if you decide to follow them for a change. - Timoteo III

As for Round 3 and Round 4 of this sentence source debate, let me simply say that my patience wears thin. If these sources cannot support this sentence, I am not looking at anything else. You have already gone through two bogus citations, which for most people is more than enough. Onto more crap however!

  • Ralph de Toledano and Victor Lasky, Seeds of Treason, (Los Angeles:Western Islands Rev. 1962), pp. 231-234.

- This is offically listed as a "Rare Book" according to my library system. One wonders if you actually have a copy, and whether you are hoping I will not be able to read it. A Google Search reveals barely anything specific about the book, except that it is twice listed here under censorship cases (http://microformguides.gale.com/Data/Download/9021000C.pdf). Obviously, there is a substantial bit of controversy if it fell under the threat of banning. Can I look forward to more Douglass-Reed-style hijinks?

  • Allen Weinstein, Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case (New York: Random House, 1997), p. 232.

- I will soon aquire this book, and then we shall see, oh we shall see... (Ominious Laughter)--Timoteo III 22:30, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

What do you think of new format

Ditto--Timoteo III 07:03, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Much improved format. Have re-added comment about Soviet memos being cash-for-documents. This is the point that Summers makes. If it is considered not worthwhile, then remove footnote - footnote was used to support info about Soviet memos, which was not why I put it in the first place. Perhaps someone (nobs?) can provide a footnote for them.--Jack Upland 02:52, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Suggestions for reformat

  • What do you (plural) think about separating the Hiss case from the bio and giving it its own page, like it deserves?Kurt Wagner 09:52, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Separate purely neutral biographical information from the spy/victim debate (It gives the text an uneven flow)
  • Make a section dedicated exclusively to spy-or-not debate, with seperate pro + cons for each subsection.
  • Remove either the Moynihan intro quote or the Moynihan Commission Quote, as they offer the exact same opinion from the same man. I suggest the Moynihan Commission quote go, because the purpose of the commission was clearly to advocate less government secrecy, not to ascertain the guilt of Hiss or the veracity of Verona report interpretation as is implied.

Comments and Suggestions? - Timoteo III

In no way can they be considered quotes from the same man; the Commission Report is unanimous language voted upon by a bi-partisan statutory commission mandated by law to publish findings. The direct Moynihan quote is a personal eyewitness account of the commission proceeedings, and spoken unrestrained by the need for compromise language. The above proposal is simply another effort to bury facts and parse old arguements. nobs 02:27, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
And yet I fail to see where the quotes differ in actual content rather than, as you say, language. I am not suggesting a partisan slant, I am suggesting a redudancy that fails to add further information. It is silly to reiterate Moynihan once personally and again from committee if he's saying the same thing. If you think the Commission quote is better, then keep that instead. However, the point of the Committee was explicit: to determine whether the secrecy of government agencies was excessive and harmful, and to suggest reform. The mission of the Committee was NOT to determine the guilt of Mr Alger Hiss, it is used as a tangential example, with implict assumptions that he was a spy by Mr Moynihan's analysis. If the committee was never charged with determining the guilt or innocent of Alger Hiss, then no debate has occured. And disregarding numero 3 bullet, what do you think of #1 and #2? - Timoteo III
Just drop Moynihan's name from the Commission, make it "Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy" —it's official name. That will eliminate redundancy and possible confusion. nobs 06:45, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
That's not the point. The content itself is redundant. What is this Commission offering in actual fact that's unique? It just suggests in about 3 sentences that ALES = HISS via Yalta through known information already found in this article. Moynihan believes Hiss was a spy and good for him, but the Moynihan and his Committee don't add any additional information; it's a judgment by Moynihan repeated once again for drama, not substance. - Timoteo III
I agree. It's the format that's the problem. It's framed in such a way to make any genuine discussion of guilt impossible.--Jack Upland 02:37, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
What sourcing do you have to refute the published report of the Government Secrecy Commssion? nobs 02:49, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
My source is of course the actual published report of the Government Secrecy Commssion, as opposed to an imaginary one. You are grossly twisting the context of the sentences to make it "appear" that this is an authoritative judgment by the US Government concerning Alger Hiss's guilt as ALES, when that couldn't be further from the truth. Nothing in the report states that the mission, the purpose, the raison d'etre of the committee was to explore and determine the guilt of Alger Hiss in any capacity, not even tangentially or remotely. This is a sentence buried in an appendix, authored by God knows who (probably Mr M since its his commitee and he already has that bias from his quote). It offers no surprising evidence for Alger = ALES case that isnt available in this wiki already, its drama designed to repeat someone's opinion without much discussion of the more important "why so".--Timoteo III 06:03, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Bard

This statement,

"Bard College in Annandale New York has established the Alger Hiss Chair of Social Studies, currently filled by Joel Kovel who teaches that the United States is the "enemy of humanity"

doesn't seem to have a lot to do with Alger Hiss, and such a provocative quotation needs some referencing so we can judge context, it seems to me -- that is, if it wouldn't be better to simply delete it.

Ruy Lopez: They may have been accusations 50 years ago; archival research has born out the veracity of the material you reverted. it will be reinserted for historical accuracy. Nobs01 01:40, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Response to Anon 24.61.113.45: The problem we are discovering in light of Venona is that the Hiss case had little to do with "McCarthyism. Hiss had little to do with McCarthy in the historical context to begin with, seeing the Hiss case occurred in 1948, a few years before McCarthy made any such charges. Hiss, et al, have been able over the years to propagate a distortion that they somehow were "victims" of McCarthyism, when the two cases were never associated to begin with. What Venona has shown so far is, that while McCarthy began with a half truth, that American citizens in the State Department where working for Soviet intelligence, McCarthy went after the wrong crowd. Alger Hiss certainly does not fall into that category. Nobs01 21:45, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

More Hiss

I expanded this article a little, based on my own knowledge, but by no means do I claim to adopt all of its conclusions as my own. It's been a while since I first read about the case. When I learned about it in the 1980s, I believed categorically that Hiss was guilty and an elitist traitor along the lines of Kim Philby. Back then I was rather more conservative than now, so I approached it from the Chambers/Nixon angles in Witness and Six Crises. While I haven't completely switched sides, these days I'm dubious. Chambers, if not evil, was definitely not stable. The ongoing revelations about Nixon now exceed anything even Hunter S. Thompson might have dreamed up in the Seventies--as far as I'm concerned, nothing emanating from Nixon can enjoy credibility any longer. The evidence from the former USSR archives is at best inconclusive. I am not completely convinced of Hiss's innocence, and I think it's quite possible that he exercised considerably poor, even reckless judgment, but now I think it more likely than not he was railroaded. --bamjd3d

I'm not sure Nixon or Chambers have anything to do with Hiss's guilt. If Hiss is guitly he could have done it without their help. it may be just another example of Eastern elitists in the media, academia and government caught in lie with thier pants down and steadfastly refuse to admit it (kinda like Pete Rose). Watergate may have been nothing more than a vendetta stemming from this case by all those who had a vested interest in maintaining the lie and demonizing Nixon.Nobs01 05:52, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Still More Hiss

As stated above, I'm no apologist for Alger Hiss. If he did in fact betray his country, whatever his motives, that was wrong and he should have been punished for it. There are some lines one doesn't cross, no matter what one believes. However, believing that as I do, at the same time I do not subscribe to the right-wing notion that anybody with even pronounced leftist, anti-capitalist or anti-"system" views is tantamount to a treasonous Communist. When passing judgment on Hiss (and I do think we have the right to do so), one should always bear the context in mind. It was the Thirties, and today it's easy to forget a) the magnitude of the Depression; b) the fact that the era was actually more freewheeling than the relatively uptight (to use a Sixties word) one of the Fifties. Today, we worry about gas going up twenty or thirty cents (when the real price is actually about the same as in 1980), or whether we can afford a second vacation or whatnot. When the unemployment rate goes up from, say 5.6% to 5.8% we get nervous. Back then, perhaps a third of the population was going hungry; unemployment was approaching 25%, more, if you count part-time work and starvation wages, especially in the South. Combine that with the dustbowl and the sheer duration of it--more than 12 years, for as late as 1941 unemployment was over 15%--and it's understandable why well-educated people like Hiss worried about the state of things and were casting about for alternatives. Many, many people back then looked around and concluded that some form of Socialism was the answer. Racism gave the Communists a great opportunity to exploit. In the Fifties, people were being pilloried for what they had done in the Thirties, and that was really unfair, for the climate of the Thirties was entirely different. (Certainly it would have been another thing altogether to become a Communist in the Fifties). There was no Cold War in theThirties--Hitler was the threat then. And the Soviets seemed--seemed--to be conquering unemployment, eliminating barbarous working conditions and poverty, and so forth. Even if you don't believe in the welfare state, it goes much too far to say that anyone who talks about those things is a traitor. In sum, I wouldn't blame Hiss for being involved in a Marxist study group, even clandestinely, but if he did in fact pass documents to the Soviets, that would have been crossing the line, and he no longer would have deserved the confidence of the Government. But merely having leftist or utopian views, no matter how divergent from what was politically correct (!), does not make Hiss an evil Northeast establishment stooge. --bamjd3d

Interesting comments. Fortunately I wasn't around to recall the scandels of 1948 when this story broke and only know of it from second hand information, and having been reading about it now for 37 years, truthfully I can't claim any proficiency or authority on the subject. I am curious, however, to hear the arguement connecting the dots between unemployment problems of the 1930's with foreign policy activities of men like Hiss, Harry Dexter White, et al, during World War II (Harry Dexter White, for example, being in a supreme position of trust, passing stolen templates to counterfeit American dollars in 1948 about the sametime SMERSH was burying Hitler's charred corpse under garbage cans doesnt pass the anti-fascist test). This discussion, especially among Hiss defenders, always comes back to ideological grounds. And it seems the judgement of history is, the various Communist entities these people were associated with were not only un-democratic, but anti-democratic; and the arguement that Hiss and others didnt see it that I beleive is pure fantasy. Nobs01 18:46, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
It's not the unemployment problems per se. Again, this needs to be put into a larger context. Remember that all of this was taking place in the wake of the First World War and the Russian Revolution, both of which destroyed the late Victorian Western European order and the concomitant faith in classical liberal progress. In the Twenties and Thirties many intellectuals and elites--naively and foolishly, granted--were so disillusioned and pessimistic that they saw Communism as the wave of the future. Beware the historian's fallacy of imputing to them the knowledge of Stalin, the Great Purges and so forth that we have today. The USSR in the Thirties, it seemed to many in the West, was the wave of the future: it had managed to elude the devastating economic crisis of the West, and its economy was growing at a fantastic rate. Of course, this was attributable to the forced industrialization program, the starvation of millions, terror and so on, phenomena that many turned a blind eye towards. But it's not farfetched to say that men like Hiss honestly believed they were somehow working for, in his words, "a better world," although in hindsight we know that to have been a delusion. bamjd3d
Cynically put, one could say Hitler, in his eyes, was working for "a better world" too. As to my own interest in the subject, I've always been more interested in the effect of their conduct (Julius Rosenberg, Alger Hiss) more than their personal motives. Personally I beleive, that if the Soviet Union didnt recieve the help of these people (fellow American citizens), it still would be a Third World nation; that essentially is what it is today, a Third World Power with nuclear weapons. Brazil surpassed the Soviet Union in GDP a decade and a half ago, and Russian per capita income is equal or below Mexico. So in retrospect it seems, the entire Cold War was the product of your fellow American citizens, not Soviet ambitions. (Just a personal view). Nobs01 20:00, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I think some people forget an important point, though. People might have joined the Communist movement in the early 1930s out of idealism, but it wouldn't take long to see how evil Communism was, especially from the inside. When the President of the American Communist Party and his family visited Russia, Stalin kept their child as a hostage in Russia when they returned.

Corroboration from Soviet archives

I do not understand this sentence:

Alger Hiss’s known cryptonyms were "Lawyer" ("Advocate" or "Advokat") in the mid-1930s and "Ales" in 1945. "Leonard" did not occur as a cover name in the World War II deciphered Venona traffic and may be a later (or possibly earlier) cryptonym.

If the association of these to Hiss derive from Venona, then they are not "known" and the argument appears to be circular. If from elsewhere, the source from which it is 'known" should be given. --John Z 04:01, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

John Z: I will properly source the above material in question, and I thank you for bringing it to my attention. It may be a day or, please, if you will be patient with me. Thank you so much for bringing to my attention. nobs 18:23, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
John Z: The Hiss reference was gathered from this source, John Earl Haynes; much the same language is used in Joyn Earl Haynes & Harvey Klehr Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America, Yale University Press (1999) ISBN 0300084625 and could be cited as to page number if necessary. Also, much the same information is available from other sources. Is the first reference sufficient? Thank you. nobs 21:35, 6 August 2005 (UTC)


But it does not seem to be corroboration from Soviet archives, rather footnotes and comments based on Venona used to interpret Soviet material. This is using Venona to support Venona, and the way it is written now, the argument seems to be circular. No time at all to explore it futher now, would appreciate an explanation if this impression is wrong. --John Z 04:47, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
They are not sourced from Venona, reading of Soviet ciphers did not begin until 1942. Lawyer or Advocate (Advokat) are sourced from Allen Weinstein (sitting Archivist of the United States 1999 book Haunted Wood, based on material from KGB Archives. nobs 21:12, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
Alex & Ales come from Venona. Lawyer & Advocate come from KGB Archives [6]. Leonard comes from the Gorsky Report another Soviet Archive, it was a 1948 internal KI report written by Anatoly Gorsky (who had served in the US during WWII), regarding the compromised American networks, i.e. "failed" Soviet networks. The link to John Earl Haynes site is not "Venona" (the actual decrypts will be used to source Venona). John Earl Haynes is a researcher currently in the Manuscripts Division of the Library of Congress. The subhead of this section is entitled, "Corroboration from Soviet Archives", two sources are given, (1) Haunted Wood, (2) Gorsky Report, both originating in Soviet Archives. One reference is made to Venona, and it already is redundant to the full articles text. Does this answer your concern? nobs 21:58, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

A book review on a personal website is not a Soviet Archive, so having a link to it where one would expect a link to something about Soviet Archives is quite misleading. Where does even this review say that some cryptonyms "come from soviet archives" anyway?

The book and the Gorsky report however, as far as I can tell, do not support what you see to be saying, that these cryptonyms' association with Hiss is corroborated by Soviet archives. The only one they seem to support is the one that you mention last and least, "Leonard" - under "failures" in Gorsky, the title thus making its inclusion rather misleading Unless you explain further, this seems to be mostly naughty original research and illogical reasoning. Maybe it is right there, staring me in the face in the sources you've cited, but I cannot find it, I would not mind being called stupid or lazy if you can do the following:

I would like specific sentences from reasonable sources that say what the article says - that "Soviet archives show Alger Hiss’s known cryptonyms were "Lawyer" [3] ("Advocate" or "Advokat") in the mid-1930s and "Ales" in 1945" . I am sure you know a lot more about this stuff than me. However, you don't seem to be explaining it in a way I or perhaps anyone else, can understand, and as far as I can tell, your references do not say what you want them to say. What you have right now appears to be the statement:/ "Alger Hiss’s known cryptonyms were Lawyer (or Advocate) in the mid-1930s and Ales in 1945." appears as a footnote written by Haynes to notes from Soviet Archives. / (which I assumed came from Venona, at least the first does.) --John Z 22:50, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

I agree. The paragraphs do need to be rewritten for clarity. I will do so first thing Monday AM. Let me make one clarification. The names "Lawyer", "Advocate", and "Leonard" all come from Soviet archives. As to sources: Allen Weinstein and Alexander Vassiliev collaborated on a book together, The Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America--the Stalin Era (New York: Random House, 1999). Vassiliev is a native speaker of Russian and former KGB Officer. When researching the book, Vassiliev was granted access to KGB Archives. The KGB would not allow Vassiliev to photgraph or remove documents. He was allowed however to make extensive notes. Weinstein is now the sitting Archivist of the United States. Haunted Wood is the primary source for Soviet Archives. As to Haynes, he is a longtime researcher of the subject, and his material is the sum total collected from all valid sources.
I appologize for not understanding the question. There is perhaps some confusion as what is Venona material and what is Soviet archive material. I will clarify this. nobs 01:04, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Just to add a note on 'historical method': 'Haunted Wood' is by no definition a primary source. Weinstein has never been very good at openness with his primary sources, unless you happen to be Sam Tanenhaus. [NathanielTapley], 24th April 2006

Western Betryal

There was a sentance which indicated that Churchil and Stalin had divided up Eastern Europe between them without an American presence. Churchil's memoires make it clear that his intent was to clarify *operational influence* (e.g. *someone* has to be in charge, lets sort out who and where) for the period prior to the Yalta conference when matters would be properly and permanently decided.

Toby Douglass 12:25, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

Soviet Archives

Your take on this is again biased and wrong, if not dishonest. Provide me with a quote and source where Volkogonov says he only spent two days on his search, and provide a cite for this spurious quote, "John Lowenthal pushed me to say things of which I was not fully convinced." I've spent a great deal of time reseaching this case and have never found this anyhwere.

The archives Volkogonov searched were: the Archive of the Government of the Russian Federation (Roskomarchiv);the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (successor agency to the KGB); the Russian Ministry of Security; the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs; the Russian Center for the for the Preservation and Study of Documents of Modern History (which houses former Central Party and Comintern archives); the Russian Ministry of Defense and Soviet Army Archives (successor agency to the GRU). To claim he took two days to search this is absurd.

What the man did say was this: "Mr. Hiss has never and nowhere been recruited as an agent of the USSR. Not a single document, and a great amount of material has been studied, substantiates the allegation." In conversation with Lowenthal, he further stated that he could not give a 100% guarentee "that something wasn't destroyed . . . if [Hiss] was a spy I believe positively I would have found a reflection in various files." (New York Times, Oct. 29, 1992)

Then several weeks later later, Volkogonov said that he had "not been properly understood," that if such evidence did exist "there's no guarantee that it was not destroyed, that it was not in other channels." (New York Times, Dec. 7, 1992). But he did not retract his orginal statement, and has not since. In fact, in the 13 years since no such document has ever surfaced, neither it might be added has the name of Whittaker Chambers ever been found in the archives, which is not exactly support for your claims.

What evidence suggests Hiss started working for GRU in 1934? You're simply assuming Ales is Hiss and cramming Venona #1822 where it can't fit. GRU was military intelligence; Hiss was never accused of supplying military intelligence, only State Department material. To not note these problems is dishonest. If Weyl coroborates this, then I suggest you quote him to that fact, instead of merely asserting it.

"Some say he precipitated the Western betrayal of Eastern Europe," Excuse me, but you think this washes? Who may I ask are "some"? You couldn't get away with this in freshman english. And how in God's name could Hiss have "precipitated" anything at Yalta? He was junior to about everybody and had no authority on anything. Hiss did indeed oppose the extra UN seats for the USSR, but you better check the number, I believe they were pushing for less than 15. Hiss played no role in the ultimate outcome of this, and was sorely disappointed that the Soviets got the two they did. You make it seem like he played a role in the USSR gaining the two, which is wrong. Again, who are these "some" who keep saying things? What you should do there is point out that Hiss was always, throughout his State Department career, a conservative on international affairs, solely concerned for American interests. Such as, his strong support for Chiang Kai-shek.

You quote Moynihan's assertion that Ales could only be Hiss, but not Lowethal's carefully reasoned argument to the contrary. Why?

Again, if Weyl testified that Hiss was what Chambers said he was, then quote him to the effect, then quote the rebuttal.

The pumpkin papers were not microfilm, they were 35mm.

--Griffin FarielloGrifross 02:19, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

I agree wholeheartedly; "some" is what Wikipedians call a "weasal word". Critics should always, always be cited by name. nobs 02:24, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
Grif: I suggest you put Yalta Conference and Western betrayal on your to do list, I would be interested in hearing your comments. nobs 02:42, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Venona and Alger Hiss

I just added this section, without deleting anything of anybody elses, I might add. I believe it adds a clear voice to the other side of the discussion, and an important one as well. Any questions I will do my best to answer.

And, thanks nobs, I'll take a look at them. --Grif FarielloGrifross 04:04, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Grif:What is the basis for this statement,
a GRU (military intelligence) agent who obtained military intelligence
other than an assumption that GRU does not consider political intelligence to be military intelligence, which premise can be defeated. nobs 04:36, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

: Paragraph one of VENONA cable 1822 identifies Ales as working with SOSEDI from 1935 [SOSEDI is listed in the footnote as GRU] Para. 3 states "The group and Ales himself work on obtaining military information only. Materials on the BANK [footnote iv says this is code for the State Department] interest the NEIGHBORS [Used by one soviet agency to refer to another] very little and he does not produce them regularly." To my lights political material could be military as well, but the cable states clearly they weren't very interested in State Department material, which is the only materials our boy Alger was accused of stealing.--GrifGrifross 05:21, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Venona # 1822 here [7]. So
"Materials on the State Department interest the GRU very little and he does not produce them regularly."
refers to a one person with access to State Department and militiary information. nobs 17:50, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
Yes, and what are you exactly trying to say?? The cable states that Ales was the head of a small group, as the head of the group HE would produce the material, whether he swiped it himself or not. Hiss was accused of stealing State Department materials, and only that, never military. Ales specialized in Military, and only rarely State. The GRU was not very interested in State. The man who accused Hiss, and was allegedly his one and only courier to the Party, Whittaker Chambers, never once accused Hiss on military materials. Nor did the FBI, nor was it raised it either of the two trials. Now, are you trying to go beyond the facts of the case, and effectively create suppositions that something might've happened that no one has ever mentioned before?! Are we talking Alice in Wonderland here, or what? This of course is the problem in trying to prove a negative, even when the facts presented are countered, the conspiratorial mind always finds another angle, no matter what. That is why, since the days of the Magna Carta, we've evolved to a system where the accused stands innocent until the prosecution can prove the case beyond a shadow of doubt. Hiss was tried for perjury, but efffectively ever since, the charge has been espionage, too bad he never gets the same assumptions afforded any common criminal in the dock,--GrifGrifross 20:11, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
Grif: I'm gonna ask for patience today cause I forgot my glasses and I got a minor edit war on hand, but I am carefully reading all your edits. Thanks. nobs 20:42, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Lowenthal

Some of the more obvious problems with the Lowenthal material:

  • "Ales was said in the message to have been active for 11 years, 1935 through the date of the message, 1945; Alger Hiss was accused of spying in the mid-30's and not later than 1938.
    • (1934-1945 fits Hiss)
      • How may I ask does this work? No one has ever accused Hiss of being a spy from 1934 to 1945, not even Chambers or Joe McCarthy. I beleive the idea is to report history, not make it up as you go along.
        • Why are we having this discussion if "no one ever accused Hiss of being a spy from 1934 to 1945"?
      • Whittaker Chambers knowledge only went up 1938; as stated, this clearly is a deliberate distortion of the evidence.
    • Perhaps so, but are you now arguing that Hiss continued to be a spy after (if anyone is to believe Chambers) Chambers threatened to his face to expose him, went to the gov't and denounced him. There are not even allegations by anyone that Hiss was a spy through 1945, not even by his worst enemies.
      • As Bentley was told, "no one ever leaves this service".


  • "Ales was said to be the leader of a small group of espionage agents; Hiss was accused of having acted alone, aside from his wife as a typist and Chambers as courier.
    • Again, the decrypt reads "small group of relatives"; the "was accused" again is a reference to Chambers, not Venona material
    • Fine put in "small group of relatives," but seeing as the entire case against Hiss rests on Chamber's accusations and none other, then it might behoove one to compare Chamber's allegations with the description of Ales, as that is who Hiss is accused of being.
  • "Ales was a GRU (military intelligence) agent who obtained military intelligence, and only rarely provided State Department material; Alger Hiss was accused of obtaining only non-military information and the papers used against him were non-military State Department materials that he allegedly produced on a regular basis.
    • Again, confusing Chambers testimony with Venona materials. All this clearly is a deliberate distortion and in dire need of either
(1) rewrite (at which point it cannot be attributed to Lowenthal anymore),
(2) clarification (again, then would go unsourced and may be considered original research),
(3) removal of the Venona subhead, because this material does not refute Venona evidence. nobs 19:37, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
    • Your criticism is nonsensical. It is not "confusing" anything, it is a comparision of Chambers' allegations with the allegation that Ales is indeed Hiss. There is no Venona cable that states Hiss to be Ales, only a surmise by Lamphere, so to tally the historical charges against Hiss with what #1822 tells us of Ales only makes sense.


Let's examine the following:
      • "Ales was a GRU (military intelligence) agent who obtained military intelligence"
        • as decrypt # 1822 attests in 1945, i.e. at the tail end of WW II.
      • "and only rarely provided State Department material";
        • as decrypt # 1822 attests in 1945, i.e. at the tail end of WW II.
      • "Hiss was accused of obtaining only non-military information and the papers used against him were non-military State Department materials"
        • according to Chambers testimony regarding events prior to 1938
      • "that he allegedly produced on a regular basis".
        • according to Chambers testimony regarding events prior to 1938, put in a context referring to decrypt # 1822 in 1945; c'mon Griff, you can do better than that.


Eduard Mark, Who Was 'Venona's' 'Ales'? Cryptanalysis and the Hiss Case, Intelligence and National Security 18, no. 3 (Autumn 2003): 45-72, effectively refutes Lowenthal's reading of Venona Cable No. 1822 and suggests that Cable No. 195 Moscow to New York 3 March 1945 (Illegal Iskhak Akhmerov and Greg Silvermaster to gather info on UN Conferance in San Francisco) adds further support to the case against Hiss. nobs 01:55, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
    • Oh really, and where may I ask do you quote Venona #195?! What does it say? How does it add further support? Again, you rely on assertion and mistake it for scholarship.
All this Lownethal material was disposed of years ago. Do we have to repeat all the arguements here? nobs 05:45, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
    • Funny, I and many others believe the charges against Hiss are absurd to the extreme and not supported by any iota of verifiable evidence, yet somehow we still argue over the case, so, yes, we do indeed need to repeat Lowenthal's arguments.

The sarcasm in the line about 'a nifty arguement(sic)' seems unprofessional and needlessly POV. Can the Lowenthal section be trimmed until such time as the disputes here related are resolved? Nae'blis 20:41:19, 2005-08-30 (UTC)

Go ahead, trim it to whatever may be relevent; keep in mind the intent of the Lowenthal rebuttal is to slander the reputations of the persons who traveled to Moscow with Hiss after Yalta. There is absolutely no basis for this defamation to continue. nobs 21:28, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
I'm not particularly interested in your POV in the matter; there is some dispute on the matter at hand, so it should stay in the article, as fully cited as possible. Not being an expert, I'm limiting myself to removing the snark. Nae'blis 21:03:34, 2005-08-31 (UTC)

Sourcing on cryptonyms

  • Advokat (Lawyer) = Hiss, Alger [source Whittaker Chambers, Witness (New York: Random House, 1952)]
  • Advocate (Lawyer) = Hiss, Alger [source Allen Weinstein, Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case (New York: Random House, ed. 1997)]
  • Ales = Hiss, Alger (KGB U.S. line) [source Venona]
  • Ales = Hiss, Alger [source Eduard Mark, Who Was ‘Venona’s’ ‘Ales?’ Cryptanalysis and the Hiss Case, Intelligence and National Security 18, no. 3 (Autumn 2003)]
  • Ales = Hiss, Alger [source Allen Weinstein and Alexander Vassiliev, The Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America—the Stalin Era (New York: Random House, 1999)]
  • Hiss, Alger = Lawyer in 1936 [source Weinstein & Vassiliev, Haunted Wood]
  • Hiss, Alger = Leonard [source Alexander Vassiliev, Gorsky Memo]

More nonsense

HAHA yea rightyou guys waste ur time on this stuff, can u write a paper for me please? Just kidding

Since the Lowenthal band-aid confuses events prior to 1938 with events in spring of 1945, perhaps some clarification is in order. Between 1938 and 1945 much happened, namely, World War II (it was in all the newspapers). In 1938 the

  • United States had the 16th largest standing military in the World, just behind Bulgaria, at number 15
  • United States had 400 tanks
  • the Soviet Union had been producing 22 tanks daily for several years

In 1945

  • the United States had 3,000,000 men of fighting age in uniform, overseas
  • 90% the United States GDP was devoted to war effort

Now, the confusion seems to lie in Hiss suppling State Department documents to the USSR (which Chambers attested to) prior to 1938, and Venona decrypt #1822 of March 1945 which says ALES provides military information, and only rarely State Department information. One must consider, being that

(a) Chambers didn't have contact with Hiss for the duration of WWII, and
(b) World War II occurred, i.e.
(i) the Soviet Union was invaded
(ii) the Soviet Union was a recipient of Lend lease
(iii) a multitude of other factors,
that GRU interest and priorities between 1938 and 1945 probably shifted. nobs 03:42, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

footnote display problem

For some reason, the footnotes at the end are showing up as a number followed by a box, as if the number is being followed by some character that my browser can't understand. Is it possible to fix this here, or is it a bug in the wiki software? Ben Standeven 03:31, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Biased

The article as it stands is biased. It does not give a neutral point of view. Attacks on Hiss are cited with approval continuously even if they have nothing of substance to say (as in the intro). The way it is written makes it impossible to coherently insert any evidence that supports Hiss's innocence.--Jack Upland 02:35, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Mr. Upland: Sir, please note it is 2005 now, not 1948. The arguements to Mr. Hiss's innocence from 1948, that persisted throughout the decades upto about 10 years ago, have been thoroughly discredited. Also note, approximately 2 week ago a Russian language version of of Venone #1822 was released, and initial reaction to it thus far has driven more nails into Mr. Hiss's coffin. Here's a link. [8] Also, Mr. Jack Taber, another internationally recognized expert in cryptolinguistics, has made comments a few days ago here Talk:VENONA project/Archive1#Alger Hiss and his alleged codename. Thank you. nobs 02:44, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
Regardless of the truth of the issue to write in such a polemic style ('slamming shut doors' etc) violates the supposed neutrality of the article. You can report facts but not editorialise about them - do this on your own website!
And by the way, that link you kindly gave me actually states there is a controversy about Hiss's guilt - so why not let Wikipedia reflect that?--Jack Upland 03:19, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
I read what Schindler says to say the evidence of guilt comes other sources more damning, and Venona just corroborates it. And that seems to be the concensus among current scholarship, with probably less than three informed scholars who have given up parsing. nobs 04:08, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

This page has a ridiculiously hardline conservative bias against Alger Hiss, which seems be the result of a one-man crusade by a certain poster. "Incontrovertible evidence," my ass. The point of Wikipedia is to present the strengths and weakness of BOTH sides of the agrument, and then let the reader decide for himself. Hiding the opposition and relevant counterpoints (see http://homepages.nyu.edu/~th15/ for examples) is inappropriate. If a certain someone cannot stop this marlarkey, I'm tagging it with NPOV. {{subst:unsigned comment|168.122.236.22|}}

It should be noted, some of the scholarly discussion groups have now implemented bans against "All Hiss, All the Time", being that the question is settled, yet the two or three defenders keep attempting to parse each new piece of information. Discussion has moved on to who was agent Zamistal; KWANT (QUANTUM) appears to be Bruno Pontecorvo, and Leas theory on Fogel-Pers also is being discussed. nobs 20:30, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
Again, what in God's name are you talking about. Could you at least name these "scholarly groups," that you subscribe to? There are a number of books (old and recent) asserting Alger Hiss's innocence, just as there are for the opposition. That is what makes it a controversy. --Timoteo III 00:04, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

New format

Mr Upland: Here's a problem with your new format: under "Case for Hiss's innocence, you have confused both the perjury charges with espionage charges; this is just recycled POV parsing. The case is not that ambiguous, and this is simply an attemtpt to insert ambiguity. nobs 02:52, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

To clarify, I was the one who implemented the new format. I believe Upland added some sections afterwords. Anyway, back to your main point. First of all Nobs, this is a page about Alger Hiss and the man entire; naturally it should present evidence of judicial misconduct if it demonstrates the possiblity of a false conviction on perjury. Whether or not Alger was a spy, Nixon bent and in some cases broke the law to wrangle out a conviction. The trial was clearly dirty. Since the perjury charges directly arose from the espionage allegations, innocence in the first suggests innocence in the second. Please do not complain about a disscusion of facts simply because they do not support your predetermined conclusions--Timoteo III 00:04, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
OK, let me stop you right there,
Nixon bent and in some cases broke the law to wrangle out a conviction.
Give me a source page number & citation from a primary source document that Richard Nixon, member of the Legislative Branch, constitutionally had the power to prosecute anyone, a power reserved solely to the Executive Branch. (See separation of powers doctrine).
Now, until you can explain this unconstitutional phenomenon, (including the fact that the Executive Branch at the time itself was controlled by a Party in opposition to the Party that Nixon belonged to), I'll assume the statement is POV. Thank you. nobs 00:35, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Your reading comprehension leaves much to be desired. I missed the part where I said Nixon was the prosecutor instead of Tom Murphy, but who can resist a good strawman in the absense of real rebuttal? Perhaps you believe Nixon had nothing to do with the outcome of the trial? Funny, because Nixon doesn't seem to have gotten that memo.

"We won the Hiss case in the papers"

"I had Hiss convicted before he got to the grand jury....I no longer have the energy, [but we need] a son of a bitch who will work his butt off and do it dishonorably" See also the "Nixon-Hiss Seesaw" at CrimeLibrary

Wow! It's almost like Nixon himself believed he got Alger Hiss convicted! Crazy!

In all honesty Nob, I am going to assume you have no sane objections so we can stop this nonsense now - Timoteo III

So what's the point? The U.S. Justice Department under President Truman was corrupt? or just plain incompetent? I'm having trouble following this reasoning. nobs 19:26, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

I'll explain it very slowly for you. Most of the evidence used to convict Hiss came from the work of Nixon and his subcommittee. The role of the prosection is to prosecute when there is evidence of wrongdoing, and that is what Murphy did. Information from the FBI files, the later Watergate scandals, and other sources cast doubt on the actual veracity of evidence that was passed to the prosecution. If the evidence was wrong, then the conviction was wrong and thus the case for Hiss's innocence is bolstered. QED. I am not asking you to agree with the conclusion, but to merely allow a fair representation of the other sides' arguement. I for one think most of the arguments you provide are ridiculious, but I at least allow them to stand to represent the thinking of people like you :)--Timoteo III 23:25, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

I also want to talk about the spat of recent edits you've been making to the article. I'm concerned that you have missed the entire point of the reformat. Practically every single one of your edits is an attempt to fanatically paint Hiss as an evil pinko spy, which is all well and good IF YOU DO IT IN THE SECTION I SPECIFICALLY OUTLINED FOR YOU. Any discussion of whether or not Hiss was a spy will regress into POV wankery, which is why it needs to be isolated and identified as such in the last two sections. If you want to launch a point againt against Hiss, do it there, where it belongs. The other posters and I have worked hard to keep the Wiki neutral, so please be a constructive editor instead a deunce.--Timoteo III 23:25, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, truthfully, the trial business & associated press coverage ingterests me very little, as does Nixon's relationship to it also. Personally, my interest in Alger Hiss relates to the period of time he was in government service (and, as published reports now conclude, Soviet service). nobs 17:28, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Sayre and Cash-for-Documents

A place to discuss the "contributions" from our most prolific poster.

  • "Both Under Secretary Welles and Sayre..." I have not yet read a single book about Hiss that claims the Baltimore Documents/Pumpkin Papers had anything to do with cryptography codes. This is delibrately misleading if it is not outright false to begin with, being completely unsourced.
  • "cash-for-documents" ==> "cash-for-publication right's" This is goes against the author's wording and the point being made; the high $$$ attached to finding the right "facts." The rewording isnt even true as the author only gained access, the memos were never published and made available to other historians. I may move it to the other section however as misc critisism. - Timoteo III
Cash-for-documents is false and misleading; no documents were allowed to be removed or photographed from the Archive.

I think that's flipped flopped. "publication right's" obviously implies Random House would attempt to publish the contents of archives, which is not true as we know. cash-for documents is concise and true to the author, and the context of the wording makes it obvious what happened, IMO. - Timoteo III

Would "cash-for-documents access rights" be preferable? - Timoteo III

The Welles, Sumner & Purifeouy testimony is in the HUAC record, 7 December 1948. Both Welles & Sumner testified that the four foot high stack of documents would enable a foreign government to decipher "the most secret codes" (there was no CIA or OSS in 1938; State Department would be using what would be considered "the most secret codes" at that time). Undersecretary Sayre testified,
Sayre: ...not only because of the substance of the cables, but because some of them were in the highly confidential codes; ... And for these telegrams to get out at the time they did meant that other governments could crack our codes and that, I think, is indescribably horrible.
Rankin: In other words, if they got the documents, if they were absolutely insignificant from the point of view of international importance, they could crack the codes without trouble.
Sayre: The other point is that some of the these cables reveal sources from which information was obtained, sources planted in foreign countries. Now you make a cable of this kind known, you cut off that source of information from another country, and you kill what you have been working on for years. nobs 17:44, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

<--Inserted for the record, documentation of User:Timoteo disruptive vandalism to this discussion page [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23]. nobs 20:14, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

<--Nobs, dearest nobs, where is the love? Now if I were a sourpuss like you I might point to some no-no's you've been caught up in. But that would be beating the dead horse of crazy. While I do somewhat enjoy the peculiar gibberish of your historical outlook, I also have an interest in keeping the article closer to the realm of normal thinking. I am sorry if you find that disruptive, but what can I do? We must live and let live, I suppose.

After closer review, I've determined that this information is further off-base than I suspected. I am 99.9% certain you are culling this information online from a Douglass Reed work, which is a poor source indeed (http://www.douglasreedbooks.com/far.html - search for "the most secret codes") Reading it however makes it clear that, if these comments were even spoken, they are inapprioately attributed here, as the Sayre testimony was private and sealed (hence the difficulty in finding them). This seems to be from in fact off-the-cuff remarks at an impromtu press conference, and you seem to have arbitarily sliced in some Rankin comments for no apparent reason. Rankin is one of the more infamous figures of HUAC, whom the 'great' Allen Weinstein described as a blatant racist, "who spiked most hearings with Negrophobic, anti-Catholic, and anti-Semitic tirades…." This, along with the other historical inaccuracies I've pointed out, means this bit has got to go. - Timoteo III
Nobs, you have gotten the dialogue, the event, the date completetly wrong. You have never proven that Sayre said this and where he did so (you gave an obviously false citation to the HUAC committee instead). Your source, if you ever even had one, must be wrong as well. You have not demonstrated a mainstream source that contains the contents of Sayre's private testimony. I suspect one does not exist. Even the anti-Zionist crackpot directly contradicted most of what you wrote above. If this is the kind of "evidence" you have to marshall against Hiss, you must not even believe in your own side. - Timoteo III

We are in fact talking about the Pumpkin/Baltimore Papers, correct? First off, please tell me where you found the testimony as I googled both Sayre and his actual wording, and came up with nothing save a Douglas Reed site (which for obvious reasons is a bit untrustworthy - I would prefer something much more mainstream, and not linked to Zionist world conspiracy theorists.) Let us assume though that Sayre and Rankin did say this. The important question would be is it actually true? No authors, and I'm including the Hiss detractors that I know of, ever allege to my knowledge that the Baltimore Documents would be crytography code breakers. We know now that the documents were exaggerated in importance during the trial, and the actual contents were in fact quite mundane trade regulations. So why deliberately imply what is easily disproven with modern day evidence? - Timoteo III

The Sayre, Welles & Purifouy testimony was given 7 December 1948 in a HUAC hearing. What they testify to is, that despite the contents of the messages, the fact that Soviets could intercept a coded version, then had the decoded version, would provide the key to breaking a cipher code.

I was actually asking about the source where you yourself found the transcipt (I know what the actual event being transcribed was; it's not helping me find the transcript), since I couldnt' find a copy anywhere online. Is a copy available from a book?

The point is neither Sayre and Welles are experts on cryptography and it would seem that CIA (later), NSA, FBI (who are all nearly uniformly against Hiss) would have further substantiated this idea if it had merit, since they know intelligence and codes better than anybody else. Mr Moniyhan never writes about this :). I think it would be a sorry state of affairs if any low-level secret document could be stolen and thus break a whole system of encryption. Simple transposition cryptography, the kind used by Caesar, could of course easily be broken if you had the orginal and the encryption. But in this time, machines were used to generate the keys and encrypt the messages. Having one key particular to a document would not work as the same key to another document. Different levels of documents would probably have completely different algorithms on the top as well. And this is all assuming that the Soviets had their own version of the VENONA project to get the encryptions in the first place, which I don't think ever happened. - Timoteo III

Ralph de Toledano and Victor Lasky, Seeds of Treason, Los Angeles, Western Islands, 1965 references Welles, Sayre & Purifouy testimony; also, I believe Weinstein's Perjury does also, and other sources. I appologize I haven't had time to bring more evidence in. As to their "expertise", pardon me for saying so, but criticizing them seems to be just original research speculation, and U.S. government use of ciphers and classified materials in the 1930s really was not very sophisticated, nor does it seem to be even much of a priority or concern, which is a factor that allowed for the wholesale infiltration that took place. Looking back, it easy to impose a Cold War view of espionage and tradecraft on American practices, which really didn't become a vital concern either among Washington policy makers, legislators, or the public, until after the 1947 passage of the National Security Act. nobs 17:09, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
It is not "orginal research" to point out that these people have zero background in intelligence or cyptrography, something that might be important if you're trying to posture them as words of authority on code-breaking. Nixon in his hyperboles made the Pumpkin papers seem akin to the secret to the atomic bomb, and it was only later we found out how pathetically benign the contents were (Thank you Freedom of Information act.) The point is there needs to be some sort historical backup to show that this testimony was in fact believable, because plenty of people attested to things (Nixon) that didn't hold up to the light of day with modern evidence. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enigma_machine is an example of cyptography tech that was widely available to both government and commericial sectors in the early 1920s! I doubt the State Department was a decade behind in tech, and I have yet to see evidence that the Soviets could even intercept wires from the State Department either! - Timoteo III
In Citing Enigma, you choose a poor example. Rather, I'd encourage you to review the State Departments Black Chamber, which was shut down in 1927, to get some idea of the priority of intelligence work in the United States government prio to the wartime creation of the OSS. nobs 02:19, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Au contraire, mon frere. In citing Enigma, I demonstrated that the State Department would have had to been lagging behind encyrption technology that was already decades old by the 1930's. In citing Black Chamber, you demonstrated that you don't read your own links. Black Chamber was a cryptanalytic outfit, meaning that its raison d'etre was to break other countries codes, not fiddle with America's. The founder Herbert Yardly had earlier written the Solution of American Diplomatic Codes, which profoundly impacted American cyprtograpgy and led to many improvements. But this was in 1917, far from where we are concerned. Black Chamber shut down in 1929 (off by two years), primarily because Stiminson did not think it was 'gentlemanly' to read the secrets of neutral nations like Japan. He did not, to my knowledge, decide to roll back the United States own encyrption technology by decades like you seem to suggest. That would be rather insane. Not believing in snooping is far different from not believing in the merits of confidentiality. - Timoteo III
Half right and half wrong. Enigma was not shared technology. It was a huge advance by the Germans, nevertheless it was broken by Brits with the help of Polish refugees after the War started (post 1939), again demonstrating the low priority the US put on both Intelligence, intelligence technology, and counterintelligence circa 1938. As to the Black Chamber, yes Wiki says 1929; my off hand memory says 1927. I don't know which is correct. But I will rely upon my memory first, before citing that article as authoritive. nobs 06:44, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Well that's not true at all. The Enigma machine was not a state secret. It was commericially available during the Wiemer republic and was adopted by a number of nations besides Germany. Enigma was a specific variant of electro-mechanical rotor machines, which were independently invented by a number of people, including an American, a Dutchman, a Swede, and of course a German, all around 1917. Enigma is much more famous than either American or British rotor machines simply because it was actually cracked, whereas the Allies' tech was not. The Germans actually added a number of convienence features to Enigma that made the rotor settings much more predictable, hardly an 'advance' in tech. I'm still not sure why you believe Americans were drooling incompetents in cyptography in the 1930s. America has more often than not been on the winning side of the encyrption wars from the 20th century onward. - Timoteo III
I can accept that on good faith, but would like to see cites. Anyway, it doesn't refute the basic premise that the US did not regard Intelligence work as a very high priority (witness, closure of Black Chamber, and the fact the US didn't wasn't using Enigma; besides, even if evidence could be unearthed that it did, your premise how it was commercial available, etc., would reinforce my premise that the US didn't regard security of encryptions as a high priority, neither did it attempt to craft encryption systems better than Enigma, which is regarded as state of the art at the time.
Incidentally, here is [24] Vassiliev’s own English language translation of KGB file 43173 vol.2 (v) pp. 49-55. nobs 19:13, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Note: I moved the last sentence comment down to the Gorsky section in the earlier editions, because it had nothing to do with the Sayre debate and was actually a continuation of that Gorsky memo debate. Nobs was being a little lazy in lumping the two issues together, and I wanted to show the memo where it would be useful. No problems stated. Days later, nobs screamed vandalism. I recommend some deep breaths before you start hurling groundless insults at me, good sir. --Timoteo III 03:47, 4 December 2005 (UTC)


Added a bit about Samuel Krieger. - Timoteo III

This quote,
successfully sued Weinstein for libel damages in 1979. Weinstein settled out of court
you can't have it both ways; Krieger either won the case in court or out of court. This is bit much overweighted in one direction. nobs 20:11, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

the first sentence might imply it came down to a court verdict. Point duly noted. Fixed sentence. - Timoteo III

Vassiliev

"The Rosenbergs, Theodore Hall and Alger Hiss did spy for the Soviets, and I saw their real names in the documents, their code names, a lot of documents about that. How you judge them is up to you. To me they're heroes."[14]

Let me deconstruct this quote. Vassilev believes Rosenbergs, Theodore Hall and Alger Hiss were spies. He saw documents, and "like, their names, man, their names". And then he tells us how much he loves those wascally spies. La-dee-frickin-da. We already know what Vassilev believes about Hiss. We already know about those documents. This quote is vapid and void of anything informative. And more importantly, IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE CRITIQUE OF CRITICS. I make these sections for a reason, nobs. - Timoteo III

Yes, the hit job on Weinstein & Vassiliev is obvious POV, ignoring the balance the two men brought to their investigation. Facts are, as properly cited, Vassiliev is not motivated to smear Hiss, on the contrary, Vassiliev views Hiss as a hero for his service to the Soviet Union. This is an extremely relevent NPOV point. nobs 19:50, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
No, it's a non sequitur quote that has nothing to do with anything. Where exactly does the section try to surmise the motives of either Weinstein or Vassiliev? It only illustrates the irrefutable facts that point to the problems in their scholarship. You are laboring under the false impression that merely because the section tries to represent the facts supporting a particular POV, it is somehow POV itself. Under that philosophy, I could remove the VENONA project and pretty much everything in this article beyond the biographical bit. This wiki tries to fairly represent both sides, and I will remind you once again that you have your own section to attack Hiss from. However, this quote is still meaningless. Both Weinstein and Vassiliev are on the same Hiss-Is-A-Spy boat, and are equally biased. Weinstein may think being a Soviet spy is a bad thing and Vassiliev a good thing, but it doesn't change their willingness to see Hiss as a spy either way. I would still recommend you keep editorializing about the authors' actual motives to yourself, as I do. - Timoteo III
Well, your losing me. Facts are Vassiliev thinks Hiss, the Rosenbergs, and a few hundred other Americans, are heroes because of what they did to aid the Soviet Union. Vassiliev and Wienstein teamed up to write a book. That team in and of itself created "balance". Trying to make Vassiliev the villian won't amount to anything.
My appologies, the facts of the real world are all we have to work with. nobs 02:17, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Let me employ a metaphor for how several of your arguments appear to me. You are like a prosecutor in a murder trial who hems and haws about the "smoking gun", and then produces a banana as Exhibit A. I honestly fail to see how the quote supports anything you wrote about. I honestly fail to see how your reply addressed anything I wrote above. Now if I was a cynic, I might think that you don't have any justification for this quote, and it's merely a driveby throw-away line designed to put pathos hatred on Alger Hiss vis-a-vis the references to other notorious Americans through Mr. Vassiliev's words. I will continue though, in the hopes that you are a genuinely confused individual in need of enlightenment. Since you had so much trouble responding to the actual content of my post last time, I will use bullets to illustrate the problems.
(1) Your idea of "balance" lies in the fact that Weinstein is an American and Vassiliev is a Russian & former Soviet
(2) This "balance" does not excuse shoddy scholarship
(3) This "balance" does not explain why Weinstein was sued by his own sources, and forced to apologize and pay up
(4) This "balance" does not make it okay to use uncheckable sources
(5) This "balance" does not mean Vassiliev was any less eager to "prove" Hiss's guilt than the next Hiss detractor (He sounds postively giddy in fact)
(6) This "balance" is not one of opposing schools of thought, but the same (Hiss = spy) with arbitrary differences
(7) This "balance" is miles apart from a proper NPOV.
(8) "Trying to make Vassiliev the villian won't amount to anything" Quote me, kind sir, where I ever implied villiany for dear Vassiliev. I suspect you can't. The only one editorializing here is you. I know reality can be an inconvenience, but I find it to be the only proper basis to work from.--168.122.236.22 07:54, 1 December 2005 (UTC) - Timoteo III
Again, you're losing me. I don't see the point in restating what I've posted already. You're objection seems to be (a) Sayre is not a reliable source Are you saying you were one of the Congressman who actually heard what Sayre said at his testimony, or do you have psysic powers to know what no one else who was not present at that private hearing does(b) PBS is not a reliable source. I'll add more cites (try actual justification for revelancy, bud) then (incidentally, never heard of Douglas Reed, nor after an extremely cursory review, have see any reason to examine further, nor pass judgement). nobs 19:46, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
I find your lack of faith in your own cause disturbing. You apparently are afraid of an honest presentation, and must parrot the same drek long after I correct you. I HAVE NEVER QUESTIONED THAT VASSILIEV SAID THESE WORDS. I HAVE POINTED OUT THAT YOU CANNOT ILLUSTRATE IT HAS ANY REVELANCE TO THE SECTION AT HAND, OR ANY MEANINGFUL INFORMATIONAL VALUE. YOU ANSWERED NONE OF THE BULLETS. YOU HAVE NOTHING TO SAY. The Sayre quote is even more of a train wreck, being that the only website with the exact wording you used is from a crackpot, and he even disagrees with half of what you wrote. - Timoteo III
How's this for timely research on the cutting edge:
"The statute of limitations for espionage of ten years, protected Hiss against the charge of having passed secret material from State Department files to Chambers, of having placed in the hands of agents of the Soviet Union documents which enabled the Soviet Union to break important secret codes used by the United States."nobs 21:19, 1 December 2005 (UTC)Where is the damn Sayre testimony quote you promised? Oh right, it doesn't exist. Here's some more random crap to swallow instead - Timoteo III
Holy crap on the stick, this piece is sheer beauty! Where do you find these people, nobs? Donald H.J. Hermann is a Professor of Law and Philosophy (http://www.law.depaul.edu/faculty_staff/faculty_information.asp?id=29), but today ladies and gentlemen, he will be moonlighting as the world's greatest Cold War historian and foremost expert on cryptography and espoinage: "to break important secret codes used by the United States"- Wow! He's actually trying to make it sound like the Pumpkins Paper definitely did let the USSR break America's most secret codes, not even using an empty conjecture anymore! Something where a normal person, including Allen Weinstien, would have actually then citated the juicy details, because obviously if you going to turn history on its head it's helpful to have some proof. Hermann must be a God. He does not even bother with fake citations like you, and leaves totally up to us readers to divine what magic elf told him this little story. Actually there are no surprises here. Hermann seems to have mostly rehashed old conservatives arguments for his "research", and probably relied solely on Nixon's hyperboles to determine the significance of the Pumpkin Papers. At least he has the wherewithal to hid the paper in Chicago Literary Society, the logical place for Cold War revisionism. And I love the webpage title too: "Evidence Of A Genetic Influence On Sexual Orientation." What!? Okkkkkay, step back slowly... - Timoteo III
I don't understand any of this; I have to search hypertext for insertions from an anonymous and/or unregistered poster. These insertions read, for example,
  • You are laboring under the false impression that merely because the section tries to represent the facts supporting a particular POV, it is somehow POV itself. ,
or other stuff I can't really make sense of (for the record, my wife can't read my mind, but this poster evidently can, "You are laboring under the false impression...", etc). I don't much see the point in discussing another users editing practices, cause mine probably can be criticized, too. And it's most difficult to try to approach any substance there, which presumably exists. nobs 21:53, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
I hope this is genuine "confusion," though I am loathe to imagine what kind of reading could result in so much of misunderstanding you seem capable of. As to that "insertion," you will note that the text has always been in there (please retract your prima facie characterization of "insertion" in the next edit, my good man), my concern lay in that you seemed to have never read it at all in your immediate replies. To help you in your struggle, I bolded the most important bits so maybe you would give me a better answer in the future. A hope that I still hold, BTW.--Timoteo III 06:31, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
Here's another link for you c-span; actually, I haven't reviewed it yet so maybe you can tell me what it says. See also [25], "Clip 19: What the "pumpkin papers" contained; significance of obtaining the diplomatic codes ". nobs 23:02, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Well I am not going to look at a source if you can't be bothered to do so either, especially after the last goosehunt with the fictional Sayre Congressional testimony. My computer for whatever reason is on the fritz for this video, and I can't directly load the clips, just the entire and very long program which I am not going to sit through. I did see an weird clip of a veteran caller talking about people's faces being blown off in the Korean War and somehow blaming Hiss for it, and the Chambers' biographer awkwardly pushing that charge off. The real player does have a timer for the video. If you actually do find something, then I will at least jump to that timeframe section. - Timoteo III
It's a javascript, and I don't have that on my computer. nobs 01:44, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Eduard Mark

Dr. Eduard Mark of the United States Air Academy point-by-point rebuttal of the theory of the the late John Lownethal has been accepted in the scholarly community; there was one other attempt to rebut #1822 Venona by another scholar, and that has been disposed of as well. I could post a link to both rebuttals, but I doubt if it would do any good. If the insistence is to give readers of Wikipedia outdated & stale disinformation, so be it. nobs 17:53, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Well go ahead and post it. If it's a novel just provide a link, if it's a reasonable length you can put it as a new section under the case against Hiss" part. - Timoteo
It is a point by point rebuttal to the parsing of every word and comma. Eduard mark is also fluent in Russian. It is quite lengthy, and a summary is is probably 25% of the length of this article already. What's more, the Mark demonstrates Lowenthal (and others) arguements are moot. nobs 18:01, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
As we fight over other issues, perhaps we could find some common ground here. I did a cursory search of Eduard, but couldn't find the full-text version of his paper. An internet source in addition to the print one already there would obviously be nice to have. Feel free to post your link in the references section.--Timoteo III 00:47, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
See Historical method; then demonstrate some capacity using accepted methods. nobs 18:39, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Nobs! I have born great insults here, but from my favorite editor, this is the most unkindest cut of all! I have shamed my family, my children, and my children's children! Woe is me! Sniffle...Wait! Are you really saying you don't actually have an online link to Eduard Mark's work, like you originally offered? ? I TRUSTED you, and now I will never trust another :( .--Timoteo III 02:51, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Daladier

What about French Premiere Edouard Daladier? Should we add that he told American officials in 1939 that the Hiss brothers were Soviet agents? nobs 04:28, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

I believe you mean should we add what William C. Bullitt said about what supposedly Edouard Daladier said about what supposedly the French Intelligence said, or in other words three-tier hearsay? The answer here would be no. The chain of dialogue is so long that we don't know for certain what the French Intelligence actually believed, and not even hint of what sort of evidence led them to believe it. Furthermore, Bullit is closely associated with the excesses of the anti-Communist movement and the rise of McCarthyism, hardly the font of untainted information. He defamed a great many people (esp. New Dealers) besides Hiss, some of which turned out to be innocent, and yet nevertheless had their lives ruined (quick search reveals one Lattimore). He is noted for personally ruining the career of Welles by doggedly trying to expose his homosexuality. FDR viewed him in such high esteem that he said: "Bill Bullitt, you have defamed the name of a man who toiled for his fellow men, and you can go to hell.' And that's what I tell you to do now." Rah rah. http://www.gutenberg-e.org/osc01/osc08.html--Timoteo III 05:58, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Yah but Wikipedia is an international effort; surely we can input now from French sources. nobs 06:29, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Mon dieu! Bullitt is not a Frenchman! Bullit is not Edouard Daladier! Bullit is not the French Intelligence Angency! Bullit is a American whose conduct is questionable, and who is a bit of a human turd in FDR's view. You're citing Bullit as if he were the French intelligence agency giving a direct statement about Hiss. That is an American pretending to be a French source. It's what we here call hearsay, and it has as much weight as dirt. Find an actual release or document by the French Intelligence Agency supporting this view, not just storytime by Mr Sunshine here. - Timoteo III

Au contraire mi ammie; we know the story from American sources. I am proposing investigating French sources now. Presumably, counterintelligence files on Comintern operatives were well preserved thru the Vichy period. nobs 17:49, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

"American sources." Very interesting. Pray tell who is the other source besides Bullit? - Timoteo III

Really? Do you suppose Bullitt was source of Bullitts information? nobs 21:32, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

A hint: when English speakers pluralize a word, usually it means there's more than one quantity in question. Like I suspected, "French sources" translates to "American sources," which in turn translates directly into Bullit only, nobody else, French, American, or Martian. I am so very shocked and awed at this dishonesty.--168.122.236.22 00:11, 2 December 2005 (UTC) - Timoteo III

Clarification on hint: "American sources" may not refer to the Daladier information, it may refer to Venona, Chambers, etc. nobs 02:43, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

digression on Bullitt

Not to get sidetracked into moot arguements, but this phrase, "human turd in FDR's view", may reveal prejudicial research methods. "Bullitt was not the source of the information". Bullitt was doing his job, as required. An attack on Bullitt hardly seems appropriate here, unless you are suggesting French Intelligence relayed the information to Bullitt, and Bullitt should have kept quiet about it. And let's analyze that further: Daladier, a Head of Government, was Bullitt's source. A Head of Government, at least in most objective observers estimation, is most probably a more authoritve source of information than some lowly head of a bureau, department, or employee in a bureau or department. It may be tempting to pursue a moot line of reasoning like this, to analyze these arguements and objections this anonymous poster puts forward, but I believe I've probably pursued it too far already. Suffice it to say, these lenghty objections prima facie are full of this asserted POV reasoning, and are often not worth the 10 or 20 seconds of time to puruse them, searching for some valid objection. nobs 20:58, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

I am sad to say nods that I am no longer debating you as editor, as I have lost confidence in your ability to fairly address my concerns instead of patent strawman arguments and buzzwords outside your apparent understanding. Rather, I am only commenting for the more level-minded editors who may come in the future. No one is blind to your staunch POV, and your unwillingness to even concede a mistake in citation, which morphed into that Sayre mess. I believe that Alger Hiss may be guilty, but I don't believe in shoddy scholarship that I see in some of your work. I believe there is a case for both sides, and I am more interested in that then fervently pushing a anti-Hiss view with no concern to veracity or fairness. I intentionally divided this article into separate sections for Alger Hiss's innocence or guilt, in the hope that it would provide a forum to voice both sides without endless edit wars. You remain oblivious to the seperation, and continue to write dubious material in the wrong section, with no relevancy, and in some cases, no truth. I will seek mediation or arbitation, though your user page indicates I may have to wait in line.

As to the gibberish above, I have made my point clear, and highlighted the most ludricious charges for emphasis. Eduard never confirms his alleged words. The French Intelligence never confirms Bullit's statement. In fact, absolutely no one does besides Bullit. Bullit was a clear-as-day McCarthyite (http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/jah/92.1/br_93.html), people who I personally don't venerate as heros. And as someone whose Sayre "quotes" appear exclusively online in a anti-ZION world conspiracist rag, do not impugn my research methods without expecting a laugh. I am simply following the comedy of the situation with a lighter tone, but harder facts.--Timoteo III 04:45, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Even in a digression on a moot arguement you loose me. I like the new format, but there are a few problems with it. Number one, of coarse, ignoring facts. I don't know what more I can add. nobs 04:55, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

The Gorsky Memo

Also, this is a bit much: "This memo incontrovertibly identifies Alger Hiss as a longtime Soviet agent who worked at the U.S. State Department" Is this memo viewable via the internet or some well-known book? I think you should elaborate on what the memo says instead of just saying its incontrovertible evidence, and leaving it as an article of faith. - Timoteo

Incidentally, here is [26] Vassiliev’s own English language translation of KGB file 43173 vol.2 (v) pp. 49-55. nobs 19:13, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
The Gorsky memo lists "Alger Hiss, former employee of the State Department", number 3 behind Whittaker Chamber & Col Bukov. This is a KI document. It references the "Karl group" which was a GRU group. According to Dr. Svetlana Chervonnaya, the current head of the Department of Domestic Policy Studies at the Insitute of USA and Canada in the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, Soviet Case Officers listed names chronologically; Chambers was listed #1; Col. Bukov, the GRU Case Officer is #2; Alger Hiss is #3. There are 12 names on the list. The list is entitled "Failures in the U.S.A. (1938-48)". "Leonard", the codename for Hiss on the list, is apparently his GRU code name. Also, it should be noted, Hiss worked with the Illegal GRU line, not the Legal GRU Rezidentura. Dr. Eduard Mark explains how the MGB code name "Ales" occurred in Venona traffic; "Ales" was not an MGB ( or KGB, as is what is most often used by modern authors) operative. "Ales", as #1822 Venona states, was "working with the military neighbors", i.e. GRU. Pavel Fitin had instructed his operatives to find out quickly whatever they could about the upcoming UN Charter Conference. Hence, a breach of security occured, and lines were crossed, that is to say, an MGB operative openly contacted a GRU agent, Alger Hiss. MGB assigned its own code name for Hiss, i.e. Ales, which differs from the code GRU used. That is how Hiss, i.e. "Ales" appears in Venona traffic, because of a one time breach of security by the MGB. (resign) nobs 03:01, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
Note: This sig does not appear to have ever existed before at this Paragraph, prompting wonder at "resign" comment and implicit resentment. See [27] for original P. No apologies expected sadly, but they would be greatly appreciated nevertheless. I recomend poster take a deep breath and be a little calmer in the future before mud-slinging. Thanks. --Timoteo III 01:56, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
Yet it never states Alger was a spy; that jump in logic must be supplied by an already biased reader. Many of the people listed in that memo were simply people of interest to Soviet intelligence, some were definitely not spys or communists. You should not act like merely having a codename is proof of guilt. Both Churchill and Roosevelt were given Soviet codenames, but it doesn't make them spies. Also it should be noted that this note arrived into public domain from a failed libel suit against David Lowenthal by Vassilev. Vassilev gave it to Allen Weinstein as a coauthor for Haunted Wood, but Allen CURIOUSLY never included it in his case against Hiss. The obvious reason is that it tramatically undermines the condition that Alger could be ALES, since Gobsky would have known of this. Far from strenghtening the case against Hiss, it practically exonerates him from being ALES.
(1) I assume you are referring to the Gorsky memo (2) Roosevelt and Churchill are not listed in the Gorsky memo (3) title of the Gorsky memo is "Compromised American sources and networks" (4) "sources and networks" are by definition spies (5) again, "ALES" is a MGB (or KGB) code name (6) Hiss didn't work for KGB (7) Hiss worked for "the military neighbors", i.e. GRU (8) MGB (or KGB) and GRU did not share code names (9) there are other instances of MGB (or KGB) refering to GRU sources, and in some instances, MGB (or KGB) assigning its own KGB code name (10) there are several instances of GRU refering to MGB (or KGB) sources, and in some instances, GRU assigning its own GRU code name (11) the assertion, "Gorsky would have known of this" is original research, as is the speculation regarding the current Archivist of the United States not referencing the Gorsky memo in Haunted Wood (12) both MGB (or KGB), and GRU practices are admitted to by various past MGB (or KGB) Case Officers, defectors, and retired high level personal (13) MGB (or KGB), and GRU practices are known among Counterintelligence services worldwide, and been published.
I hope this sheds light on some of the issues you've raised. nobs 02:13, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Also, it should be noted, that Hiss, as an operative for the GRU Illegal network does not occur in Legal recovered GRU decyrptions. Again, because the lines do not cross between the GRU Rezidentura, which sent coded messages routinely to Moscow, and the GRU Illegal apparatus, operating under deep cover, which had no contact with Official Soviet Missions, where encrypted ciphers communications were sent to Moscow. The courier communications are handled by other means. nobs 20:00, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
(1) Yes (2) The point is your false premise: codenames alone and of themselves don't make people Soviet spies (3) Gorsky never defines sources, it may friendly or unfriendly, all that matters is info (4) Hardly so, see source further down that disputes that (5) True (6) True (7) Disputed POV conjecture and the heart of the case (8) They are supposed to be independent, but is it always true?(9 & 10) Citation (11) Hardly, your crimes are not my own. See later source. (12) What parts of those practices are relevant to discussion? (13) Specificity over hand-waving. (Bonus) You keep pointing out that Allen Weinstein is the sitting Archivist of the US while ignoring the considerable controversy in his appointment (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14555-2005Mar30.html and whispers of political coverup). He was appointed by the same man who appointed this well-known fellow, Michael D. Brown. Hardly a ringing endorsement.
(Extra Bonus) The date in the Gorsky memo is obviously wrong. Either Vassiliev made an error in transcription, or the memo itself is a fraudulent forgery. (Source) http://hnn.us/articles/11579.html--168.122.236.22 02:40, 2 December 2005 (UTC) - Timoteo III
See footnote 16 [28], "Obvious mistake in year [read: 1949]: either A.V.’s or Gorsky’s.", from the History News Network. nobs 02:57, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
That is the generous interpretation made in good faith. Tm]].he memo (as viewed by the public) has irrefutable inaccuracies, introduced by someone (accidentally or not), and the error cannot be fully isolated because of the closed nature of the archives. Thus the memo needs to be taken with a grain of salt. And incontrovertibly is a Peacock term

Cursory review

Timeteo (or whoever) after a glance at your purported evidence, I am impressed by the level of detail, study and dedication put into it. I will set about immediately (in a day or two) to provide the cite for the Special Office of Military Affairs dealing with atomic info. Also, please note, Lowenthal is not a Professor, he was Hiss's attorney, and what is more, his rebuttal has been cited as lacking in scholarship. nobs 18:57, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

"lacking in scholarship" - Was he sued by his own sources? Did he use uncheckable sources? Did he refer to an impossible citation to back up an equally impossible statement? Or did he just forget to not be rabidly anti-Hiss like certain other people who call them scholars? Just thinkin' --Timoteo III 02:41, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Incidentally, "Even Hiss's staunchest defenders no longer believe in his innocence...." is a quote of Dr. Eduard Mark. nobs 22:46, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Today is a new day, eh sir? You're making me sad panda, you know. Both Lowenthal brothers (D & J) are or were professors, including John Lowenthal, a former law professor at Rutgers University. Dun Dun Dun! You're completely wrong, AGAIN. Thanks for the "correction" though, it's the thought that counts. Please actually read [historical method], of which you are so found of citing, but not, it seems, personally observing. And I was under the impression beforehand that Dr. Eduard Mark was some sort of serious historian, in which case his quote is not well-reflecting of that stature. The web happens to only have one reference to this quote, and its a mirror of this (former) article. Are you Eduard Mark, noobs ?--Timoteo III 02:41, 7 December 2005 (UTC) (sory buot spleling namee)

Volkogonov

In response to this purported evidence "Volkogonov's Letter to John Lowenthal" [29] posted at The Alger Hiss Story (and other associated allusions [30]), let me call to your attention the below text from the actual author of the letter, retrieved from a scholarly discussion board. There is another text were this author further qualifies "sister services", which I will be happy to furnish after this material his handled.

"In connection with passing of Prof. J. Lowenthal I recall a curious episode that had taken place a decade ago in autumn of 1992. Mr. Lowenthal had sent a letter to the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), asking it to confirm that his client, Alger Hiss, had never been "an agent of the NKVD". New Russian authorities were overeager to demonstrate their openness and the FSB routed the letter to the SVR, where it landed on my desk.
"After carefull study of every reference to Mr. A.Hiss in the SVR(KGB-NKVD) archives, and querring sister services, I prepared an answer to Mr. J.Lowenthal that in essence stated that Mr. A.Hiss had never had any relationship with the SVR or its predecessors. I am ready to eat my hat if someone proves the contrary. (I am pretty familiar with VENONA literature as well as with _The Haunted Wood_. Judging by the references, the authors unfortunately had no access to the essential files I worked with. I believe new archive custodians simply did not know where and how to look).
"When I showed the draft of reply to my superiors, I was advised to give that information to General D. Volkogonov, who at that time was an advisor to President Yeltsyn. Virtually in a couple of days a report came from the United States that all major newspaper and TV networks reported my disclaimer, attributing it to Gen. D. Volkogonov and referring to him as a man in charge of the Russian intelligence archives.
"Recently I have obtained a copy of Gen. D. Volkogonov's letter to Mr. J. Lowenthal in which he describes how laboriously he "studied the archives of the Russian intelligence services" in search of materials pertaining to Mr. A. Hiss. One would have to be very naive indeed to assume that either SVR or the GRU would open their files to that defrocked komissar. The truth of the matter is that he was simply and elegantly used to add weight to what the Russians wanted to say on the subject at that time.
"I, of course, was amused to watch that development. And I think 88-year old Alger Hiss was also pleased to get that message from Russia.
Julius N. Kobyakov
Major-General SVR (Retired)
(dated 10 October 2003)
nobs 18:43, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

- Note from Timoteo: The correct fake signature nobs should have signed this letter with is Yevgeny Primakov. Not only do you give me forgeries nobs, you give me CRAPPY forgeries too, from the wrong person! Too funny! I like how hyper-conservative organizations even make you look insane!

See also John Ehrman, A Half-Century of Controversy: The Alger Hiss Case (U), Studies in Intelligence, Fall/Winter 2001, No. 10. nobs 19:22, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Ha ha ha "scholarly discussion group"! A good jest, sir, a mighty good jest. Inquiring minds want to know what hitherto unnamed cerebral elite nobs blesses with his intellectual splendor! Contrary to opinion, random yahoos on internet boards do not count as verifable sources. You might not be aware of this phenonoma, but there are balding, fat men who roleplay as little girls on the internet. There might be those of a similar species who like to roleplay as Soviet Majors that, incredible though it seems, apparently waste their time talking to people like you on whatever dark corner of the internet you call home. Maybe you know what I am talking about. Maybe TOO well, if you get my drift (wink, wink).--168.122.236.22 00:09, 9 December 2005 (UTC) TIMOTEO

Sorry, disregard that above. The letter's totally fake, I don't want to give the impression that it even MIGHT be true. You didn't even bother to give it the RIGHT fake signature, nobs. Am I so low that you can't even put some effort into this malarkey? I like how you remembered J Lowenthal was a professor this time though, good touch! You do care, sniff--168.122.236.22 00:09, 9 December 2005 (UTC) TIMOTEO AGAIN

And while Mr Ehrman at least had a good chance of actually writing the above link (horrah nobs, you don't have write anything yourself this time), it's still garbage. He doesn't seem to want to quote anything General V said in context or with a substantial length (cough, like my sources did, cough), because that might misled his readers into believing something like, I don't know, the truth. Remember you also claimed General V spent two days searching, which was a lie systemically repeated by far right-wing nuts. Even National Review called you out on it - five weeks = 2 days, nobs patented Mathematics. This is just more the same lunancy. Maybe General V didn't personally search the archives and instead let the archivists under him do their actual jobs, and Mr Ehrman liberally twisted around the quotation. My source is correct, yours are either bunk or wholly unsupportive. Thank and goodnight. - TIMOTEO IN THE HOUSE

Da hmmm....; the National Review article is dated Nov 30, 1992....hmm the Kobyakov e-mail is dated 10 October 2003....hmmm, let's see....which comes first....1992 or 2003? While my pained mind is searching this matter, one thing is apparent: we can theoretically conclude one event supercedes the other (hopefully). nobs 23:04, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Classic Wikipedia

"Following accusations in 1948 by Whittaker Chambers, a self-admitted former Communist (who admitted under oath that he had previously committed perjury when testifying under oath) that Hiss was a Communist and had spied on behalf of the Soviet Union, Hiss was convicted in 1950, after two trials, of perjury."

I love it!

Yeah, I think it's ridiculous that people want to insert text like that into the introductory paragraph of an article, of all places. I've removed the irrelevant parenthetical comments about Chambers, and simplified the rest of the intro paragraph. Neilc 13:49, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

POV

This POV insertion needs to be fixed:

Alger and ALES

Many of those who believed in Alger Hiss's innocence have maintained that ALES could have never been Alger Hiss. The late John Lowenthal, a Hiss lawyer and longtime supporter, is one of chief proponents of this view.

FBI Special Agent Robert Lamphere was the official who surmised in a footnote to the cable that ALES was "Probably Alger Hiss." But Lowenthal challenges much of Lamphere's reasoning by the following:

Ales was said in the message to have been active for 11 years, 1935 through the date of the message, 1945; Alger Hiss was accused of spying in the mid-30's and not later than 1938.

The Venona project did not begin until 1942; the statement, Hiss was accused of spying in the mid-30's and not later than 1938 in no sense whatsoever can associated with (1) ALES; (2) the Venona project. 19:49, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

The fact that Hiss wasn't accused of spying after 1938 doesn't prove that he wasn't spying after 1938. Did the accusers actively claim that he stopped after 1938? In the 1950s, they were going on what they could prove, and they didn't have access to Venona. 23:19, 26 January 2006. KeithsBrown

Well it's really a question of why there wasn't any physical evidence linking Ales Hiss to the operations of ALES, but rather something totally different. Alger Hiss had a pretty intensive FBI investigation on him right before his trial, and it seems odd that he would be able to supress ALL evidence of his extensive military spying as ALES (much fresher than the other material), which he would be doing presumably while being under scrutiny. Also Whittaker Chambers had disavowed the Commies at this point, so it seems like Alger Hiss as a spy would be already compromised at the time ALES was stealing info from the military. It all ties into how there's more than one kind of espoinage, and that VENONA and the Pumpkin Paper's don't match very well as a coherent work of a single spy, but rather two different ones. Alger Hiss really wasn't a prime canditate for anything ALES would be doing.

Sweet merciful Jesus! This is insane! nobs, I don't live on the moon, so you gonna have try to parse your argument into something that approaches logical, coherent thought. WORDS...MEAN...THINGS! Even POV! Let me however jump in a spacesuit and try to set you straight.

ALES could have never been Alger Hiss as a stand alone sentence would be POV, like the thousands of authoritive statements "Hiss was secret spy! Hiss was a traitor! Hiss was the Devil Incarnate!" you love to write in as historical fact. However, and pay attention here, the actual sentence reads: supporters of Hiss believe he could never be a spy ALES. This is an undisputable fact, like saying "Hiss detractors believe he must have been that spy". There is nothing debatable about that sentence, you just have your panties in a bunch because we're not rabidly smearing Hiss in that section.

The Venona project did not begin until 1942; the statement, Hiss was accused of spying in the mid-30's and not later than 1938 in no sense whatsoever can associated with (1) ALES; (2) the Venona project.

See, what I see here is a bunch of jibberish that doesn't even come close to winning points for effort, let alone for thought. Dur dur dur, Hiss was accused of spying w/ Chambers during and only during that time frame with the Baltimore documents. ALES was spying all time from 1938 to 1945 (here came the message!) and probably a bit later too. So that not a great fit for your little theory, if there ain't no evidence against Alger Hiss from there. And (1) you say "Well that's about Alger Hiss, not ALES." Very good, sparky, that's the point! ALES's spying doesn't fit very well with the spying accusations leveled against Hiss.

But this is the cream de la creme, the champion contender for Special Olympics medallion: cable that ALES was "Probably Alger Hiss." How is this POV. How does this even cater to any side? HOW IS IT NOT TRUE THAT MR FBI AGENT WROTE "PROBABLY HISS" ON HIS FOOTNOTES ON THE VENONA MEMO? - Read footnote ii, nooobert SIR I FEAR YOU HAVE SNAPPED AND ARE IN NEED OF HELP...HELP ME HELP YOU! HELP ME HELP YOU!—The preceding unsigned comment was added by [[User:|User:]] ([[User talk:|talk]] • contribs) .

Thank you.
  • Subhead reads "Alger and ALES", (i.e., the topic in this subhead refers to "Alger and ALES").
  • "Hiss was accused of spying in the mid-30's and not later than 1938" may, it appears, relate to "Alger"; however, in no concievable sense whatsoever, (outside of POV, which, as I understand it, is non-negotiable) can relate to "ALES".
  • "Hiss was accused of spying in the mid-30's and not later than 1938" is a reference to evidence gathered from the testimony of Whittaker Chambers.
  • "Hiss was accused of spying in the mid-30's and not later than 1938" is a reference to public HUAC hearings.

Thus, this POV statement does not belong under a subhead entitled "Alger and ALES". And POV, as I understand it, is bad, is very bad. Possible solutions: (a) Remove the statement; (b) correct, modify, or balnce the statement; (c) change subhead. Just a few suggestions. nobs 22:43, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Not that the above response wasn't crazy and incomprehensible enough, but I want better (I'm greedy like that)! Can you explain to me why you tagged "probably Alger Hiss" as POV in the first part? Just so I get the full picture, you understand.--Timoteo III 00:26, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

These bold references:

  • ALES could have never been Alger Hiss
  • cable that ALES was "Probably Alger Hiss."

are the direct subjects of the subhead, "Alger and ALES". "ALES" is the decrypted codename from Venona transcripts. The purported hypothesis,

  • Hiss was accused of spying in the mid-30's and not later than 1938.

is a reference to evidence presented by Whittaker Chambers, not the Venona project. Please note, Whittaker Chambers is not the Venona project. Hence, the above two premises (actually three, if we include the subheading), "Alger and ALES", "ALES could have never been Alger Hiss", "cable that ALES was 'Probably Alger Hiss'", and its resultant conclusion, that Alger could not be ALES based on evidence presented by Chambers (who, if you will recall, is not the Venona project, nor is credited with decyphering ALES in any transcript, nor for that matter ever worked for Army Signals Intelligence, nor for that matter had any contact with Hiss between 1938 and 1948, nor ever had any knowledge of the 1945 Venona decryption #1822) is what has been commonly refered to as an argumentum absurdum. nobs 17:43, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Analogy

It has been brought to my attention there is a younger readership to this article which may not be familiar with the case. So let me present Mr. Lowenthal's arguement by an analogy:

  • A banana murdered his wife in 1945.
  • An orange testified that the banana told him in 1938 that the banana was contemplating killing his wife.
  • An apple witnessed the banana murder his wife in 1945.


Mr. Lowenthal presents his argument as such:

  • "The apple cannot be correct because the orange only had knowledge up to 1938." nobs 18:06, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Look kids, if you ever find yourself listening to someone going over complex murder scenarios with various fruits, smile and back away slowly. Although this analogy certainly cast Whittaker Chambers in right food group (Baa-Zing! Thank You! I'll be here all night...)

Oh my! But back to the basics, meaning how your analogy (though hee-larious) is also completely wrong. See, the physical evidence and testimony produced against Alger Hiss at his trials all say that if Alger Hiss EVEN WAS guilty, then he was guilty of a very specific type of espoinage, represented by the Baltimore Documents held by Chambers. There was a world of difference between State Department trade regulations and ALES's espoinage, who was a military spy who very seldomed trafficated that State Dept material, but actual military information. The time frame is different, the stolen material is different, and nothing the Chambers apple said about Alger Hiss fitted with what ALES was doing. So the analogy is broken, while completely ignoring most of Lowenthal's other arguments as well. But wait, I should be using the fruits!

  • A sour apple accuses a banana of murdering his wife in the mid 1930's with a knife.
  • A stodgy lemon finds a covert account of an agent called BANANO.
BANANO was found to have left his wife alone and went on to murder a couple of fruits in 1945 with a blender.
Obviously BANANO is the perfect cover name for someone called banana. No one could guess!!
Obviously, open references to banana in covert messages are the best way to keep an identity a secret
  • A fruitcake then says "Aha! The lemon confirmed the apple! The apple confirmed the lemon! It all makes perfect sense! Why if I just keep bashing these square pegs into these circular holes..."
  • Man :"I am hungry. Mmmm..."
  • Fruits + Cake: "Nooooooooooooooo!"

The man is Lowenthal. The fruits will be missed.--168.122.236.22 22:39, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Analogy 2

Upon review, the critics are correct, we have neglected some of Mr. Lowenthal's other arguements. Let's examine another:

  • Ales was said in the message to have been active for 11 years
  • Hiss was accused in his trial only of spying in the mid 1930's

Continueing the analogy:

  • An apple could count to eleven ('45 - '34 = 11);
  • An orange could only count to four ('38 - '34 = 4)

with the conclusion:

  • The apple can not be correct because the orange could only count to four.
Further illuminated by the flawless, brilliant, cold logic: 4 ≠11. nobs 18:28, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Nobs, you are undoubtably brilliant, but you don't know the meaning of the word "parse". --Jack Upland 02:14, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Jack: I can understand parsing a 50 year old moot arguement, but mixing Venona into it now is sort of a case of "the dog ate my fig leaf". nobs 20:18, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

I can't even parse "the dog ate my fig leaf." Nobs, you are truly one of a kind.--Timoteo III 01:39, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

I think your comment regarding fruitcakes says it all. --Jack Upland 01:51, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Analogy 3

  • Ales was a GRU (military intelligence) agent who obtained military intelligence
  • Alger Hiss in his trial was accused of obtaining only non-military information and
    the papers used against him were non-military State Department materials

OK.

  • An apple provided military information during what has been described as, "the most important event in the history of human civilization," in which 55 million people perished.
  • An orange testifed the apple provided him with information (a) 7 years prior to the "the most important event in the history of human civilization" in which 55 million people perished; (b) at a time the USSR had no joint military coordination or collective security arrangement with the US; (c) at a time when the US had the 16th largest standing military in the world, just behind Bulgaria.

So, if we ignore (i) "the most important event in the history of human civilization"; (ii) destruction of 55 million people (iii) no collective security or military cooperation (iv) low priority of US Defence (v) 150 years of isolationism in American foreign policy dating back to George Washington (vi) rise of the United States as a Superpower with atomic weapons from essentially a 3rd World military;

If we conveniently overlook, or ignore these facts, yes, it is plausible there may be found someone who actually believe's Lowenthal's arguement (and let's not even raise the recycled, moot arguement, about how the documents transfered prior to 1938 gave the key to decipher codes, irrespective of what their content was). nobs 21:15, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

I can scarcely believe what I am reading. Alger Hiss was responsible for WWII and the Holocaust, is that what you're trying to say? What kind of drugs do I need to take for this to make sense? What bizzaro world of logic would render that "anal ogy" (tee-hee, butts) a coherent line of thought? As for the closure of the crazy, look at these pretty pictures nobs: [31]. See, the Soviets might have had an easier time cracking US codes if there was any actual encryption involved with the Pumpkin papers. Waa Waa Waaaa! So unless I don my gay tin-hat apparrel, this kind of stuff belongs in a psychiatry report, not Wikipedia.--Timoteo III 03:36, 18 December 2005 (UTC) (And the butt references, for heaven's sake, think of the children)
Duh, the point is if we forget the holocaust of 50 million+ souls in the most important event in the history of civilization, then Lowenthal's premise might make sense. As to encryption, duh, the Hiss documents were sent in the clear; the Soviet's intercepted coded traffic. Once having the Hiss documents, i.e. the translated version, then the Soviets would have the key to the encryption. I know, I know, it is a deep and obscure topic, but that is the best my limited capacities can do to explain. nobs 22:46, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
I think it's a case of comparing apples and oranges! Like Timoteo, I can't make head or tail (boom boom) of your argument about WW2.--Jack Upland 01:06, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
OK. The US was involved in WWII from 1942 to 1945 (it was in all the newspapers). In 1938, therefore, logic would presume (a) the US was not involved in WWII (b) WWII had not yet occurred (c) the US & the Soviet Union were not allies (d) US Defense needs and priorities were at a minimum (e) the axiom "avoid foreign entanglements", as articluated by US President George Washington 150 years prior, was still operative, further supported by (i) the Neutrality Act, (ii) no Lend-Lease provisions (iii) isolationism (iv) America First Committee (v) a plethora of other factors. If we ignore the assumption that espionage priorities of Soviet military intelligence probably changed after their country was invaded, then we can revisit the arguement that obtaining keys to encyption codes was probably more valuable than just mere highly secretive trade documents. But again, for there to be any logical consistency to Lowenthals band-aid, we have to make-believe WWII never occurred. Other than that, it's a perfectly valid NPOV arguement & deserves representation in the Alger Hiss namespace, so a younger generation of young Americans can be become committed to the same lies as their forefathers. nobs 01:30, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
So, to cut it short, is your argument (note spelling) that Hiss joined military intelligence as a consequence of WWII?--Jack Upland 02:54, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
I think the record shows Hiss had been a GRU operative since the thirties. Chambers testified his group was a GRU group; Hede Massing testified her attempts to recruit Hiss & Noel Field failed because they both were already active as GRU agents. It has recently been established Col. Bukov (note not Bykov), Chambers GRU contact was indeed a GRU Case Officer, not OGPU. The point is (a) it does not matter what the contents of the material passed prior to 1938 was, because (i) it still was highly classied (ii) it still was illegal (iii) clear translations provided a key to decypher encryptions (iv) it compromised sources; (b) Lowenthal's rather lame arguement doesn't take into account WWII occurred between Chambers contact with Hiss & the transmission of #1822 Venona NY to Moscow.
Not only does Lowenthal not consider the holocaust of 50+ people to make his arguement. Lowenthal deliberately, and deceptively invents an unconscionable fallacy that Chambers testimony and the Venona project both constituted evidence presented in 1948. nobs 17:33, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
Surely the point is that if Hiss was in GRU (military intelligence) why was he passing non-military documents. And your argu(e)ment above states this had no connection with WW2 - so why do you keep going on about it???--Jack Upland 04:09, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
(A) Testimony in 1948 about Hiss passing documents in 1938 was uncorroborated from Whittaker Chambers; (B) Venona decrypt #1822 dated 1945 which references ALES passing military information was not used as evidence in the 1948 hearings. Like Lowenthal didn't know this when he concocted this bogus arguement. nobs 16:55, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
Once again, you are obfuscating to avoid addressing the real issues at hand. ALES = Alger Hiss is a cornerstone of most modern arguments against Hiss, and it is the one that most readily falls apart if you bother to examine it in any great detail. Lowenthal's (partial) argument is that the paltry evidence physically linking Alger Hiss to espionage nevertheless points to a very different kind of spying than what ALES was engaged in. The versions of Chamber's testimony and VENONA's information are non-corroborative, and in fact contradictory in those key areas L highlighted. This is not about the trial, or about how many people died in WWII, (or about how crazy some people can be); it is about how ALES doesn't fit with Alger Hiss, despite the attempt of many conservatives to try to have it both ways. And recent evidence has only be crueler to this crackpot theory [32]. So either Alger Hiss was some kind of incredible supervillian agent, able to defy the fundamental laws of physics and exist at two separate locations at the same time, or he wasn't ALES and the whole "theory" is crock. Delicious, hilarious, crackpot crock.--Timoteo III 23:05, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
The versions of Chamber's testimony and VENONA's information are non-corroborative, and in fact contradictory
Da, you mean testimony from 1938, peacetime, pre-War War II, and Venona intercepts in the closing days of WWII are two different things? You mean
an apple ≠ an orange? Why does Lowenthal pretend they are the same thing? nobs 23:14, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

HNN

David Lowenthal made available through his in History News Network article the substance of a message that Vassiliyev copied in the archive of the former KGB during research for Haunted Wood. The message, sent to Moscow 5 March 1945 by the NKGB rezident in Washington became available during Vassiliyev's suit against John Lowenthal in a British court. A passage in the message, which does not appear in Haunted Wood, states explicitly, that ALES had been at Yalta. nobs 17:56, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

The suggestion that Ales was at Yalta is not new and a 2nd hand account of the existence of a confirmation is hardly exciting.--Jack Upland 01:04, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Furthermore, that same message (March 5 1945) rules out Hiss as ALES. For whereas it states that ALES was still in Mexico on March 5, Hiss had returned at least 11 days earlier (February 22), as the Washington station chief, Anatoly Gorsky, who was in daily contact with the State Department, must have known if 'Ales' had been Hiss. [User: Chbs13]

Replaced sentence

I replaced the sentence "If Hiss were a Soviet agent, he wasn't a very good one" to Hiss's supporters cite this as evidence that he wasn't in fact a Soviet agent. The previous sentence was biased and more importantly didn't sound like it belonged in an encyclopedia.IndieJones 23:27, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Alger Hiss is a Communist

Removed due to extreme conservative paranoia and a failure to do anything but launch an anonymous personal attack on Hiss. Also, panty-sniffing? Pfffffffft. Even the good guys do that.

Perjury ? for what ?

I have inserted clarification in this article in more than one place where the tone and thereby the meaning by implication is ambiguous if not slanted.

Those comments were deleted.

I was advised to go to the sandbox.

For you lightweights, let's take the most simple of facts:

If there is to be any intellectual honesty in this article, then the fact of the prosecution and conviction of Alger Hiss on the count of perjury can be detailed to eliminate bias i.e. non-fact stated as possible ambiguity and 'considerable controversy'. In addition, this matter is not complete without an accompanying disclosure of the charges for espionage -- why it was not pursued is a significant fact missing from this lame attempt to rewrite history in favor of communism, once again poorly disguised as neutral.

Hiss == perjury == espionage == lies == democrat. Too simple or just too direct and to the point for those guilty who would prefer to see a perpetual dance around? Such is childishness and for them relegation to the sandbox. It appears to a discerning reader that the Wikipedia is that sandbox.

There are many other facts omitted to suit the conclusions of this article, not as neutral, but as liberal bias, excuse me -- I mean, propaganda. Quite frankly, that is what this case was all about -- lies. What history has shown is the methods liars and their sympathizers use: quite clearly depicted in this article for those still learning to spot the vagrants of society.

If someone sits atop editorialization with such an iron fist, then it is time to throw them to the smelter -- is that you, baseball baby?

In case you didn't get the memo, this is America -- dishonesty and subversion have had their day in court and have been convicted of perjury -- only because the statute of limitations on espionage had lapsed. The perjury conviction -- everyone wants to know what someone lied about under oath, it is after all quite relevant to the pursuit of the facts in a case -- Hiss lied about being a spy for the Soviet Union and was convicted of that fact. No appeal has ever reversed that conviction. Simple, but omitted.

Are you American or Soviet, baseball baby? I mean that in the most condescending manner.

"attempted suicide"  ??? that is just wrong

Here is a blantant example of using tone -- that is to say implied meaning -- to avoid the real meaning, and thereby insert a bias in this article.

Please, cite your 'fact' of attempted suicide.

Here is the actual fact (with substantially different context i.e. details that depict meaning accurately, completely, and lacking any purpose of persuasion:

http://www.heritage.org/Research/PoliticalPhilosophy/EM735.cfm

  Whittaker Chambers: Man of Courage and Faith
      by Lee Edwards, Ph.D.


Mr. Edwards may well be a qualified expert on this topic.

My expertise lies in disrobing lies, liars, and deception -- as in this case.

Wow. Thanks for the lecture. Very revealing.--Cberlet 16:23, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Dean memoir

It's published. It is challenged. What's the problem? Most of the Venona material is amplified through speculation and shamelessly hyped on this entry. Shall we cut all that as well?--Cberlet 16:25, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Ten years

I have moved the following bit over here:

"After ten years of asserting that Alger Hiss was neither a Communist nor a spy,"

I don't doubt that it is based on facts, but it is unclear in which context Chambers is supposed to have asserted that. That should be made clear. Str1977 (smile back) 10:11, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Notes section

Someone deleted all the notes at some point. I have restored them, but the notes and references could use a major overhaul.--Cberlet 15:38, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Polemics in Alger Hiss article

I have worked hard to take the subjectivity and polemics out of the Whittaker Chambers article, but this article on Alger Hiss is already so long and full of argument, rather than pointing readers to arguments and sticking to facts that I will not touch it. -- Aboudaqn 2006.07.27

Very biased page - Hiss zealots clearly took over.

Needs a longer listing of the extensive evidence against Hiss. For instance, during the months that Hiss claimed "Crosley" rented from him, records show there was no electricity in the apartment "Crosley" supposedly rented. Chamber knew things that could only come from a long association with Hiss, not a brief acquaintance. There's plenty of evidence that Weinstein produces that even his detractors do not dispute.Keith 09:47, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

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