True Crime

A Pumpkin Patch, a Typewriter, and Richard Nixon: The Hiss-Chambers Espionage Case

by John W. Berresford

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Chambers and Beyond

Latest episodes

Chapter 12: Setting Up the Public Confrontation

March 22, 2023 · 16 min

Republican members of the House un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). (Library of Congress) Sandwiched between the drama of the Commodore Hotel (last week's Podcast) and the equally sensational televised confrontation of Hiss and…
Chapter 11: Face to Face

March 15, 2023 · 20 min

Pic: Library of Congress In Podcast 11, Nixon and Stripling pull off another tactical masterstroke. They bring Hiss and Chambers together, to the surprise of both of them, in a hotel room in New York City. Despite the locale, it's a…
Chapter 10: HUAC Reacts

March 8, 2023 · 9 min

In Podcast 10, Nixon's HUAC Subcommittee reacts skeptically to Hiss's new George Crosley story. Hiss, like Captain Renault in Casablanca, is shocked, shocked that the Representatives would even think of taking the word of the Communist…
Chapter 9: Hiss' Second Testimony

March 1, 2023 · 9 min

Alger Hiss, like Chambers, gives secret testimony to Nixon's HUAC Subcommittee. He is outraged that they are thinking of trusting Chambers, whom Hiss labels a Communist and a traitor (Hiss pre-channeling Senator McCarthy). When…
Chapter 8: Nixon Takes the Plunge

February 22, 2023 · 10 min

Campaigning for the US Senate, 1950. Pic - Library of Congress In this 8th podcast, we explore the thinking of Richard Nixon. Put yourself in his position. You're 35, elected to the House in a Republican wave year from a district that…

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Chapter 7: Chambers' Secret Testimony

February 15, 2023 · 9 min

Members of the House Un-American Activities Committee visit the home of Chairman John Parnell Thomas; (l-r) Rep. Richard B. Vail, Rep. Thomas, Rep. John McDowell, Robert Stripling, chief counsel, and Rep. Richard M. Nixon] Picture: Library…
Chapter 6: Hiss' Denial

February 8, 2023 · 13 min

Richard M. Nixon, Library of Congress Alger Hiss calmly and patiently denies Whittaker Chambers' two charges: that the two of them were in the Communist underground in 1934-37 and that they became close friends. The Commie-hunters on…
Chapter 5: The First HUAC Hearing

February 1, 2023 · 14 min

Above, Elizabeth Bentley, who gave evidence at the first HUAC hearing. Pic: Library of Congress In 1948, Whittaker Chambers is Time Magazine's Senior Editor. He is forced against his will to testify to the House Un-American Activities…
Chapter 4: Communism in the 1930s

January 25, 2023 · 9 min

Photo: Craig Whitehead on Unsplash The backdrop of this case is American Communism — infatuation with it and disillusionment with it. Communism predicted a violent upheaval that would produce a better life. In actual practice, it…
Chapter 3: Whittaker Chambers - Ex Communist

January 18, 2023 · 13 min

Whittaker Chambers tries to have a peaceful life, working a farm and becoming a high-paid and powerful editor at Time Magazine. But his past in the Soviet underground won't go away. Stalin's pact with Hitler impels him to inform the…
Chapter Two: Whittaker Chambers - Communist

January 11, 2023 · 20 min

Picture: Library of Congress Meet Whittaker Chambers: brilliant, melodramatic, painfully sincere, perpetually discontented and idealistic, and physically hard to forget; writer of controversial poems, plays, short stories, and…
Chapter One: Introduction and Alger Hiss

January 4, 2023 · 14 min

Meet Alger Hiss: Johns Hopkins, Harvard Law, Supreme Court clerk, left Wall Street to join a New Deal farming agency, counsel to a Senate Committee at age 30, aide to president Roosevelt at Yalta, Secretary General of the UN's founding…

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About the show

The Hiss-Chambers case gripped the nation in 1948 and still provokes controversy. Take a deep factual dive into the story of two brilliant, fascinating men, sensational Congressional hearings, spy documents hidden in a dumbwaiter shaft and a pumpkin, the trial of the century, and the launch of Richard Nixon's career.