Free Six Crises by Richard Nixon Page A

permission to ask Chambers some questions. I told him to proceed.
    He asked: “Did you ever sublet an apartment on Twenty-ninth Street from me?”
    Chambers replied: “No, I did not.”
    â€œDid you ever spend any time with your wife and child in an apartment on Twenty-ninth Street in Washington when I was not there because I and my family were living on P Street?” 5
    This time Chambers answered: “I most certainly did.”
    Hiss then said: “Would you tell me how you reconcile your negative answers with this affirmative answer?”
    Chambers replied quietly: “Very easily, Alger. I was a Communist and you were a Communist. . . . As I have testified before, I came to Washington as a Communist functionary, a functionary of the American Communist Party. I was connected with the underground group of which Mr. Hiss was a member. Mr. Hiss and I became friends.To the best of my knowledge, Mr. Hiss himself suggested that I go there, and I accepted gratefully.”
    Hiss finally gave up. “I don’t need to ask Mr. Whittaker Chambers any more questions. I am now perfectly prepared to identify this man as George Crosley.”
    Once again, Hiss, not thinking with his usual clarity, had made a misstep. Chambers, according to his own testimony, was a consummate liar, a man who could not be believed on anything. Yet Hiss was identifying him on the basis of one of Chambers’ own statements.
    McDowell then asked Chambers, “Is this the man, Alger Hiss, who was also a member of the Communist Party, at whose home you stayed?”
    â€œPositive identification,” Chambers responded.
    These words were hardly out of Chambers’ mouth when Hiss arose from his chair and strode over to him, shaking his fist and exclaiming, “May I say for the record at this point that I would like to invite Mr. Whittaker Chambers to make those same statements out of the presence of this Committee, without their being privileged for suit for libel. I challenge you to do it, and I hope you will do it damned quickly.”
    Lou Russell, apparently thinking Hiss might strike Chambers, walked up to him and took him by the arm. Hiss recoiled as if he had been pricked with a hot needle and turned on Russell. His voice was shrill now. “I am not going to touch him. You are touching me.”
    â€œPlease sit down, Mr. Hiss,” Russell said.
    Hiss shot back, “I will sit down when the Chairman asks me.”
    McDowell called for order and the questioning resumed. Hiss continued to deny vehemently the rest of Chambers’ testimony. He denied that he was a Communist, that he knew Crosley as a Communist, or that there was anything unusual in giving his car away to a magazine writer he hardly knew.
    Stripling again raised the point of his insisting on seeing Chambers’ teeth before he could identify him. Hiss replied, “I wouldn’t have been able to identify him for certain today without his own assistance.”
    â€œYou are willing to waive the dentures?”
    Hiss answered: “I am, on the basis of his own testimony. That is good enough for me.”
    The hearing came to an end with the feeling that a great hurdle had been surmounted: the two men had confronted one another and their pasts were linked. The inextricable chain of events that wouldultimately send Alger Hiss to prison had been set in motion and Hiss must have sensed this. McDowell adjourned the hearing, saying, “That is all. Thank you very much.”
    â€œI don’t reciprocate,” Hiss snapped in response.
    â€¢Â Â â€¢Â Â â€¢
    I should have been elated. The case was broken. The Committee would be vindicated and I personally would receive credit for the part I had played. We had succeeded in preventing injustice being done to a truthful man and were now on the way to bringing an untruthful man to justice. Politically, we would now be able to give the lie to Truman’s