Free Six Crises by Richard Nixon Page B

contemptuous dismissal of our hearings as a “red herring.”
    However, I experienced a sense of letdown which is difficult to describe or even to understand. I had carried great responsibility in the two weeks since August 3, and the battle had been a hard one. Now I began to feel the fatigue of which I had not been aware while the crisis was at its peak. There was also a sense of shock and sadness that a man like Hiss could have fallen so low. I imagined myself in his place and wondered how he would feel when his family and friends learned the true story of his involvement with Chambers and the Communist conspiracy. It is not a pleasant picture to see a whole brilliant career destroyed before your eyes. I realized that Hiss stood before us completely unmasked—our hearing had saved one life, but had ruined another.
    But this case involved far more than the personal fortunes of Hiss, Chambers, myself, or the members of our Committee. It involved the security of the whole nation and the cause of free men everywhere. When I thought of the lengths to which Hiss had been willing to go to destroy Chambers and the Committee as well, I knew that he was fighting his battle without regard to its effect on him or anybody else, individually or personally.
    The next morning I learned a fundamental rule of conduct in crises. The point of greatest danger is not in preparing to meet the crisis or fighting the battle; it occurs after the crisis of battle is over, regardless of whether it has resulted in victory or defeat. The individual is spent physically, emotionally, and mentally. He lets down. Then if he is confronted with another battle, even a minor skirmish, he is prone to drop his guard and to err in his judgment.
    Alger Hiss brought his wife, Priscilla, to the same room in the Commodore Hotel the next day to corroborate his story about Crosley.Thomas and McDowell had returned to Washington, and I was the only member of the Committee present. As I read the record now, thirteen years later, I realize the opportunity I missed in failing to question her as thoroughly as I had Hiss.
    There were several reasons for that failure. I was tired. I thought that after our major break-through with Hiss the night before, Mrs. Hiss’s testimony was not too important. I felt, in other words, that the battle was won, that I could afford to relax. Undoubtedly, I subconsciously reacted to the fact that she was a woman, and that the simple rules of courtesy applied.
    She played her part with superb skill. When I asked her to take the oath to tell the truth, she inquired demurely if she could “affirm” rather than “swear.” Subtly, she was reminding me of our common Quaker background. When I asked her about Crosley, she said, “I don’t think I can really be said to have been acquainted with him at all.” She remembered hardly anything about Crosley or his wife. “It all seems very long ago and vague.”
    Offering her vague impression of Crosley, she said, “I think the polite word for it is probably I think he was a sponger. I don’t know whether you have ever had guests, unwelcome guests, guests that weren’t guests, you know.”
    She succeeded completely in convincing me that she was nervous and frightened, and I did not press her further. I should have remembered that Chambers had described her as, if anything, a more fanatical Communist than Hiss. I could have made a devastating record had I also remembered that even a woman who happens to be a Quaker and then turns to Communism must be a Communist first and a Quaker second. But I dropped the ball and was responsible for not exploiting what could have been a second break-through in the case. 6
    I was never to make that same error again. In the years ahead I would never forget that where the battle against Communism is concerned, victories are never final so long as the Communists are still able to fight. There is never a time when