Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1483591 in Books
• Published on: 1998-07-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 656 pages

Synopsis
Featuring a full account of the Alger Hiss perjury case, a biography of Hiss' accuser traces Chambers' life from his years as a Soviet agent to his role in the postwar anti-Communist movement.

From the Author
The first biography of Alger Hiss's accuser
Fifty years after giving the testimony that sent Alger Hiss to prison, Whittaker Chambers remains one of the most controversial and enigmatic Americans of the 20th century. In this, the first biography of Chambers , I sought to recapture both the man and his times.

Many think of Chambers as the unsavory turncoat who betrayed Alger Hiss. In fact Chambers was far more complicated than that: a man of brilliant gifts who abandoned a promising literary career in order to serve in the Communist underground during the depths of the Great Depression. After he broke with the movement, in 1937-38, he went into hiding for a year, with the KGB in pursuit, and emerged a dedicated enemy of Stalinism. In 1939, he secured a job with Time magazine and became Henry Luce's star writer. The two teamed up to make Time a forum of anticommunism. In 1944-45, Chambers foretold, with remarkable prescience, the coming domination of Stalinism in Central/Eastern Europe and in China.

In August 1948, at the apex of his renown as a journalist, Chambers was summoned to Washington to testify about his past as a Communist agent. Fully aware his reputation would be ruined, he reluctantly spoke the truth, naming several New Deal officials who had been his accomplices, including Alger Hiss, a senior State Department official who had been at FDR's side at Yalta.

When Hiss denied the charges, only one man believed Chambers: freshman congressman Richard M. Nixon, who at age 35 commandeered the Hiss Case and prosecuted Hiss with great zeal and skill. The case culminated in the greatest political trial of the 20th century. It ended with Hiss's conviction. Two weeks later Sen. Joseph McCarthy began his destructive rampage. And two years later Nixon became Vice President.

Chambers, for his part, retreated to his farm in Maryland and became the lodestar of the emerging conservative movement, serving as mentor to William F. Buckley, Jr. and others. He also wrote an autiobiography, "Witness," which stands today as an American! classic. He died in 1961, despised by many, revered by others. In the words of his friend Arthur Koestler, Chambers was "the most misunderstood person of our time." "Whittaker Chambers" won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize.

Customer Reviews

indispensable to an understanding of 'The Case'
The Hiss/Chambers case was as divisive in American intellectual life as the Dreyfus Affair was in France. Now that the preponderance of evidence and objective opinion upholds Chambers' side (a reversal of the conventional wisdom of the Cold War era) and Hiss's few straggling defenders have retreated into the cave of The Nation, this brilliant biography is most welcome. It is doubtless difficult reading for anyone without an interest in the case, but for those who have such, it is an indispensable companion to 'Witness' (Chamber's autobiography), and Weinstein's 'Perjury', for a complete understanding of the case. Chambers was truly a prophet without honor in his own land.

Not up to the Imus Book Awards Hype
If knowledge of the Hiss Case is indispensable to your life I guess that you have to read the Tanenhaus version. The author claims that some of the transcrips from the various hearings and the trial are published here for the first time.

The book falls down, however, on two major fronts. First the author does practically nothing to relate Chambers' life to American life. You would hardly know, for instance, that World War II was occurring during Chambers' career at TIME, when Chambers was attempting (single handedly, you would think) to turn back the tide of Communism.

Furthermore, the author tells a story poorly, particularly in the early stages of the book when Tanenhaus is narrating Chambers' life in the Party. Many gaps: Tanenhaus mentions people, assuming that he has already told us who they are. The editors must share the fault here.

This disjointed narrative, which should have set the stage for greater appreciation of the hearings and the trial, therefore, falls short.

I still don't like biographies
I usually don't like biographies, but I gave this book a fair chance. I found it to be mostly dull, and I didn't feel any of the urgency or levity that I would have expected. I didn't live in this era, however, I knew the names and faces of some of the big players. I spent the whole time I read this book wondering why this guy?

If you like books that take forever and never end, check this one out.