National Affairs: Three Rings

As if it were not complicated enough in itself, the Hiss-Chambers case had become a legal three-ring circus.

In the first ring was the House Un-American Activities Committee, which opened the case last summer when it subpoenaed Whittaker Chambers, heard him confess his past complicity and charge that Alger Hiss had also been a Communist.

After weeks of examining witnesses, the committee had more or less dropped the case, without having developed sufficient evidence to prove whether Hiss or Chambers was lying. But Alger Hiss did not drop the case. After Chambers repeated his charges over radio's Meet the Press program, Hiss filed...