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Jay Vivian (David Whittaker) Chambers (April 1, 1901 – July 9, 1961) was an American writer, editor, Communist party-member-turned-defector, best known for his testimony about the espionage and subversion of Alger Hiss.

Biography

Youth and Education

Whittaker Chambers' father, Jay Chambers, was an illustrator and part of the New York-based "Decorative Designers" group, largely students of Howard Pyle (see the IOBA Standard, the Revere Collection, the Minsky Gallery, Oberlin College, and the Lewis Stark Bookplate Collection): his grandfather, James Chambers, was an editor for the now-defunct Philadelphia Public Ledger newspaper. Chambers was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and spent much of his youth in Brooklyn and Long Island, New York (see photos of Lynbrook house and map). After graduating from high school in 1919, he worked for two years in a bank before enrolling in Columbia University in 1921. University officials later found that much of his application for admission included references that did not exist. Classmates included Louis Zukofsky, Lionel Trilling (who later made him a main character in Middle of the Journey) and Meyer Schapiro; Mark Van Doren was a mentor who helped introduce him to Communism. He was expelled in 1922 for a blasphemous play as well as failing to attend classes and poor grades.

Communism and Defection

In 1925, Chambers joined the American Communist Party and wrote and edited for communist periodicals, including The Daily Worker and The New Masses. Chambers joined the Communist underground in the spring of 1932. It is claimed that in 1933 he was sent to Moscow for intelligence training, but Chambers always denied this, the incident having been based on a prank postcard he sent to friend Meyer Schapiro. His main controller in the underground was Josef Peters (whom Earl Browder later replaced with Rudy Baker). People involved or associated with Chambers included: William Spiegel, Arvid Jacobson, Joshua Tamer, David Zimmerman, John Scott, Frederick Vanderbilt Field, Viktor Vasilevish Sveshchnikov, David Weintraub, and Grace Lumpkin (friend of Chambers' wife).

The Ware Group
Peters introduced Chambers to Harold Ware, head of the Ware group, a Communist underground cell in Washington that included Alger Hiss, Henry Collins, and Lee Pressman, all members of Franklin D. Roosevelt's "New Deal" administration; Hiss took a job on the legal staff of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration. Chambers worked in Washington as an organizer among Communists in the city and as a courier between New York and Washington for stolen documents which where delivered to Boris Bykov, the GRU Illegal Rezident (the chief of the NKVD or GRU station in the country of destination).

He carried on in this capacity from 1934 until 1938, when, alienated by the Great Purge of Josef Stalin, he left the Communist party. In Witness (see bibliography, below), Chambers described his effort to convince Hiss to leave the party, too.

Chambers saved a collection of documents he received from Hiss to protect himself and his family against retribution from the secret apparatus as occurred in the Juliet Poyntz case. Ten years later they became known as the "Pumpkin Papers" (see below).

Members of the Karl group
"Karl" and "Carl" were cryptonyms used by Chambers in the mid-1930s as courier between the CPUSA secret apparatus and Soviet intelligence. It appears that after the mysterious death of the NKVD Illegal Rezident Valentin Markin in August 1934, within days the Karl group was transferred to the GRU Illegal Rezident Boris Bykov. Members included:

Defection
After leaving the Communist party in late 1939, following the Soviet-Nazi a non-aggression pact, Chambers approached Assistant Secretary of State Adolf Berle with information about Communist activity within the United States. In the wake of World War II, Chambers' story was mostly ignored despite being aired at all levels of Franklin Roosevelt's administration, including FDR himself, given that Hiss was being promoted within the party and to an advisory level for the President.

In 1940, Chambers joined the staff of TIME Magazine. Starting at the back of the magazine, reviewing books and film with James Agee, he would eventually rise to the position of a senior editor. While at TIME, Chambers became known as a staunch anti-Communist, sometimes enraging his writers with the changes he made to their stories. Some colleagues, led by Richard Lauterbach and Theodore White, tried to have publisher Henry Luce remove him. Chambers, a bisexual, developed an obsession with the writer John Steinbeck, who he had never met. His hostility toward the writer had several motivations and he alerted FBI director Hoover to place him under surveillance as a possible subversive.

The Hiss Case: "Trial of the Century"

Post-WWII investigations by the House Un-American Activities Committee into communist activities led to Elizabeth Bentley and eventually to Chambers. Chambers testified about members of an underground communist network working within the United States government in the 1930s and 1940s (see testimony transcript). His story caught the attention of a HUAC committee member, a freshman Representative from California named Richard Nixon.

During testimony on August 3, 1948, Chambers mentioned Hiss, by then a State Department official who had participated in the creation of the United Nations. Hiss confronted Chambers on August 17, 1948 (see transcript testimony). The official White House response was to dismiss the case as a "red herring." Internally, White House staffers set about discrediting Chambers.

Hiss was well educated, had a long list of achievements to his name, and vehemently denied the charges. Hiss had credibility; Chambers seemed a fanatic whose story was fantastic, with little hard evidence. Hiss and supporters maligned Chambers in the press, including rumors and accusations of homosexual experiences, a source of discussion to the present *. Other detractors ranged from Charles Douglas Jackson to Lillian Hellman.

Initially, Hiss denied knowing Chambers, but later he recognized him as "George Crosley." When Chambers finally took Hiss' bait and outside of court called him a communist (on the radio program "Meet the Press"), Hiss filed a $75,000 libel suit. Not long afterwards and with professed reluctance, Chambers announced the existence of stolen documents which would prove Hiss' communist activities. Announcing their existence one Friday, Chambers hid them in a hollowed-out pumpkin on his farm over the weekend after, then led HUAC investigators to the pumpkin the following Monday, where he produced four rolls of microfilm, hence their name, the "Pumpkin Papers") from his farm in Westminster, Maryland. Nixon's posing with a magnifying glass and microfilmed papers appeared in a number of highly publicized photographs (see *," target="_blank" >*).

A first Hiss trial began in 1949 and ended in a hung jury; a second trial ended with Hiss' conviction of perjury (the statute of limitations had run out on treason) on January 21, 1950 for lying about being a spy while under oath. The Hiss defense team hired a noted psychiatrist who had correctly profiled Adolph Hitler for the OSS. His profile of Chambers was that he was a highly intelligent sociopath that would be difficult to cross examine as he was a skilled liar with an obsession for destruction.

Life after the Hiss Case

Writings
While the Hiss trial propelled Nixon's political career, Chambers derived little benefit. A social pariah, Chambers retreated to work on his Maryland farm. He wrote an autobiography, Witness (1952), which became a bestseller for almost a year -- helping to offset legal expenses accumulated since 1948 (most of Hiss' expenses were borne by friends). Before his death, Chambers served briefly as senior editor of William F. Buckley Jr.'s National Review. He also wrote for Fortune and Life magazines. He was for a time a member of the American Committee for Cultural Freedom (see letter by Sol Stein to The New York Times) but only while invalided by heart attacks, as related in his posthumous book Cold Friday (see bibliography, below).

Suffering from angina from the age of 38, Chambers died of his seventh major heart attack on July 9, 1961, at the age of 60 (see TIME obituary). A second book, Cold Friday, was published posthumously in 1964 with the help of Duncan Norton Taylor. The book predicted that the fall of Communism would start in the satellite states surrounding the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe.

Presidential Medal of Freedom
In 1984, President Ronald Reagan posthumously awarded Chambers the Presidential Medal of Freedom, for his contribution to "the century's epic struggle between freedom and totalitarianism" (full citation, [http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/09/reviews/chambers-letter.html).

In 1988, Chambers' farm, the Pipe Creek Farm, was added to the National Register after some public debate[http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=travel&res=940DE0DD173EF932A15750C0A96E948260 , now listed by the Maryland Historic Trust.

Legacy

Chambers's book Witness is on the reading lists of the Heritage Foundation, The Weekly Standard, and the Russel Kirk Center. He is regularly cited by conservative writers, including Heritage's president Edwin Feulner ("The Revolution of Truth: 2005 Commencement Address to the Thomas More College of Liberal Arts" of May 26, 2005) the Hudson Institute's William Schambra (Michael Joyce's Mission of March 9, 2006 ]) and David Horowitz ("Radical Son Radical Son" of May 22, 1998) and continued arguments over the Hiss Case with Victor Navasky's The Nation ("David Horowitz's Long March" of July 3, 2000). In 2001, members of the Bush Administration held a private ceremony to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of Chambers' birth (*," target="_blank" >*, *).

(There is even a Pumpkin Papers Blog.)

While international figures like Andre Malraux and Arthur Koestler no longer concern themselves with the matter, American debate about the Hiss-Chambers case remains vigorous to the present day. Publication of books on the subject continues at a steady pace in the new millennium, and Chambers remains an important figure in partisan as well as general writings With the selection of Allen Weinstein as head of the U.S. National Archives, basic facts of the case have re-entered the media once again, due to Weinstein's refusal to publicize sources for Perjury (*" target="_blank" >[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14555-2005Mar30_3.html.

Bibliography

Books by Chambers

After its publication, Witness remained on bestseller lists (see TIME listing for 1952) for well over a year – paying Chambers' court debts. Cold Friday was published posthumously by his widow.

  • Svedek (Prague: Conservative Institute, 2005) Czech translation – also for Slovak
  • Witness (New York: Random House, 1952) (review in TIME in 1952)
  • Cold Friday (New York: Random House, 1964) with an introduction by Duncan Norton Taylor and Esther Chambers (reviews in TIME and New York Review of Books, National Review)
  • Can You Hear Their Voices? (Poughkeepsie: Experimental Theatre of Vassar College (1931), edited by Hallie Ferguson Flanagan Davis

Writings online by Chambers

Witness

Other

Books translated by Chambers

Having learned German as a child, Chambers relied on translation work to see him through lean times, including the period following his defection. His most enduring translation is of Felix Salten's Bambi,undertaken in 1927 while he was also editing the Daily Worker. He also translated Heinrich Mann and Franz Werfel.

  • Mann, Heinrich. Mother Mary (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1928).
  • Werfel, Franz. Class Reunion (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1929).
  • Salten, Felix. Bambi, A Life in the Woods (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1929), foreword by John Galsworthy.
  • Salten, Felix. Fifteen Rabbits (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1930).
  • Bonsels, Waldemar. The Adventures of Mario (New York: A. and C. Boni, 1930).
  • Edschmid, Kasimir. The Passionate Rebel, the Life of Lord Byron (New York: A. and C. Boni, 1930).
  • Tralow, Johannes. Cards and Kings (New York: R. Long and R. R. Smith, 1931).
  • Noder, Anton. Venetian Lover, the Romance of Giorgione (New York: R. Long and R. R. Smith, 1931).
  • Salten, Felix. Samson and Delilah (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1931).
  • Weirauch, Anna Elisabet. Scorpion (New York: Greenberg, 1933).
  • Salten, Felix. The City Jungle (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1932).
  • Regler, Gustav. Great Crusade (New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1940), with a preface by Ernest Hemingway, translated with Barrows Mussey.
  • Weirauch, Anna Elisabet. The Scorpion (New York: Willey Book Co., 1948), revised edition.

Collections of Chambers' writing

William F. Buckley, Jr. and others have published collections of writings by Whittaker Chambers: none of these collections were published with the consent of the Chambers family.
  • Buckley, William F., Jr. Odyssey of a Friend: Letters to William F. Buckley, Jr., 1954-1961 (New York: Putnam, 1969/1970) (review in TIME)
  • de Toledano, Ralph. Notes from the Underground: The Whittaker Chambers-Ralph de Toledano Letters, 1949-1960 (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishers, 1997).
  • Teachout, Terry. Ghosts on the Roof: Selected Journalism of Whittaker Chambers, 1931-1959 (Washington, DC: Regnery Gateway, 1989).

Video on Chambers (TV, Film)

C-SPAN American Writers on Whittaker Chambers
Episode first aired May 22, 2002:
Other Video on Chambers

Audio on Chambers (Radio and Files)

  • MP3 Whittaker Chambers "close friends" (good quality)
  • RAM radio excerpts from hearings with Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss
  • MP3 "Leadership in Liberal Arts" by Josiah Bunting, includes Whittaker Chambers (2003)
  • Solzhenitsyn and Whittaker Chambers Learn Out Loud (ISI)
  • WPR "Communism & The Cold War"

Caricatures of Chambers

Photos of Chambers' homes

Books on the Hiss-Chambers Case

  • 1950: Ralph de Toledano, Seeds of Treason
  • 1950: Alistair Cooke, A Generation on Trial
  • 1950: Jean Francois Chastellain, Espionnage soviétique aux Etats-Unis, l'affaire Alger Hiss & Cie
  • 1952: Whittaker Chambers, Witness
  • 1953: William Allen Jowitt, The Strange case of Alger Hiss
  • 1955: Murray Kempton, Part of Our Time
  • 1957: Alger Hiss, In the Court of Public Opinion
  • 1958: Fred J. Cook, The Unfinished story of Alger Hiss
  • 1962: Bert Andrews, Peter Andrews, Tragedy of History
  • 1967: Richard Brandon Morris, Fair trial
  • 1967: Meyer A. Zeligs, Friendship and Fratricide
  • 1968: Ronald Seth, Sleeping Truth
  • 1976: John Chabot Smith, Alger Hiss
  • 1977: Tony Hiss, Laughing Last
  • 1978: Allen Weinstein, Perjury (review in TIME)
  • 1979: Morton Levitt, Michael Levitt, Tissue of Lies
  • 1982: Athan G. Theoharis (editor), Beyond the Hiss Case
  • 1983: William A. Reuben, Footnote on an Historic Case
  • 1987: William Howeard Moore, Two Foolish Men
  • 1987: Thomas F. Murphy, Thomas Murphy's cross-examination of Dr. Carl A. Binger in U.S. vs. Alger Hiss
  • 1988: Alger Hiss, Recollections of a Life
  • 1993: Beatrice Gwynn, Whittaker Chambers
  • 1993: Esme J. Worth: Whittaker Chambers
  • 1993: Doreen Rappaport, Alger Hiss Trial
  • 1996: Bob Oeste, Last Pumpkin Paper (novel)
  • 1997: Sam Tanenhaus, Whittaker Chambers (review in New York Times)
  • 2000: Tony Hiss, View from Alger’s Window
  • 2001: Brian Lamb: Booknotes: Stories from American History
  • 2001: Karen Alonso, Alger Hiss Communist Spy Trial
  • 2002: Kathryn S. Olmsted, Red Spy Queen: A Biography of Elizabeth Bentley
  • 2003: Patrick Swan (editor), Alger Hiss, Whittaker Chambers, and the Schism in the American Soul
  • 2004 (reprint): Murray Kempton, Part of Our Time
  • 2004: G. Edward White, Alger Hiss's Looking-Glass Wars *
  • 2005: T. Michael Ruddy, Alger Hiss Espionage Case

See also on Wikipedia

Sources

Sources on Venona

Accused Soviet spies | American communists | History of anti-communism in the United States | Objectivist poets | American Quakers | Venona Appendix B | Critics of Objectivism | Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients | Columbia University alumni | 1901 births | 1961 deaths

Whittaker Chambers | Whittaker Chambers

 

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