Communist Infiltration

Even before World War II, the Soviet Union (U.S.S.R.) and its communism became an enemy of the freedom embraced by the United States. Soon there was infiltration by communists into American government. The Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic bomb for the United States (so named because its first office was in Manhattan), had at least two spies who independently leaked secrets to the communist Soviet Union during World War II.

After the war, in 1947, President Truman instituted Loyalty Boards to check on government employees to ensure they were not communists attempting to overthrow our form of government.

From 1948 through 1950, a young congressman (and future president) named Richard Nixon held hearings for the House Un-American Activities Committee, which investigated communists who had infiltrated government and Hollywood. The most important hearings concerned the investigation into Alger Hiss, one of FDR's top aides who continued to hold key positions in government and decision-making. Hiss dramatically denied that he was a communist, but it was later proven that he was. The Committee also investigated the "Hollywood Ten" to try to root out communism in Hollywood.

Alger Hiss was exposed by Whittaker Chambers, a former homosexual communist who converted to Christianity, married, started a family, and then testified against Hiss. Chambers, a writer for Time magazine, described in vivid detail his communications and meetings with Hiss, yet Hiss denied it with equal vigor at the hearings. At times Hiss had the better of the congressmen in the hearing, as when he as presented with a picture of Chambers for identification purposes. Hiss said it resembled many people, including one of the congressmen on the committee! The crowd roared with laughter at the expense of the committee, including Nixon himself. Nixon was furious, and he intensely disliked the wealthier and more urbane Hiss. In contrast, Nixon trusted Chambers; they were both Quakers.

Chambers had informed the committee about how Hiss was a bird-watcher who once saw a rare prothonotory warbler while walking along the Potomac River in D.C. The committee asked Hiss about whether he had seen such an unusual bird. Anxious to show off, Hiss bragged about he had seen this rare bird one morning along the Potomac River. That convinced the committee that Hiss was exactly who Chambers said Hiss was: a lying communist.

In another dramatic moment, Chambers recalled that he had received secret documents from Hiss on microfilm, which Chambers had hidden inside pumpkins on his farm in rural Maryland. Nixon actually drove out to the farm with Chambers and opened up the pumpkins to find microfilm just as Chambers said. Chambers, a brilliant writer, also penned a book about his life as a communist called "Witness", which remains a classic to this day and students may find it fascinating.

Eventually Hiss was convicted of perjury (lying during his testimony), and served five years in jail. He maintained his innocence for the rest of his life but when communism ended in the Soviet Union and documents about spies were released in the 1990s (the Venona project), it was proven that Hiss was indeed a communist spy. Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan concluded in a special government investigation in the late 1990s, "Hiss was indeed a Soviet agent and appears to have been regarded by Moscow as its most important."^[9] The cause of Hiss's communism appeared to be this: he fell in with the communist movement after marrying a communist woman who was unrepentant after having an abortion.^[10]

In the 1950s, another controversial trial was the conviction of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg for selling atomic bomb secrets to the Soviet Union. They were executed. For decades some defended the Rosenbergs and asserted their innocence, but in September 2008 the co-conspirator Morton Sobell, age 91, admitted to the New York Times that Julius really was guilty.^[11] He also confirmed the view of historians that Ethel knew about the conspiracy but was not an active participant.