Whittaker Chambers Remembered

Twenty-five years ago, on July 9, Whittaker Chambers died. He was born on April Fools’ Day in 1901; he died, then, by contemporary standards, a relatively young man. When he agreed to give witness, he resigned from the editorial board of Time magazine, an act both of chivalry and of duty: Time would need, in the months ahead, to report on the greatest courtroom drama since William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow fought about whether we are descended from apes or angels. The second trial was in a sense a continuation of the first. If Communism prevails, then that in man which is in imitation of the beast, rather than of God, will reign.

In 1957, Whittaker Chambers re-entered professional life by joining national review as a senior editor. He was with us only briefly, a year and a half approximately, before he suffered another heart attack, the penultimate attack. He continued to write for this journal from time to time and, with some frequency, to its editor, letters published in Odyssey of a Friend (Putnam, 1969). Chambers’s presence continues to be felt in these premises by all who experienced him. We remark the 25 years since his death by publishing two short essays, the first by one of Chambers’s closest friends, the gifted Ralph de Toledano, the second by a young writer, Terry Teachout, born about the time Chambers died. Both are eloquent, and suggest that Christendom will—if it survives—remember always, with gratitude and reverence, Whittaker Chambers.

RT

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Ralph de Toledano

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Whittaker Chambers

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Twenty-five years ago, on July 9, Whittaker Chambers died. He was born on April Fools’ Day in 1901; he died, then, by contemporary standards, a relatively young man. When he agreed to give witness, he resigned from the editorial board of Time magazine, an act both of chivalry and of duty: Time would need, in the months ahead, to report on the greatest courtroom drama since William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow fought about whether we are descended from apes or angels. The second trial was in a sense a continuation of the first. If Communism prevails, then that in man which is in imitation of the beast, rather than of God, will reign.

In 1957, Whittaker Chambers re-entered professional life by joining national review as a senior editor. He was with us only briefly, a year and a half approximately, before he suffered another heart attack, the penultimate attack. He continued to write for this journal from time to time and, with some frequency, to its editor, letters published in Odyssey of a Friend (Putnam, 1969). Chambers’s presence continues to be felt in these premises by all who experienced him. We remark the 25 years since his death by publishing two short essays, the first by one of Chambers’s closest friends, the gifted Ralph de Toledano, the second by a young writer, Terry Teachout, born about the time Chambers died. Both are eloquent, and suggest that Christendom will—if it survives—remember always, with gratitude and reverence, Whittaker Chambers.