Except for a dwindling group— mostly Nation magazine readers and editors—the Zeitgeist has changed concerning Alger Hiss. Beginning with Allen Weinstein’s Perjury (1978), and continuing with Sam Tanenhaus’s Whittaker Chambers (1997) and the decoded Soviet Venona documents, the consensus has solidified: Hiss was undoubtedly a Soviet spy. One might therefore wonder why another book is necessary. The answer is provided by G. Edward White, a law professor at Virginia. What White offers is even more of a surprise when we consider that his late father-in-law was John F. Davis, a member of Hiss’s legal team from 1948 to 1950 who maintained a lifelong belief in Hiss’s innocence.
What White accomplishes in this innovative and brilliant new book is not yet another attempt to show Hiss’s guilt, but rather an examination of how Hiss was both a gifted Soviet agent and “a successful publicizer of his innocence,” able to convince so many people. Why, White asks, was Hiss seen as a sympathetic figure by so many who should have known better—and why did they ignore irrefutable evidence to go on believing him?
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