Alger Hiss – 1904-1996

Hiss was a distinguished State Department official and adviser to President Franklin D. Roosevelt before and during World War II. He served as temporary secretary-general of the United Nations and as president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace from 1946 to 1949. In 1948, Whittaker Chambers, a self-proclaimed reformed Communist, accused Hiss of passing classified documents to him for transmission to a Soviet agent. Hiss denied the charges; although he was never indicted for espionage, he was tried and convicted of perjury. He served more than three years of a five-year sentence and spent the rest of his life in an effort to prove his innocence—and was frequently cited by the American left as an example of right-wing persecution. (Soviet documents released after Hiss’s death in 1996 provide strong evidence of his guilt.)