Search Results - Chambers, Whittaker, 1901-1961

Whittaker Chambers

Whittaker Chambers (born Jay Vivian Chambers; April 1, 1901 – July 9, 1961) was an American author, journalist, and spy. After dropping out of Columbia University, Chambers joined the open Communist Party in 1925. He wrote and edited for the ''New Masses'' and the ''Daily Worker'', before being ordered to go underground as a secret agent for the Soviet intelligence services. From 1932 to 1938 he was part of the clandestine "Ware Group", based in Washington, D.C. Disillusioned by Joseph Stalin's rule and by Communism more broadly, Chambers defected from the Soviet spy ring and eventually found employment at ''Time'' magazine, where he rose to become a senior editor.

Chambers testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1948. Among those whom he accused of membership in the Communist Party was a prominent Washington, D.C. lawyer and former government official, Alger Hiss. Hiss sued Chambers for slander and, in response, Chambers produced evidence of Hiss's activities as a Soviet spy while he had served in the US State Department in the run-up to World War II. Hiss could not be prosecuted for espionage because of the statute of limitations, but he was convicted of perjury in 1950 on the strength of the evidence provided by Chambers. The Hiss case contributed greatly to the Red Scare the 1940s and 1950s and continued to attract attention and controversy for decades.

In 1952, Chambers published a memoir titled ''Witness'', which covered his early life, his conversions first to Communism and then to Christianity, and his involvement in the Hiss case. That book went on to exert a major influence upon anti-communist and conservative political thought in the US during the second half of the 20th century. From 1957 to 1959, Chambers was a senior editor at ''National Review'' magazine. After years of suffering from poor health, Chambers died in 1961 in his farm in Westminster, Maryland. Ronald Reagan, a great admirer of ''Witness'', posthumously awarded Chambers the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1984. Provided by Wikipedia