He grew up shabby-genteel in Baltimore, Maryland, but he gazes out of a 1945 photograph like one of nature's born aristocrats. The face, at age 41, is lean and boyishly handsome, the hair neatly trimmed; there is a casual elegance about his dress. But the dominant features are the eyes: alert, mischievous, wary, playful, like those of an actor savoring the potential of a new role, a fresh persona. Despite the thousands of words written by and about him, Alger Hiss, who died last week at 92, remains one of the most tantalizing figures of the cold war. His 1949 trial...
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