(2 of 3)
Stevenson's testimony, said the lawyers, showed on the face of it that he did not know Hiss well. "It might well have occurred to the governor," they went on, "that his testimony was not being sought because he was peculiarly expert on the character or reputation of Hiss ... As a lawyer, he should have been aware that his testimony as a voluntary witness on behalf of Hiss might have been construed by the jury as implying a belief in Hiss's innocence by the governor of Illinois."
Mistrust & Innuendo. In his Cleveland speech, Stevenson also attempted to turn the tables on his opponents. He began with Ike's foreign policy adviser John Foster Dulles. "In December 1946," said Stevenson, "Hiss was chosen to be president of the Carnegie Endowment by the board of trustees, of which John Foster Dulles was chairman." Shortly thereafter, said the governor, Dulles refused to believe a Detroit lawyer who informed him that Hiss had a provable Communist record.
One of the members of the Carnegie Endowment board during Hiss's term as president, Stevenson went on, was General Eisenhower—and Eisenhower was still a member of the board when it twice refused to let Hiss resign after he had been indicted for perjury. Said Stevenson: "I bring these facts to the American people not to suggest that either General Eisenhower or John Foster Dulles is soft toward Communists ... I bring them out only to make the point that the mistrust, the innuendoes, the accusations which this [Republican] 'crusade' is employing threatens not merely themselves, but the integrity of our institutions."
Said Dulles in reply: "I became a witness for the prosecution against Hiss ... I do not criticize Governor Stevenson for responding to the dictates of his conscience. I merely point out that his faith in Hiss outlasted mine . . .Also, Governor Stevenson was misinformed when he said that I was chairman of the Carnegie Endowment board when Hiss was elected president. That is not true. I was elected chairman at the same meeting at which Hiss was elected president . . ."
Precision & Silence. Two days later in Boston, where Democrats fear the Communist issue may cost them Catholic votes, Stevenson declared that the Republicans had done little to combat Communism either abroad or in the U.S. Said he: "Men who seek to fight [Communism] by indiscriminate accusation of their fellow citizens—by spreading suspicion and smear and slander—are serving no one but the Communists themselves ... In fighting Communism at home, I shall rely on such experienced guardians of our security as J. Edgar Hoover of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and General Bedell Smith of the Central Intelligence Agency. These men fight Communism as it must be fought—with care, thoroughness, precision and silence."
Republicans thought they were getting the better of this argument over Stevenson's testimony in the Hiss case. In a weekend speech, Nixon summed up the G.O.P. case: "Mr. Stevenson has never expressed one word of indignation at Alger Hiss's treachery. Like Dean Acheson, he says he does not question the legal verdict. But, also like Acheson, to this day he has not 'turned his back on Alger Hiss.' "