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Hiss was subpoenaed and questioned. He denied knowing Chambers. Before the grand jury could reach any conclusions, the House Un-American Activities Committee caught the scent and acted. The committee subpoenaed Elizabeth Bentley, graduate of Vassar and, like Chambers, an ex-Communist courier. She named Government officials who, she said, had passed secret documents to her. Then the committee subpoenaed Chambers. He generally corroborated Miss Bentley's story, testified that Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Harry Dexter White, whom she named, was at the least a dupe of the C.P., and repeated not all but a number of the names he had given Berle. He said that espionage was not the primary purpose of the group, but "espionage was certainly one of its eventual objectives." He testified that Priscilla Hiss was also a member of the party. He said that when he broke from the party he had tried to persuade Alger Hiss to break with him. "He cried when we separated," Chambers said, ". . . but he absolutely refused to break." Most of the people he named stood on their constitutional rights and refused to answer the question whether they were Communists. Donald Hiss categorically denied being a Red. Alger Hiss also denied the accusations, and added once more that as far as he could recall he had never in his life seen Chambers, said that he did not recognize his photograph, and declared that he had never even heard of the man until FBI agents asked him about Chambers in 1947. Ailing, 55-year-old Harry White, who also denied that he had ever been a Communist, died a few days later of a heart attack. The
Prothonotary Warbler. The House Committee probed deeper. In secret session, Chambers told them details of some of the Hisses' Washington apartments, of the Hisses' habits and hobbies. Alger Hiss was an amateur ornithologist, Chambers said, and once had told Chambers how he had seen a prothonotary warbler on the banks of the Potomac. In another session with Hiss the com mittee again pressed him. Did he still insist that he did not know Chambers? Would he recognize a man who once spent a week in his house? Hiss at length said that he might have known Chambers after all, but as a free-lance writer—he pulled a notation from his pocket—named "George Crosley." Back in 1934, he now recalled, he had given some help to Crosley. Under questioning he did recall other circumstances of his relationship with Crosley; that he had taken Crosley, his wife and baby into the Hisses' house for a few days; that he sublet his apartment to Crosley but never received any rent from him; that he had let him use his old Ford roadster "with a sassy little trunk on the back"; that he had probably taken Crosley along on one of his trips to New York. They asked Hiss about his hobbies. Ornithology was one, Hiss said. He remembered how once he had seen a prothonotary warbler—on the banks of the Potomac.
Committeemen brought Hiss and Chambers face to face in a New York hotel room. Hiss examined Chambers from every angle, listened to his voice. He had him open his mouth so that he could look at his teeth. He decided finally: "I am now perfectly prepared to identify this man as George Crosley."