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Had he, Alger Hiss, or his wife, ever turned over any of these documents to Chambers? Said Hiss: "Never." Would Hiss say that he had never seen Chambers after Jan. 1, 1937? Said Hiss: "Yes." On the basis of those two answers, and on the basis of the evidence already presented, the grand jury indicted Hiss for perjury. In June 1949, he was brought to trial.
The Corroborative Evidence. Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Murphy had declared in the beginning: "If you don't believe Chambers we have no case under the federal perjury law." Later he amended this: the Government would present evidence to corroborate Chambers' word. For many people, however, it was still simply Chambers' word against Hiss's, and defense attorneys spared no effort to discredit the stocky, 50-year-old editor, writer and farmer, who was himself an admitted perjurer, who had once betrayed his country. The defense attorney in the first trial called Chambers a "moral leper," in the second, with the help of psychiatric testimony, a "pathological liar."
Against him stood Hiss, handsome and confident-looking, vouched for by more than a score of character witnesses, including Supreme Court Justices Frankfurter and Reed (at the first trial; they did not reappear at the second). Many people agreed with Hiss, who had once said: "It is inconceivable that there could have been on my part, during 15 years or more in public office . . . any departure from the highest rectitude without its being known." Where did the truth lie—with the admitted perjurer or with the man of rectitude?
The jury examined Murphy's corroborative case. There were the 42 documents unquestionably typed on the Hisses' Woodstock typewriter; the four notes in Hiss's handwriting, the dates on the documents (the first three months of 1938); the evidence that the typewriter must have been in the Hisses' possession during that time; Chambers' testimony that Hiss had lent him $400 to buy a car in November 1937, and the withdrawal of $400 from Hiss's bank account just a few days before; the Chamberses' detailed accounts of the Hiss homes which the Chamberses said they had visited during those critical years; the Chamberses' onetime maid who identified Alger and Priscilla Hiss as callers.
The defense had explanations for some of these points. It was able to challenge the accuracy of the Chambers memory in some details. It was able to raise doubts about others. But it was not able to destroy the overall effect of Murphy's whole, corroborative case. In particular, the defense was never able to explain away the documents and the Woodstock typewriter. The second jury found Hiss guilty.
Hiss made one last statement: "I am confident that in the future the full facts showing how Whittaker Chambers was able to carry out forgery by typewriter will be developed." Federal Judge Henry Goddard, who had told the jury it had rendered a just verdict, made no comment to Hiss, quietly sentenced him to five years in prison.