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Minor Statesman. Then Alger Hiss took the stand. Neat and grave in a crisp summer suit, he was sworn in. He was not and he had never been a Communist; he had never given Chambers any documents, he said. He modestly recounted the story of his life and the many achievements in his successful career, from Harvard to the State Department where he served eleven years—to Dumbarton Oaks where he kept the records of the conference—to Yalta where, in the words of Stryker, he "was privy to the security arrangements for our President"—to the San Francisco meeting where the United Nations was born. There he had worked with the world's statesmen: Marshall, Smuts, Eden, Soong. The pages of history turned in the federal courtroom. Here was a minor but respected actor in those great events, smiling diffidently.
Stryker broke in once: "I'm having a hard time . . . because you are so modest, Mr. Hiss . . . Who brought the U.N. charter back to the President?"
"I was the one picked," said Hiss.
Friend Crosley. "Now tell his Honor . . . when you first met the person who now calls himself Chambers."
Ten months ago, before the House Un-American Activities Committee, Hiss had answered the same kind of questions with careful equivocation. He had admitted knowing Chambers as "George Crosley" only after being confronted with overwhelming evidence of Chambers' past relations with him and after seeing him in the flesh and looking in his mouth. He had hedged virtually every statement then. But now he answered sharply and unequivocally as Stryker questioned him.
He retold his story of a casual relationship with a journalist whom he said he knew only as "Crosley." He had befriended Crosley by subletting him his apartment, and even, for a few days, taking Crosley, his wife and child into his own house. He reiterated his story that he had made Crosley a present of his 1929 Ford. On many occasions he had lent his casual acquaintance small sums of money. Finally, in May or June of 1936, he had broken off "any further contacts" with Crosley who still owed him rent and some $25 in small loans.
New Impressions. He had never seen "Crosley" again until he was confronted with Chambers in August. Chambers was never, "with my permission," in the Volta Place, Georgetown, house which Hiss occupied in 1938.
Neither Hiss nor his wife had ever typed any of the secret documents, he insisted. Any number of people had had access to his office while he was in the State Department. He altered one detail of his previous story. He had told the Grand Jury in December that his "impression" was that he had had the old Woodstock when he lived at Volta Place. His impression had changed. What had changed it? The information he had got from the Catletts, he said.
"You have entered your plea of not guilty," Stryker said. With hands on the arm of his chair and face lifted, Hiss said in a firm voice: "I am not guilty." Said Stryker: "Your witness, Mr. Murphy."
This week, big Tom Murphy began his patient, laborious cross-examination of the well-vouched-for Alger Hiss.