(August 5, 1948)
Mr. MUNDT. Call the next witness, Mr. STRIPLING.
Mr. STRIPLING. Mr. Alger Hiss.
Mr. MUNDT. Are you Mr. Alger Hiss?
Mr. HISS. Yes; I am.
Mr. MUNDT. Please stand and be sworn. Do you solemnly swear the testimony you are about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
Mr. HISS. I do.
Mr. MUNDT. Be seated.
TESTIMONY OF ALGER HISS
Mr. HISS. Mr. Chairman, may I be permitted to make a brief statement to the committee?
Mr. MUNDT. You may.
Mr. STRIPLING. Before you proceed, I want you to give the committee your full name and your present address.
Mr. HISS. My name is Alger Hiss. My residence is 22 East Eighth Street, New York City.
Mr. RANKIN. Will you please give your age and place of birth?
Mr. HISS. I was born in Baltimore. Md., on November 11, 1904. I am here at my own request to deny unqualifiedly various statements about me which were made before this committee by one Whittaker Chambers the day before yesterday. I appreciate the Committee's having promptly granted my request. I welcome the opportumty to answer to the best of my ability any inquiries the members of this committee may wish to ask me.
I am not and never have been a member of the Communist Party. I do not and never have adhered to the tenets of the Communist Party. I am not and never have been a member of any Communist-front organization. I have never followed the Communist Party line, directly or indirectly. To the best of my knowledge, none of my friends is a
Communist. As a State Department official, I have had contacts with representatives of foreign goverrnments, some of whom have undoubtedly been members of the Communist Party, as, for example, representatives of the Soviet Government. My contacts with any foreign representative who could possibly have been a Communist have been strictly official.
To the best of my knowledge. I never heard of Whittaker Chambers until in 1947, when two representatives of the Federal Bureau of Investigation asked me if I knew him and various other people, some of whom I knew and smue of whom I did not know. I said I did not know Chambers. So far as I know, I have never laid eyes on him, and I should like to have the opportunity to do so.
I have known Henry Collins since we were boys in camp together. I knew him again while he was at the Harvard Business School while I was at the Harvard Law School, and I have seen him from time to time since I came to Washington in 1933.
Lee Pressman was in my class at the Harvard Law School and we were both on the Harvard Law Review at the same time. We were also both assistants to Judge Jerome Frank on the legal staff of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration. Since I left the Department of Agriculture I have seen him only occasionally and infrequently. I left the Department, according to my recollection, in 1935.
Witt and Abt were both members of the legal staff of the AAA. I knew them both in that capacity. I believe I met Witt in New York a year or so before I came to Washington. I came to Washington in 1933. We were both practicing law in New York at the time I think I met Witt.
Kramer was in another office of the AAA, and I met him in that connection.
I have seen none of these last three men I have mentioned except most infrequently since I left the Department of Agriculture.
I don't believe I ever knew Victor Perlo.
Except as I have indicated, the statements made about me by Mr. Chambers are complete fabrications. I think my record in the Government service speaks for itself.
Mr. MUNDT. Does that conclude your statement, Mr. Hiss?
Mr. HISS. It does.
Mr. MUNDT. Mr. Stripling, have you any questions?
Mr. STRIPLING. Mr. Chairman, while the witness answered some of my questions, I wish to proceed to ask direct questions and get direct replies.
Mr. MUNDT. You may proceed.
Mr. STRIPLING. Mr. Hiss, would you give the committee a resume of your educational background, please. .
MI'. HISS. I was educated in the public schools of Baltimore. I spent 1 year after leaving the Baltimore City College, a high school, after graduating there at a preparatory school in Massachusetts. I then entered Johns Hopkins University from which I graduated with an A. B. degree in 1926. I then entered the Harvard Law School from which I graduated in 1929.
Mr. STRIPLING. Would you now give the committee a brief resume of your Federal employment?
Mr. HISS. My first employment with the Federal Government was immediately after my graduation from law school when I served as a secretary to one of the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. I then went into private practice in Boston and New York for a period of 3 years or so, and came to Washington on the request of Government officials in May 1933 as an assistant general counsel to the Agricultural Adjustment Administration.
Mr. RANKIN. Will you give the name of that Justice, please?
Mr. HISS. The J ustiee was Oliver Wendell Holmes.
Mr. NIXON. Would you please give the names of the Government officials who requested you to come to \Vashington with the AAA?
Mr. HISS. Yes. Judge Jerome Frank was general counsel. He requested me to come to Washington to be an assistant on his staff.
Mr. NIXON. You said it in the plural. Was he the only one then?
Mr. HISS. There were some others. Is it necessary? There are so many witnesses who use names rather loosely before your committee, and I would rather limit myself.
Mr. NIXON. You made the statement
Mr. HISS. The statement is correct.
Mr. NIXON. I don't question its correctness, but you indicated that several Government officials requested you to come here and you have issued a categorical denial to certain statements that were made by Mr. Chambers concerning people that you were associated with in Government. I think it would make your case much stronger if you would indicate what Government officials.
Mr. HISS. Mr. Nixon, regardless of whether it strengthens my case or not, I would prefer, unless you insist, not to mention any names in my testimony that I don't feel are absolutely necessary. If you insist on a direct answer to your question, I will comply.
Mr. NIXON. I would like to have a direct answer to the question.
Mr. HISS. Another official of the Government of the United States who strongly urged me to come to Washington after I had told Judge Frank I did not think I could financially afford to do so-and I am answering this only because you ask it-was Justice Felix Frankfurter.
Mr. NIXON. Is that all?
Mr. HISS. That is all I care to say now.
Mr. NIXON. There were other officials, however?
Mr. HISS. When I came to Washington for interviews with respect to my proposed appointment, I also talked naturally to the Administrator of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, who would have been my main chief. His name was George Peek. The co-Administrator was Charles Bryan. Both of them urged me to join the legal staff.
Mr. NIXON. That completes the group?
Mr. HISS. That completes it as far as I am concerned. I might think of a few others.
Mr. STRIPLING. Would you continue then with the chronology of your Government employment?
Mr. HISS. A Senate committee known as the Committee Investigating the Munitions Industry, of which Senator Nye was the chairman, formally requested the Department of Agriculture to lend my services to that committee in its invesdgations as their counsel. That permission was granted and I served on the staff of the Senate committee. I haven't checked the dates recently, but my recollection is that this was either early in 1934 or the latter part of 1933. I think
it was early in 1934 when I first started on that committee.
Mr. STRIPLING. What was your capacity?
Mr. HISS. I was counsel. The technical title was legal assistant.
Mr. STRIPLING. Go right ahead.
Mr. HISS. When I left the Senate committee I was next employed in the office of the Solicitor General of the United States at my request, Mr. NIXON. I applied to the Solictor General for a position. There was then before that office the constitutionality of the Agricultural Adjustment Act. I was much interested in that, having worked on many legal and administrative phases of the act, and I desired to work on that case. The then Solicitor General hired me. I remained until that case was through.
Mr. RANKIN. Who was the Solicitor General at that time?
Mr. HISS. Now Mr. Justice Stanley Reed. While I was still in the Solicitor General's office, one of the cases I was working on involved the constitutionality of the Trade Agreement Act. Mr. Francis B. Sayre, then Assistant Secretary of State in charge of the Trade Agreements Act, asked me to come to his office as his assistant to supervise the
preparation within the Department of State of the constitutional arguments on the Trade Agreements Act. I did so and I remained in the Department of State in various capacities until January 15, 1947. I entered the Department of State, I think it was, in September, 1936. I resigned in January, 1947, to accept the appointment to my present position in private life to which I had been elected the preceding December.
Mr. RANKIN. What is that?
Mr. HISS. I am president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Mr. HEBERT. May I ask the witness a question in connection with his present association?
Mr. MUNDT. Proceed.
Mr. HEBERT. Do you know Mr. John Foster Dulles?
Mr. HISS. I do. He is the chairman of my board of trustees.
Mr. HEBERT. Did he assist you in any way in getting your present position? .
Mr. HISS. He urged me to take my present position.
Mr. HEBERT. Then you are in your present position through the urging of Mr. John Foster Dulles?
Mr. HISS. And other members of the board of trustees.
Mr. HEBERT. But in particular, Mr. Dulles?
Mr. HISS. Mr. Dulles and others.
Mr. HEBERT. But in particular Mr. Dulles?
Mr. HISS. I am afraid I cannot answer it exactly in those terms.
Mr. HEBERT. Was he the leading urgency?
Mr. HISS. He was the chairman of the board of trustees. I don't think he was more urgent for my serviees than some of the other trustees.
Mr.HERBERT. But he first approached you?
Mr. HISS. He first approaehed me.
Mr. MUNDT. In that connection, Mr. Hiss, I would like to ask a question. Did you know at the time you were appointed to this position that you hold with the Camegie Foundation, did you know at the time you were being considered for that position about the fact that Chambers was supposed to have told Secretary Berle that you were a
member of the Communist Party?
Mr. HISS. I did not.
Mr. MUNDT. You had not heard that?
Mr. HISS. I did not.
Mr. McDOWELL. Mr. Chairman, in that connection so much has been said in the last 4 days that I have forgotten entirely what charge was made by Mr. Chambers. Would the chief investigator enlighten me?
Mr. MUNDT. I was going to interrogate the witness about that and I will do that at this time for the benefit of Mr. McDOWELL. Have you seen a transcript?
Mr. HISS. I carefully read the entire transcript of Mr. Chambers' testimony before I came to this committee.
Mr. MUNDT. Then I don't have to go into that in so much detail.
Mr. McDOWELL. I want to find out what was said.
Mr. MUNDT. I am getting to it. I want to say for one member of the committee that it is extremely puzzling that a man who is senior editor of Time Magazine, by the name of ,Whittaker Chambers, whom I had never seen until a day or two ago, and whom you say you have never seen-
Mr. HISS. As far as I know, I have never seen him.
Mr. MUNDT. Should come before this committee and discuss the Communist apparatus working in Washington, which he says is transmitting secrets to the Russian Govemment, and he lists a group of seven people-Nathan ,Witt, Lee Pressman, Vietor Perlo, Charles Kramer, John Abt, Harold ,Ware, Alger Hiss, and Donald Hiss
Mr. HISS. That is eight.
Mr. MUNDT. There seems to be no question about the subversive connections of the six other than the Hiss brothers, and I wonder what possible motive a man ,vho edits Time Magazine, would have for mentioning Donald Hiss and Alger Hiss in connection with those other six.
Mr. HISS. So do I, Mr. Chairman. I have no possible understanding of what could have motivated him. There are many possible motives, I assume, but I am unable to understand it.
Mr. MUNDT. You can appreciate the position of this committee when the name bobs up in connection with those associations.
Mr. HISS. I hope the committee can appreciate my position, too.
Mr. MUNDT. We surely can and that is why we responded with alacrity to your request to be heard.
Mr. HISS. I appreciate that.
Mr. MUNDT. All we are trying to do is find the facts.
Mr. HISS. I wish I could have seen Mr. Chambers before he testified.
Mr. RANKIN. After an the smear attacks against this committee and individual members of this committee in Time magazine, I am not surprised at anything that comes out of anybody connected with it.[Laughter.]
Mr. MUNDT. I believe that answers the situation as far as Mr. McDowell is concerned.
Mr. STRIPLING. Mr. Chairman.
Mr. MUNDT. Mr. STRIPLING.
Mr. STRIPLING. I would like to ask the witness: Mr. Hiss, when did you first hear of these allegations on the part of Mr. Chambers?
Mr. HISS. May I answer that this way, Mr. Stripling? By saying that the night before he testified a reporter for a New York paper called me and said he had received a tip that Chambers was to testify before this committee the next morning and that he would mention me and would call me a Communist.
Mr. STRIPLING. You say you have never seen Mr. Chambers?
Mr. HISS. The name means absolutely nothing to me, Mr. STRIPLING.
Mr. STRIPING. I have here, Mr. Chairman, a picture which was made last Monday by the Associated Press. I understand from people who knew Mr. Chambers during 1934 and '35 that he is much heav:ier today than he was at that time, but I show you this picture, Mr. Hiss, and ask you if vou have ever known an individual who resembles this picture.
Mr. HISS. I would much rather see the individual. I have looked at all the pictures I was able to get hold of in, I think it was, yesterday's paper which had the pictures. If this is a picture of Mr. Chambers, he is not particularly unusual looking. He looks like a lot of people. I might even mistake him for the chairman of this committee. [Laughter.]
Mr. MUNDT. I hope you are wrong in that.
Mr. HISS. I didn't mean to be facetious but very seriously. I would not want to take oath that I have never seen that man. I would like to see him and then I think I would be better able to tell whether I had ever seen him. Is he here today?
Mr. MUNDT. Not to my knowledge.
Mr. HISS. I hoped he would be.
Mr. MUNDT. You realize that this man whose picture you have just looked at, under sworn testimony before this committee, where all the laws of perjury apply, testified that he called at your home, conferred at great length, saw your wife pick up the telephone and call somebody whom he said must have been a Communist, plead with
you to divert yourself from Communist activities, and left you with tears in your eyes, saying, "I simply can't make the sacrifice."
Mr. HISS. I do know that he said that. I also know that I am testifying under those same laws to the direct contrary.
Mr. STRIPLING. Mr. Chairman, could I pursue one point?
Mr. MUNDT. Go ahead.
Mr. STRIPLING. You say you first heard of Mr. Chambers' accusations against you, concerning you, the night before he testified?
Mr. HISS. I would like to amplify that by saying I also had heard in the course of last winter indirectly that a man named Chambers was calling me a Communist. I heard that while I was in New York last year, but I did not know.
Mr. STRIPLING. Did the FBI investigate you?
Mr. HISS. Two agents of the FBI. as I stated in my initial statement, came to see me in my office after I had left the Government. I think it was in May 1947. They asked me about various individuals. They also asked me if I was a Communist. They asked me a number of questions not unlike the points Mr. Chambers testified to in the course of their investigation. They asked me if I knew the names of a number of people. One of those names was Chambers. I remember very distinctly because I had never heard the name Whittaker Chambers. They asked me first if I knew anyone named Chambers, and I did.
Mr. STRIPLING. Were you investigated under the loyalty program?
Mr. HISS. I am afraid I don't know.
Mr. STRIPLING. You went to the FBI and made a statement?
Mr. HISS. In 1946, shortly after I came back from London where I had been at the first meeting of the General Assembly of the United Nations, Mr. Justice Byrnes, then Secretary of State and my chief, called me into his office. He said that several Members of Congress were preparing to make statements on the floor of Congress that I was a Communist. He asked me if I were, and I said I was not. He said, "This is a very serious matter. I think all the stories center from the FBI. I think they are the people who have obtained whatever information has been obtained. I think you would be well advised to go directly to the FBI and offer yourself for a very full inquiry and investigation."
He also said he thought it would be sensible for me to go to the top man, and I agreed.
I immediately went to my own office, put in a call for Mr. J. Edgar Hoover, who was not in town. I was courteously received by his second in command. I think it was Mr. Tamm in those days. I saw Mr. Tamm fairly shortly after that at his convenience. He arranged an appointment. I am not absolutely sure he was the one I saw. He was the one I called and talked to.
I told him my conversation with the Secretary of State and said I offered myself for any inquiry. They said did I have any statement to make? I said I was glad to make any statement upon any subject they suggested, and they had no specific one initially. So I simply recited every organization I had been connected with to see if that could possibly be of any significance to them. They asked me if I knew certain individuals. Among the names I remember was that
of Lee Pressman. I told them how I had known him and the extent to which I had known him as I have before this committee. They did not mention the name Chambers, I am quite sure.
Mr. STRIPLING. Did they mention Whittaker Chambers?
Mr. HISS. I am quite sure the first time I ever heard that name was in May 1947 when two other agents of the FBI came to my office-I was not then in Government-at 700 Jackson Place and interrogated me.
Mr. STRIPLING. You were not aware that Mr. Chambers had given this affidavit to the Federal authorities?
Mr. HISS. I was not.
Mr. STRIPLING. In which your name and that of your wife was connected?
Mr. HISS. I certainly was not.
Mr. RANKIN. When was it you were called into Justice Byrnes' office?
Mr. HISS. I think it was about March or April 1946, Mr. RANKIN.
Mr. McDOWELL. Mr. Hiss, didn't you call on me early this year?
Mr. HISS. I did, Mr. McDOWELL.
Mr. McDOWELL. I recall now.
Mr. HISSs. Under very different connections.
Mr. McDOWELL. Yes.
Mr. HEBERT. Mr. Berle never told you anything of his conversations?
Mr. HISS. Mr. Berle never spoke to me about this subject.
Mr. HEBERT. Never discussed the possibility that you were a Communist or the charges that you were a Communist?
Mr. HISS. No; he did not.
Mr. MUNDT. Can you think of anything which might throw any light on the reason why these charges have been made, either by Chambers or by some Members of Congress? Anything in your association other than the fact that you were thrown in connection with Pressman as a part of your official duties?
Mr. HISS. Mr. Chairman, as to the Members of Congress, I have the same impression the Secretary of State had-that their information all came from the same source. As to the FBI information, it seems in the light of Chambers' testimony that they, too, had only that source of information. I have no basis, as I said before, for imagining why he should have used my name.
Mr. MUNDT. Have you ever belonged to any of the organizations the Attorney General's office has listed?.
Mr. HISS. I have not, Mr. Chairman, and I so stated in my opening remarks.
Mr. MUNDT. Has your wife ever belonged?
Mr. HISS. She has not, to the best of my knowledge-and I think I would know.
Mr. MUNDT. She has never been a Communist?
Mr. HISS. She has not. Again I must say under oath, to the best of my knowledge. I think my knowledge is better than Mr. Chambers on that.
Mr. MUNDT. Especially about your wife.
Mr. HISS. That is what I am saying.
Mr. STRIPLING. Mr. Hiss, do you know Nathan Gregory Silvermaster?
Mr. HISS. No; I do not. As far as I know, I have never seen him.
Mr. RANKIN. Before you get to that, may I ask you if you are a member of a church?
Mr. HISS. I am. I have been an Episcopalian all my life.
Mr. RANKIN. Is your wife a member of a church?
Mr. HISS. My wife is a member of the Society of Friends.
Mr. RANKIN. That is what we call the Quaker Church, is it not?
Mr. HISS. That is correct. It isn't a church exactly; it is a society, a religious society.
Mr. RANKIN. A religious society?
Mr. HISS. It is, indeed.
Mr. STRIPLING. Mr. Hiss, where were you residing in 1935?
Mr. HISS. Mr. Stripling, I am afraid I would have to consult copies of old leases and things.
Mr. STRIPLING. Did you ever live in Georgetown?
Mr. HISS. I have lived in Georgetown most of the time I have been in Washington.
Mr. STRIPLING. Did you live on P Street?
Mr. HISS. I owned a house on P Street the last few years I was in Washington. That was the only time I ever owned property in Washington. I was a renter before that.
Mr. STRIPLING. I would like to refer to the testimony Mr. Chambers gave on Monday and read it to the witness:
Mr. STRIPLING. When you left the Communist Party in 1937, did you approach any of these seven to break with you?
Mr. CHAMBERS. No. The only one of those people who I approached was Alger Hiss. I went to Hiss' home in the evening at what I considered considerable risk to myself and found Mr. Hiss at home. Mrs. Hiss was also a member of the Communist Party.
Mr. MUNDT. Mrs. Alger Hiss?
Mr. CHAMBERS. Mrs. Alger Hiss. Mrs. Donald Hiss, I believe, is not. Mrs. Hiss attempted while I was there to make a call, which I ean only presume was to other Communists, hut I quickly went to the telephone and she hung up and Mr. Hiss came in shortly afterward and we talked and I tried to break him away from the party. As a matter of fact, he cried when we separated. When I left him, he absolutely refused to break.
Mr. McDOWELL. He cried?
Mr. CHAMBERS. Yes; he did. I was very fond of Mr. HISS.
Mr. MUNDT. He must have given you some reason why he did not want to sever the relationship.
Mr. CHAMBERS. His reason was simply the party line.
Now, Mr. Chairman, in the affidavit which Mr. Chambers made to the Federal authorities a few years ago, he stated that he went to Mr. Hiss' home in Georgetown. You never recall any individual, whether under the name of Chambers or any other name, coming to your home in Georgetown and such a conversation as this?
Mr. HISS. I certainly do not.
Mr. STRIPLING. Mr. Chairman, there is very sharp contradiction here in the testimony. I certainly suggest Mr: Chambers be brought back before the committee and clear this up.
Mr. MUNDT. It would seem that the testimony is diametrically opposed and it comes from two witnesses whom normally one would assume-to be perfectly reliable. They have high positions in American business or organizational work. They both appear to be honest. They both testify under oath. Certainly the committee and the country must be badly confused about why these stories fail to jibe so completely.
I think we have neglected to ask you, Mr. Hiss, one other possible clue to this situation. It could be that Mr. Chambers has mistaken you for your brother. Would you know if he would testify under oath whether your brother has ever belonged to any subversive organization or is a Communist?
Mr. HISS. I am not a qualified witness to testify absolutely. I would like to say that absolutely in my opinion he is not and never has been.
Mr. MUNDT. So far as you know.
Mr. McDOWELL. Is he your younger brother?
Mr. HISS. He is a younger brother.
Mr. MUNDT. Do you know he has never belonged to any of the organizations listed?
Mr. HISS. So far as I know he has never belonged to any organization that could be called a Communist front organization.
Mr. MUNDT. Unless there are other questions from the committee members
Mr. RANKIN. Have you ever belonged to any Communist front organizations?
Mr. HISS. No, Mr. RANKIN. As I testified at the beginning of my testimony, I have not.
Mr. RANKIN. You are not a member of the Southern Conference for Human Welfare, then?
Mr. HISS. No; I am not.
Mr. MUNDT. Mr. Nixon?
Mr. NIXON. Mr. Chairman, I think in justice to both of these witnesses and in order to avoid what might be a useless appearance on the part of Mr. Chambers, when arrangements are made for his being here, that the witnesses be allowed to confront each other so that any possibility of a mistake in identity may be cleared up. It may be that Mr. Chambers' appearance has changed through the years but it is quite apparent that Mr. Hiss has not put on much weight. He must have been very thin before if he did. I think if there is mistaken identity on Mr. Chambers' part he will
be able to recall it when he confronts Mr. HISS....
Mr. NIXON. Mr. Hiss, did you testify earlier that you did or did not know Mr. Ware?
Mr. HISS. I hadn't been asked the question. I did know Mr. Ware while I was in the Department of Agriculture. My recollection is that he was an agricultural specialist and I think he had been a member of an unofficial mission according to my recollection that went to Russia in connection with studying large-scale wheat farming. My recollection is he came into my offices in the Department of Agriculture, as many callers did, on several occasions. I do remember hearing of a wheat mission which was studying large-scale wheat farming with combines and tractors and things of that sort, and I think I remember Mr. Harold Ware in that connection.
Mr. NIXON. Your testimony in effect is that your acquaintance with Mr.Ware was only casual in the course of your employment.
Mr. HISS. That is correct.
Mr. NIXON. And not otherwise.
Mr. HISS. And not otherwise....
Mr. MUNDT. Mr. Hiss, you have gone into some detail concerning your work and responsibilities in the Department of Agriculture. I would like to ask you a few questions concerning your work and responsibilities while working for the Department of State.
Mr. HISS. Yes.
Mr. MUNDT. Did you participate in the Yalta Conference?
Mr. HISS. I did, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. MUNDT. Did you draft or participate in the drafting of parts of the Yalta agreement?
Mr. HISS. I think it is accurate and not an immodest statement to say that I did to some extent, yes.
Mr. MUNDT. Did you participate in those parts which gave Russia three votes in the Assembly'?
Mr. HISS. I was present at the Conference and am familiar with some of the facts involved in that particular arrangement.
Mr. MUNDT. You would say you did participate in the formation of that part of the agreement?
Mr. HISS. I had nothing to do with the decision that these votes be granted. I opposed them.
Mr. MUNDT. You opposed them?
Mr. HISS. I did.
Mr. MUNDT. Did you participate-I am glad to hear that.
Mr. RANKIN. Let's get that answer straight. You opposed the Yalta agreement?
Mr. HISS. I opposed the particular point that the chairman referred to by which the United States agreed to support Soviet Russia's application for votes in the Assembly and membership in the United Nations Organization to Byelo Russia and the Ukraine. I did not oppose the Yalta agreement as a whole-quite the contrary. I still think the political agreement was a very valuable agreement for the United States.
Mr. MUNDT. I congratulate you on your opposition to that particular section. Did you participate in the portion of the Yalta agreement which gave Russia control of the chief Manchurian railway?
Mr. HISS. That was not part of the political agreement. I knew nothing of that until many months later. That was in the military talks in which I did not participate.
Mr. MUNDT. As an employee in the Department of State, did you have anything to do with the departmental policy which was proclaimed on December 15, 1945, before General Marshall went out to China?
Mr. HISS. No, I did not. I had been connected with far eastern affairs, before, but about February 1944, I was assigned to United Nations work and specialized entirely in that field thereafter.
Mr. MUNDT. Referring especially to that portion of the. Secretary's proclamation which said that we must have peace and unity with the Communists in China.
Mr. HISS. I was not consulted on that. It was not in my area of activity at all.
Mr. RANKIN. Who was Secretary of State at that time?
Mr. HISS. In 1945, I think Mr. Byrnes.
Mr. MUNDT. The Yalta agreement, which wrote out, according to my information, quite well the text of the United Nations charter dealing with the veto provisions-did you participate in the drawing up of those veto. provisions?
Mr. HISS. My best recollection without consulting the actual records is that the text of what is now article 27 of the Charter was drafted in the Department of State in the early winter of 1944 before the Yalta Conrerence, as part of the negotiations preceding that Conference, was dispatched by the President of the United States to the Prime Minister
of Great Britain and to Marshal Stalin for their agreement and represented the proposal made by the United States at the Yalta Conference and was accepted by the other two after some discussion. I did participate in the Department of State in the drafting of the messages I have referred to that President Roosevelt sent in, I think, December 1944 prior to the Yalta Conference. .
Mr. MUNDT. Those were the messages which described the veto provisions?
Mr. HISS. My recollection is they set out an actual suggested draft and that the variations between that draft and the present language of the Charter is immaterial.
Mr. MUNDT. What I was trying to get to is whether you participated in the creation of the draft.
Mr. HISS. I did participate in the creation of the draft that was sent by President Roosevelt to Churchill and Stalin, which was the draft actually adopted at Yalta and actually adopted at San Francisco.
Mr. MUNDT. Did you lend your influence in the direction of having the veto provision included in that draft?
Mr. HISS. I did. That was practically the unanimous position of the American Government, I might add.
Mr. MUNDT. Do you have a question, Mr. McDowell?
Mr. McDOWELL. Mr. Hiss, do you feel you have had a free and fair and proper hearing this morning?
Mr. HISS. Mr. McDOWELL, I think I have been treated with great consideration by this Committee. I am not happy that I didn't have a chance to meet with the committee privately before there was such a great public press display of what I consider completely unfounded charges against me. Denials do not always catch up with charges.
Mr. McDOWELL. I am very familiar with that, but I think they will in your case, Mr. Hiss, because you have the same radio facilities, the same news-reel facilities, and the same press facilities as the man who made the charges. You will appreciate that this committee has no way of reading into a witness's mind what he is going to say. Sometimes we are greatly surprised, too, in reading over a list of people whom we have reason to suspect are Communists or espionage agents, there is brought in a name which many Americans, including members of this committee, hold in high repute.
Mr. HISS. I would rather not comment on that particular point. I don't think I am in the best frame of mind to comment on that right now.
Mr. MUNDT. I think that is probably correct. Mr. Nixon, do you have further questions?
Mr. NIXON. From your experience in the State Department, is it your opinion that every effort should be made by the investigative authorities of the Government and by the committees of Congress to look into the alleged subversive activities of Communists in the United States?
Mr. HISS. Was your question "every effort"? Every effort which is compatible with the protection of the reputations of innocent persons, I certainly do.
Mr. NIXON. In other words, you feel then that there is definite danger to the security of the United States from Communist under'ground activities which requires investigation?
Mr. HISS. I think it would be very unwise for the Government to employ anyone in whose loyalty it did not have complete confidence, and it should establish its judgment as carefully and reliably as possible.
Mr. NIXON. For that reason since it is essential that the Government have complete confidence in its employees that investigation-and I am referring now to Communist activities because that is what both Senate and House committees are interested in-the investigation of Communist activities, having in mind the rights of individuals concerned, as you have indicated, should proceed so that we can protect the national security from the activities of American Communists who will be serving the interests of a foreign government.
Mr. HISS. I do. I think some distinction should be made with respect to so-called sensitive positions and other types of positions, but I am not an expert on that type of personnel problem. It is just my offhand impression.
Mr. MUNDT. Are there any positions in Government where you feel that Communists should be employed?
Mr. HISS. As I say, I am not an expert on that question. Whether someone who is sweeping the halls or a charwoman-I really don't know.
Mr. MUNDT. If you were in charge
Mr. HISS. I wouldn't make the same kind of investigation, I would say that.
Mr. MUNDT. If you were in charge of an executive agency would you employ a Communist as a chairwoman if you knew it?
Mr. HISS. That is what President Roosevelt used to call an "iffy" question.
Mr. MUNDT. Do you want to give an "iffy" answer?
Mr. HISS. I don't think I shall ever have that decision to face. I think, trying to answer your question very responsibly, I would not.
Mr. MUNDT. Mr. RANKIN.
Mr. RANKIN. I have two questions. I believe you said you were recommended for your present position by Mr. John Foster Dulles. That is correct, isn't it?
Mr. HISS. That is correct.
Mr. RANKIN. Now, Mr. Mundt questioned you about your attitude on the veto and the United Nations Charter.
Mr. HISS. Yes, sir.
Mr. RANKIN. And you say you favored it?
Mr. HISS. I did.
Mr. RANKIN. Now, whose interest did you have at heart and in mind at the time, the interest of the United States or the interest of a foreign power?
Mr. HISS. The interest of the United States and of the United Nations Organization. I think without the veto there would have been no United Nations Organization. I think it was highly desirable to the interest of the United States that there be such an organization in which the United States paiticipated.
Mr. RANKIN. You think that veto is in the interest of the United States?
Mr. HISS. I think, Mr. Rankin, that various changes and modifications could helpfully and desirably be made in the veto provision. I think on the question of enforcement in particular, on the calling out of contingents of armed forces supplied by member states, that in the present state of the world that each of the major powers, including particularly the United States, must reserve its own judgment as to whether it thinks its own troops should move in a given case.
Mr. RANKIN. That is all.
Mr. MUNDT. The Chair has one additional question. I think counsel neglected to ask you, Mr. HISS. During the time you were employed with the State Department, before or since, did you ever see or meet Carl Aldo Marzani?
Mr. HISS. I did not.
Mr. MUNDT. The Chair wishes to express the appreciation of the Committee for your very cooperative attitude, and for your forthright statements, and for the fact that you were first among those whose names were mentioned by various witnesses to communicate with us asking for an opportunity to deny the charges.
Mr. RANKIN. And another thing. I want to congratulate the witness that he didn't refuse to answer the questions on the ground that it might incriminate him, and he didn't bring a lawyer here to tell him what to say.
Mr. MUNDT. The committee will meet in executive session at 3 o'clock this afternoon.
(Whereupon, at 12:35 p. m., the committee adjourned.)