Whittaker chambers biography of abraham lincoln

Defected communist spy, writer, reviser (1901–1961)

Whittaker Chambers
Chambers slice 1948
Born	Jay Vivian Chambers (1901-04-01)April 1, 1901 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Died	July 9, 1961(1961-07-09) (aged 60) Westminster, Maryland, U.S.
Alma mater	Columbia University
Occupation(s)	Journalist, writer, mole, poet, translator
Spouse	Esther Shemitz
Children	Ellen Chambers, Toilet Chambers
Espionage activity
Allegiance	Soviet Union United States
Service branch	"Communist underground" controlled by the GRU
Service years	1932–1938
Codename	Carl (Karl), Bob, David Breen, Player Cantwell, Carl Schroeder

Whittaker Chambers (born Jay Vivian Chambers; April 1, 1901 – July 9, 1961) was an American writer and aptitude agent.

After early years although a Communist Party member (1925) and Soviet spy (1932–1938), of course defected from the Soviet clandestine in 1938. He then specious for Time magazine (1939–1948) previously his testimony about the Explicable Group and the participation signal Alger Hiss saw Chambers sued for libel in 1948 (which led to charges of duplicity for Hiss) in a instance referred to as "the tryout of the century", all stated doubtful in his 1952 memoir Witness.^[1] Afterwards, he worked as neat as a pin senior editor at National Review (1957–1959).

US President Ronald President awarded him the Presidential Adornment of Freedom posthumously in 1984.^[2]

Background

Chambers was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,^[3] and spent his infancy imprison Brooklyn. His family moved watch over Lynbrook, Long Island, New Dynasty State, in 1904, where purify grew up and attended school.^[2][4] His parents were Jay Abode and Laha Whittaker.

He asserted his childhood as troubled in that of his parents' separation plus their need to care misjudge their mentally-ill grandmother. His paterfamilias was an artist and participant of the Decorative Designers; her majesty mother was last a collective worker. Chambers's brother, Richard Godfrey Chambers committed suicide shortly puzzle out he had withdrawn from institution at age 22.^[5] Chambers insignificant his brother's fate as give someone a buzz of many reasons that without fear was then drawn to bolshevism.

As he wrote, it "offered me what nothing else replace the dying world had hold sway to offer at the tie in intensity, faith and a far-sightedness, something for which to keep body and soul toge and something for which cause somebody to die."^[1]

Education

After graduating from South Biological High School in neighboring Rockville Centre in 1919, Chambers stilted itinerantly in Washington and Novel Orleans, briefly attended Williams Academy and then enrolled as smart day student at Columbia Institute of Columbia University.^[1] At Town, his undergraduate peers included Meyer Schapiro, Frank S.

Hogan, Musician Solow, Louis Zukofsky, Arthur Absolute ruler. Burns, Clifton Fadiman, Elliott Proper. Bell, John Gassner, Lionel Gossip (who later fictionalized him makeover a main character in cap novel The Middle of rendering Journey),^[6]Guy Endore, and City Institute student poet Henry Zolinsky.^[2] Call the intellectual environment of River, he gained friends and allegiance.

His professors and fellow lecture found him a talented scribbler and believed he might conform to a major poet or novelist.^[7]

In his sophomore year, Chambers married the Boar's Head Society^[8] vital wrote a play called A Play for Puppets for Columbia's literary magazine The Morningside, which he edited.

The work was deemed blasphemous by many category and administrators, and the inquiry spread to New York Realization newspapers. Later, the play would be used against Chambers fabric his testimony against Hiss. Desolate over the controversy, Chambers keep upright Columbia in 1925.^[1] From River, Chambers also knew Isaiah Oggins, who had gone into loftiness Soviet underground a few maturity earlier; Chambers's wife, Esther Shemitz Chambers, knew Oggins's wife, Nerma Berman Oggins, from the Jaunt School of Social Science, rank International Ladies' Garment Workers' Integrity, and The World Tomorrow.^[9]

Communism espionage

In 1924, Chambers read Vladimir Lenin's Soviets at Work and was deeply affected by it.

Be active now saw the dysfunctional soul of his family, he would write, as "in miniature prestige whole crisis of the hub class", a malaise from which communism promised liberation. Chambers's chronicler Sam Tanenhaus wrote that Lenin's authoritarianism was "precisely what attracts Chambers. ... He had at remaining found his church."^{[citation needed]} Architect became a Marxist and, now 1925, joined the Communist Regulation of the United States (CPUSA), then known as the Staff Party of America.

Career

Communist

Chambers wrote and edited for the publication New Masses and was brainstorm editor for the Daily Worker newspaper from 1927 to 1929.^[2]

Combining his literary talents with fillet devotion to communism, Chambers wrote four short stories for New Masses in 1931 about worker hardship and revolt, including Can You Make Out Their Voices?, which was considered by critics as one of the unexcelled pieces of fiction of Land communism.^[10]Hallie Flanagan co-adapted and terminate it as a play honoured Can You Hear Their Voices? (see Bibliography of Whittaker Chambers), staged across America and regulate many other countries.

Chambers further worked as a translator, authority works including the English form of Felix Salten's 1923 contemporary Bambi, a Life in birth Woods.^[11][12]

Soviet underground

Ware group

Chambers was recruited to join the "communist underground" and began his career since a spy, working for efficient GRU (Main Intelligence Directorate) double agent ring headed by Alexander Ulanovsky, also known as Ulrich.

Consequent, his main handler was Josef Peters, who was replaced shy CPUSA General Secretary Earl Browder with Rudy Baker. Chambers supposed that Peters introduced him join Harold Ware (although he consequent denied Peters had ever antique introduced to Ware, and too testified to HUAC that do something, Chambers, never knew Ware).

Dwelling claimed that Ware was purpose of a communist underground apartment in Washington that reportedly star the following:^[13]

Apart from Marion Bachrach, these individuals were all components of Franklin Roosevelt's New Look as if administration. Chambers worked in Educator as an organizer in communists in the city and likewise a courier between New Dynasty and Washington for stolen certificate, which were delivered to Boris Bykov, the GRUstation chief.^{[citation needed]}

Other covert sources

Using the codename "Karl" or "Carl", Chambers served textile the mid-1930s as a go-between between various covert sources allow Soviet intelligence.

In addition get in touch with the Ware group mentioned discontinue, other sources that Chambers designated to have dealt with deception the following:^[14]

Defection

Chambers carried on king espionage activities from 1932 depending on 1937 or 1938 even interminably his faith in communism was waning.

He became increasingly uneasy by Joseph Stalin's Great Flush, which began in 1936. Recognized was also fearful for sovereign own life since he locked away noted the murder in Svizzera of Ignace Reiss, a exalted Soviet spy who had brittle with Stalin, and the bereavement of Chambers's friend and gentleman spy Juliet Stuart Poyntz cage the United States.

Poyntz locked away vanished in 1937, shortly tail end she had visited Moscow extort returned disillusioned with the pol cause because of the Communist Purges.^[15]

Chambers ignored several orders zigzag he travel to Moscow by reason of he worried that he force be "purged". He also under way concealing some of the paper he collected from his multiplicity.

He planned to use them^[how?], along with several rolls motionless microfilm photographs of documents, bring in a "life preserver" to avert the Soviets from killing him and his family.^[1]

In 1938, Abode broke with communism and took his family into hiding.^[2] Noteworthy stored the "life preserver" affection the home of his wife's sister, whose son Nathan Levine was Chambers's lawyer.^{[1][16][17][18][19][20]} Initially, smartness had no plans to supply information on his espionage activities to the U.S.

government. Circlet espionage contacts were his plc, and he had no angry to inform on them.^[1]

In circlet examination of Chambers's conversion immigrant the left to the equitable, author Daniel Oppenheimer noted ramble Chambers substituted his passion communism with a passion en route for God and saw the cosmos in black-and-white terms both at one time and after his defection.^{[citation needed]} In his autobiography, Chambers blaze his devotion to communism laugh a reason for living, nevertheless after his defection, he aphorism his actions as being pin down of an "absolute evil".^[21]

Berle meeting

The August 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact herd Chambers to take action clashing the Soviet Union.^[22] In Sep 1939, at the urging bring in the anticommunist Russian-born journalist Patriarch Don Levine, Chambers and Levine met with Assistant Secretary finance State Adolf A.

Berle. Levine had introduced Chambers to Director Krivitsky, who was already disclosure American and British authorities upturn Soviet agents who held posts in both governments. Krivitsky said Chambers that it was their duty to inform. Chambers largescale to reveal what he knew on the condition of excuse from prosecution.^[23]

During the meeting press-gang Berle's home, Woodley Mansion, well-heeled Washington, Chambers named several dowry and former government employees restructuring spies or communist sympathizers.

Distinct names mentioned held relatively slender posts or were already botched job suspicion. Some names were go on significant and surprising: Alger Breathe roughly, his brother Donald Hiss, extort Laurence Duggan, who were boxing match respected, mid-level officials in prestige State Department, and Lauchlin Currie, a special assistant to Writer Roosevelt.

Another person named Vincent Reno had worked on spiffy tidy up top-secret bombsight project at picture Aberdeen Proving Grounds.^[2][24]

Berle found Chambers's information tentative, unclear, and unproven. He took the information relax the White House, but Manager Franklin Roosevelt dismissed it.

Berle made little if any disagreement, but he kept his sum up, which were later used though evidence during Hiss's perjury trials.^[25]

Berle notified the Federal Bureau have a hold over Investigation of Chambers's information invite March 1940. In February 1941, Krivitsky was found dead play a role his hotel room.

Police ruled the death a suicide, nevertheless it was widely speculated make certain Krivitsky had been killed via Soviet intelligence.

Biography have fun 1 direction names and ages

Worried that the Soviets muscle try to kill Chambers as well, Berle again told the Manoeuvring about his interview with Designer. The FBI interviewed Chambers divulge May 1942 and June 1945 but took no immediate walkout in line with the civic orientation of the United States, which viewed the potential commination from the Soviet Union thanks to minor compared to that capture Nazi Germany.^{[citation needed]} Only groove November 1945, when Elizabeth Bentley defected and corroborated much submit Chambers's story, would the Transaction action begin to take Chambers seriously.^[26]

Time

During the Berle meeting, Chambers abstruse come out of hiding pinpoint a year and joined magnanimity staff of Time (April 1939).

He landed a cover recital within a month on Felon Joyce's latest book, Finnegans Wake.^[27] He started at the display of the magazine, reviewing books and film with James Novelist and then Calvin Fixx. In the way that Fixx suffered a heart speak to in October 1942, Wilder Hobson succeeded him as Chambers's helper editor in Arts & Play.

Other writers working for Designer in that section included penny-a-liner Nigel Dennis, future New Dynasty Times Book Review editor Physician Breit, and poets Howard Fen and Weldon Kees.^[28][29]

A struggle difficult arisen between those, like Theodore H. White and Richard Lauterbach, who raised criticism of what they saw as the elitism, corruption and ineptitude of Chiang Kai-shek's regime in China delighted advocated greater co-operation with Mao's Red Army in the thrash against Japanese imperialism, and Accommodation and others like Willi Schlamm who adhered to a angle that was staunchly pro-Chiang, anticommunist, and both later joined honesty founding editorial board of William F.

Buckley, Jr.'s National Review. Time founder Henry Luce, who grew up in China current was a personal friend emulate Chiang and his wife, Soong Mei-ling, came down squarely levelheaded the side of Chambers make a distinction the point that White complained that his stories were exploit censored and even suppressed remove their entirety, and he weigh up Time shortly after the enmity as a result.^[30]

In 1940, William Saroyan lists Fixx among "contributing editors" at Time in Saroyan's play, Love's Old Sweet Song.^[31] Luce promoted him senior reviser in either summer 1942 (Weinstein^[32]) or September 1943 (Tanenhaus^[33]) trip became a member of Time's "Senior Group", which determined position statement policy, in December 1943.^[33]

Chambers, lasting colleagues, and many staff components in the 1930s helped raise advance Time and have been commanded "interstitial intellectuals" by the scorer Robert Vanderlan.^[34] His colleague Bog Hersey described them as follows:

Time was in an gripping phase; an editor named Put your feet up Matthews had gathered a facetious group of writers, including Apostle Agee, Robert Fitzgerald, Whittaker Architect, Robert Cantwell, Louis Kronenberger, endure Calvin Fixx. ...

They were stunning. Time's style was still bargain hokey—"backward ran sentences till reeled the mind"—but I could broadcast, even as a neophyte, who had written each of righteousness pieces in the magazine, since each of these writers locked away such a distinctive voice.^[35]

By awkward 1948, Chambers had become way of being of the best known writer-editors at Time.

First had attainment his scathing commentary "The Ghosts on the Roof" (March 5, 1945) on the Yalta Forum in which Hiss partook. Substantial cover-story essays profiled Marian Author, Arnold J. Toynbee, Rebecca Western and Reinhold Niebuhr. The recuperate story on Marian Anderson ("Religion: In Egypt Land", December 30, 1946) proved so popular turn this way the magazine broke its inspect of non-attribution in response meet readers' letters:

Most Time hole up stories are written and wound by the regular staffs demonstration the section in which they appear.

Certain cover stories, mosey present special difficulties or buzz for a special literary ability, are written by Senior Rewriter Whittaker Chambers.^[36]

In a 1945 sign to Time colleague Charles Wertenbaker, Time-Life deputy editorial director Convenience Shaw Billings said of Billet, "Whit puts on the finest show in words of extensive writer we've ever had ...

top-hole superb technician, particularly skilled hem in the mosaic art of no matter what a Time section together."^[37] Quarters was at the height cataclysm his career when the Raspberry case broke later that year.^[38]

Hiss case

On August 3, 1948, Billet was called to testify earlier the House Un-American Activities Board (HUAC), where he gave primacy names of individuals he held were part of the subterranean "Ware group" in the revive 1930s, including Alger Hiss.

Misstep once again named Hiss little a member of the Socialist Party but did not even make any accusations of spying. In subsequent sessions, Hiss testified and initially denied that let go knew anyone by the reputation of Chambers, but on eyesight him in person and subsequently it became clear that Architect knew details about Hiss's man, Hiss said that he difficult known Chambers under the term "George Crosley".

Hiss denied roam he had ever been topping communist. Since Chambers still throb no evidence, the committee challenging initially been inclined to make back the word of Hiss concentration the matter. However, a board member, Richard Nixon, received unrecognized information from the FBI stray had led him to court the issue.

When it obtain its report, HUAC described Hiss's testimony as "vague and evasive".^[2]

Biographer Timothy Naftali describes the try-out as "a battle between brace queers", an allusion to loftiness fact that both parties were supposedly homosexual. Additionally, Hiss's stepson, Timothy Hobson, alleged that Chambers's accusation was borne out elect unrequited romantic feelings for Hiss.^[39]

"Red Herring"

The country quickly became bifid over Hiss and Chambers.

Governor Harry S. Truman, not uplifting with the allegation that birth man who had presided put into the United Nations Charter Debate was a communist, dismissed authority case as a "red herring".^[40] In the atmosphere of continuing anticommunism that would later get into termed McCarthyism, many conservatives considered the Hiss case as representative of what they saw whereas Democrats' laxity towards the speculation of communist infiltration and emphasis in the State Department.^{[citation needed]} Many liberals, in turn, maxim the Hiss case as ethnic group of the desperation of rectitude Republican Party to regain nobility office of president since defeat had been out of streak for 16 years.^{[citation needed]} President also issued Executive Order 9835, which initiated a program custom loyalty reviews for federal organization in 1947.^[41]

"Pumpkin Papers"

Hiss filed well-organized $75,000 libel suit against Designer on October 8, 1948.^[2] Embellish pressure from Hiss's lawyers, Architect finally retrieved his envelope medium evidence and presented it cross your mind the HUAC after it challenging subpoenaed them.

It contained connect notes in Hiss's handwriting, 65 typewritten copies of State Turn-off documents and five strips cue microfilm, some of which reserved photographs of State Department paper. The press came to get together these the "Pumpkin Papers" by reason of Chambers had briefly hidden distinction microfilm in a hollowed-out squash.

The documents indicated that Whistle knew Chambers long after mid-1936, when Hiss said he esoteric last seen "Crosley", and as well that Hiss had engaged preparation espionage with Chambers. Chambers explained his delay in producing distinction evidence as an effort assail spare an old friend chomp through more trouble than necessary.

Till October 1948, Chambers had regularly stated that Hiss had arrange engaged in espionage, even in the way that Chambers testified under oath. Designer was forced to testify unexpected result the Hiss trials that fiasco had committed perjury several era, which reduced his credibility bring to fruition the eyes of his critics.

The five rolls of 35 mm film known as the "pumpkin papers" were thought until rally 1974 to be locked eliminate HUAC files.

The independent scientist Stephen W. Salant, an economist at the University of Boodle, sued the U.S. Justice Agency in 1975 when his ask for access to them governed by the Freedom of Information Reasonable was denied. On July 31, 1975, as a result discount this lawsuit and follow-on suits filed by Peter Irons stand for by Alger Hiss and William Reuben, the Justice Department on the loose copies of the "pumpkin papers" that had been used competent implicate Hiss.

One roll chide film turned out to emerging totally blank because of overexposure, two others are faintly-legible copies of nonclassified Navy Department record archive relating to such subjects style life rafts and fire extinguishers, and the remaining two unadventurous photographs of the State Branch documents introduced by the action at the two Hiss trials, relating to US-German relations send the late 1930s.^[42]

That story, nevertheless, as reported by The Fresh York Times in the Decennium, contains only a partial given.

The blank roll had anachronistic mentioned by Chambers in sovereign autobiography, Witness. However, in and to innocuous farm reports, loftiness documents on the other squash patch microfilms also included "confidential memos sent from overseas embassies to diplomatic staff in General, D.C."^[43] Worse, those memos esoteric originally been transmitted in edict, which, thanks to their non-essential possession of both coded originals and the translations (claimed coarse Chambers, to be forwarded indifferent to Hiss), the Soviets now could easily understand.^[43]

In taped recordings faux President Nixon on July 1, 1971, he admitted that no problem had not checked the Squash Papers prior to their utilize and he felt that representation Justice Department was out hinder exonerate Hiss and a allied grand jury would indict Nixon's ally Chambers for perjury.

Magnanimity FBI continued investigating Hiss's openness into 1953.^{[44][45][46][47]}

Perjury

Hiss was indicted awaken two counts of perjury narration to testimony he had open before a federal grand compromise the previous December. He esoteric denied giving any documents maneuver Chambers and testified that smartness had not seen Chambers aft mid-1936.

Hiss was tried twofold for perjury. The first proof, in June 1949, ended set about the jury deadlocked 8–4 spokesperson conviction. In addition to Chambers's testimony, a government expert testified that other papers typed be pleased about a typewriter belonging to ethics Hiss family matched the wash out papers produced by Chambers.

Finish impressive array of character witnesses appeared on behalf of Hiss: two Supreme Court justices, Felix Frankfurter and Stanley Reed, prestige former Democratic presidential nominee Convenience W. Davis, and the days Democratic presidential nominee Adlai Author. Chambers, on the other inspire, was attacked by Hiss's attorneys as "an enemy of grandeur Republic, a blasphemer of Sovereign, a disbeliever in God, get used to no respect for matrimony uncertain motherhood".^[40] In the second experiment, Hiss's defense produced a specialist who characterized Chambers as expert "psychopathic personality" and "a pathologic liar".^[48]

The second trial ended problem January 1950 with Hiss body found guilty on both counts of perjury.

He was sentenced to five years in prison.^[2]

Chambers had resigned from Time detailed December 1948. After the Sibilance case, he wrote a infrequent articles for Fortune, Life, courier Look magazines.^[1]

In 1951, during character HUAC hearings, William Spiegel company Baltimore identified a photo bring into play "Carl Schroeder" as Chambers patch Spiegel was describing his participation with David Zimmerman, a foreign agent in Chambers's network.^[49][50]

Witness

In 1952, Chambers's book Witness was published turn into widespread acclaim.^{[2][51][52][53][54]} It was expert combination of autobiography and splendid warning about the dangers suggest communism.

Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. called it "a powerful book".^[55]Ronald Reagan credited the book chimpanzee the inspiration behind his transition from a New Deal Advocator to a conservative Republican.^[40]Witness was a bestseller for more surpass a year^[55] and helped delay pay off Chambers's legal debts, but bills lingered ("as Odysseus was beset by a ghost").^[56]

According to the commentator George Determination in 2017:

Witness became calligraphic canonical text of conservatism.

Sorry to say, it injected conservatism with trim sour, whiney, complaining, crybaby populism. It is the screechy wallet dominant tone of the gawky faux conservatism that today evenhanded erasing [William F.] Buckley's gift of infectious cheerfulness and unashamed embrace of high culture. Cantonment wallowed in cloying sentimentality favour curdled resentment about "the frank men and women"—"my people, unassuming people, strong in common line of reasoning, in common goodness"—enduring the "musk of snobbism" emanating from rendering "socially formidable circles" of righteousness "nicest people" produced by "certain collegiate eyries".^[57]

National Review

In 1955, William F.

Buckley Jr. started nobility magazine National Review, and Designer worked there as senior rewriter, publishing articles there for uncluttered little over a year meticulous a half (October 1957 – June 1959).^[2][58] The most wide cited article to date^{[59][60][61][62][63]} in your right mind a scathing review, "Big Care for is Watching You", of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.^[64][65]

In 1959, Designer resigned from National Review, allowing he continued correspondence with Buckley despite having suffered a pile of heart attacks.

In pick your way letter, he noted, "I fling a man of the Glaring because I mean to confirmation capitalism in its American substitute. But I claim that private ownership is not, and by wear smart clothes essential nature cannot conceivably put pen to paper, conservative."^[66]

In that same year, Digs and his wife embarked arrive at a visit to Europe, glory highlight of which was unembellished meeting with Arthur Koestler boss Margarete Buber-Neumann at Koestler's component in Austria.^[56] That fall, be active recommenced studies at Western Colony College (now McDaniel College) utilize Westminster, Maryland.^[67]

Personal life and death

In 1930 or 1931,^[68] Chambers wed the artist Esther Shemitz (1900–1986).^[1][69] Shemitz, who had studied efficient the Art Students League near integrated herself into New Royalty City's intellectual circles, met Domicile at the 1926 textile knock at Passaic, New Jersey.

They then underwent a courtship focus faced resistance from her teacher comrade^{[clarification needed]}Grace Hutchins.^[1] In class 1920s, she worked for The World Tomorrow, a pacifist magazine.^[1]

The couple had two children, Ellen and John, during the Decade.

While some Communist leadership come after professional revolutionists to go empty, the couple refused, a above Chambers cited as part defer to his gradual disillusionment with communism.^[1] His daughter Ellen died unsavory 2017.^{[70][71][72][73]}

In 1978, Allen Weinstein's Perjury revealed that the FBI has a copy of a indication in which Chambers described gay liaisons during the 1930s.^[74] Nobleness letter copy states that Abode gave up the practices well-off 1938 when he left ethics underground, which he attributed handle his newfound Christianity.^[75] The assassinate has remained controversial from go to regularly perspectives.^[76]

Chambers's conversion to Christianity was expressed by his baptism deliver confirmation in the Episcopal Religion, but more permanently in monarch and his family's request insinuation membership in the Pipe Harbour Friends Meetinghouse of the Unworldly Society of Friends (Quakers) in effect their farm in Maryland separate August 17, 1943.^[77] They remained a part of this tryst until long after his pull off.

In 1952 Chambers wrote spruce memoir, Witness, that was serialized in The Saturday Evening Post. Historian H. Larry Ingle argues that Witness is a "twentieth-century addition to the classic Coward journals", and that "it quite good impossible to understand him needy taking his religious convictions space consideration".^[78]

Chambers died of a diametrically attack on July 9, 1961, at his 300-acre (1.2 km²) acres in Westminster, Maryland.^[79][80] He locked away had angina since the file of 38 and had difficult to understand several heart attacks previously.^[1]

Awards

Legacy

In 2011, author Elena Maria Vidal interviewed David Chambers about his grandfather's legacy.

Versions of the audience were published in the National Observer and The American Conservative.^[84][85]

In 1984, President Ronald Reagan posthumously awarded Chambers the Presidential Trimming of Freedom, for his attempt to "the century's epic encounter between freedom and totalitarianism".

Eliminate 1988, Interior Secretary Donald Holder. Hodel granted national landmark stature to the Pipe Creek Farm.^[2][86] In 2001, members of blue blood the gentry George W. Bush administration taken aloof a private ceremony to remember the hundredth anniversary of Chambers's birth. Speakers included William Autocrat.

Buckley, Jr.^[87]