Jeff Kisseloff: Was Hiss guilty?
"Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America" marks the sixth collaboration between John Earl Haynes, a historian in the Library of Congress's Manuscript Division, and Harvey Klehr, a professor of politics and history at Emory University. All six books examine the influence of the Communist movement in America, mostly by drawing on newly released intelligence files from the former Soviet Union. Their general conclusion is that available Soviet files support certain postwar contentions by American conservatives – namely, that Soviet intelligence had an extensive network of dedicated agents and sympathizers in America before, during and after World War II, many of whom were government officials. [1] Praised for their scholarship by many historians, Haynes and Klehr's work has in recent years come to be considered a "consensus" viewpoint.
Like several previous Haynes and Klehr books, "Spies" is published by the Yale University Press. It lists Alexander Vassiliev as its third co-author, and is based on the notes that Vassiliev, a former KGB agent, took on KGB files that were shown to him in the 1990s. This is the second go-round for these notes, which were also used a decade ago as the source material for "The Haunted Wood" (Random House, 1999), a book co-authored by Vassiliev and Allen Weinstein, who recently retired as Archivist of the United States. "Spies" purports to confirm the earlier book's conclusion that Alger Hiss and others accused of espionage during the McCarthy period were in fact guilty. Haynes and Klehr also claim that Vassiliev's notebooks contain a great deal of information that didn't appear in "The Haunted Wood" – information which confirms that Hiss was guilty as charged, and shows that the KGB net also ensnared such surprising figures as Ernest Hemingway and the journalist I. F. Stone.
The book has attracted a number of positive reviews from both conservatives and liberals – although, curiously, none of them treat it as a second look at previously covered ground. Nicholas Lemann, the Dean of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, wrote in The New Yorker that while perhaps Haynes and Klehr set the bar a little too low for determining who is a spy, he accepts their basic thesis about Hiss. Writing in The New Republic, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Anne Applebaum says that Haynes and Klehr "have usually stuck to the documents, the evidence, the facts" in their historical works and do not write polemically. She adds that "Haynes, Klehr and Vassiliev are well within their rights in titling their chapter 'Alger Hiss: Case Closed.'"
On the other hand, critics of the authors' work have found their approach more ideological than historical and their tone polemical, vindictive, and prosecutorial. Historian Amy Knight, for example, debunked many of the authors' arguments in a review she wrote for the Times Literary Supplement in June 2009. "The main purpose of 'Spies,' it seems, is not to enlighten readers," she writes, "but to silence those who still voice doubts about the guilt of people like Alger Hiss, Harry Dexter White, I.F. Stone and others." [2]
In fact, the documents shown to Vassiliev are in no way definitive in their assertions about Alger Hiss, and the arguments based on them by Haynes and Klehr, when held up to the light of day, are no more convincing or compelling or final or airtight or unassailable than the anti-Hiss arguments previously advanced by Weinstein. Much of the evidence cited by Haynes and Klehr can actually be viewed from a totally different perspective, as exculpatory. Unfortunately, this fact will escape reviewers who aren't familiar with the details of the tangled arguments used against Hiss.
"Spies" has already provoked controversy of a different sort, relating to the diverging stories Vassiliev has told about his note-taking process and to the book's provenance. (The issue is not so much the authenticity of the documents shown to Vassiliev, but rather whether he was deliberately shown only certain files of a relatively routine, trivial and often gossipy nature.)This is a separate issue that will be dealt with elsewhere; [3] my focus here is on the accuracy of the conclusions that Haynes and Klehr draw.
Some of these issues were raised publicly in May when the authors were challenged by several attendees (including this writer) at a conference convened by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, in Washington D.C. (A separate dissection of Haynes and Klehr's allegations against I.F. Stone was the subject of a cover story in the May 25, 2009 issue of The Nation.)
Despite all these objections, "Spies" does have one great virtue: it carefully reassembles in a single chapter most, if not all, of the charges raised against Alger Hiss over the better part of the last quarter century (the so-called "new evidence"). It therefore provides a rare chance to see how comprehensively unconvincing the full case against Hiss actually is – both the original allegations and the second-generation accusations – and to show the flimsiness and illogicality of each individual piece of "evidence." By devoting considerable attention to "Spies," this site will draw attention both to the shortcomings of its general approach to scholarship and, more specifically, to the shockingly slipshod and at times almost amateurish nature of the case against Hiss. ...
Read entire article at http://www.algerhiss.com (date uncertain)
Like several previous Haynes and Klehr books, "Spies" is published by the Yale University Press. It lists Alexander Vassiliev as its third co-author, and is based on the notes that Vassiliev, a former KGB agent, took on KGB files that were shown to him in the 1990s. This is the second go-round for these notes, which were also used a decade ago as the source material for "The Haunted Wood" (Random House, 1999), a book co-authored by Vassiliev and Allen Weinstein, who recently retired as Archivist of the United States. "Spies" purports to confirm the earlier book's conclusion that Alger Hiss and others accused of espionage during the McCarthy period were in fact guilty. Haynes and Klehr also claim that Vassiliev's notebooks contain a great deal of information that didn't appear in "The Haunted Wood" – information which confirms that Hiss was guilty as charged, and shows that the KGB net also ensnared such surprising figures as Ernest Hemingway and the journalist I. F. Stone.
The book has attracted a number of positive reviews from both conservatives and liberals – although, curiously, none of them treat it as a second look at previously covered ground. Nicholas Lemann, the Dean of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, wrote in The New Yorker that while perhaps Haynes and Klehr set the bar a little too low for determining who is a spy, he accepts their basic thesis about Hiss. Writing in The New Republic, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Anne Applebaum says that Haynes and Klehr "have usually stuck to the documents, the evidence, the facts" in their historical works and do not write polemically. She adds that "Haynes, Klehr and Vassiliev are well within their rights in titling their chapter 'Alger Hiss: Case Closed.'"
On the other hand, critics of the authors' work have found their approach more ideological than historical and their tone polemical, vindictive, and prosecutorial. Historian Amy Knight, for example, debunked many of the authors' arguments in a review she wrote for the Times Literary Supplement in June 2009. "The main purpose of 'Spies,' it seems, is not to enlighten readers," she writes, "but to silence those who still voice doubts about the guilt of people like Alger Hiss, Harry Dexter White, I.F. Stone and others." [2]
In fact, the documents shown to Vassiliev are in no way definitive in their assertions about Alger Hiss, and the arguments based on them by Haynes and Klehr, when held up to the light of day, are no more convincing or compelling or final or airtight or unassailable than the anti-Hiss arguments previously advanced by Weinstein. Much of the evidence cited by Haynes and Klehr can actually be viewed from a totally different perspective, as exculpatory. Unfortunately, this fact will escape reviewers who aren't familiar with the details of the tangled arguments used against Hiss.
"Spies" has already provoked controversy of a different sort, relating to the diverging stories Vassiliev has told about his note-taking process and to the book's provenance. (The issue is not so much the authenticity of the documents shown to Vassiliev, but rather whether he was deliberately shown only certain files of a relatively routine, trivial and often gossipy nature.)This is a separate issue that will be dealt with elsewhere; [3] my focus here is on the accuracy of the conclusions that Haynes and Klehr draw.
Some of these issues were raised publicly in May when the authors were challenged by several attendees (including this writer) at a conference convened by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, in Washington D.C. (A separate dissection of Haynes and Klehr's allegations against I.F. Stone was the subject of a cover story in the May 25, 2009 issue of The Nation.)
Despite all these objections, "Spies" does have one great virtue: it carefully reassembles in a single chapter most, if not all, of the charges raised against Alger Hiss over the better part of the last quarter century (the so-called "new evidence"). It therefore provides a rare chance to see how comprehensively unconvincing the full case against Hiss actually is – both the original allegations and the second-generation accusations – and to show the flimsiness and illogicality of each individual piece of "evidence." By devoting considerable attention to "Spies," this site will draw attention both to the shortcomings of its general approach to scholarship and, more specifically, to the shockingly slipshod and at times almost amateurish nature of the case against Hiss. ...