78-07-B1

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Alger Hiss

Transcript From the Academy Awards performance (by way of one Oscar winner) to well-written dramas and documentaries on TV, feature motion pictures, novels and articles there is an orchestrated campaign to revive the term "McCarthyism" and to rewrite history. We are supposed to believe there was no Communist subversion, no use of Communist fronts to lure innocent dupes into supporting Communist causes and no effort by Communists to infiltrate government, industry and the news media. Being a veteran of the battle to keep the motion picture industry out of the hands of the Communists back in the late 4O's when their power was such that by use of a jurisdictional labor dispute they almost closed the industry down, I find the documentaries shamefully dishonest and the dramas based on falsehood. A recent campus incident triggered this indignant outburst. At dear old Rutgers a visiting speaker on campus held hundreds of students spellbound with his account of the horrors of McCarthyism. Then a questioner in the audience broke the spell. He stood and asked the lecturer if it wasn't true that three different defectors from the Soviet secret police (now known as the KGB) had identified the speaker in sworn testimony as a Soviet agent? Had the speaker not been found guilty of perjury by a jury and his conviction upheld by our entire judicial review process? And hadn't a renowned scholar, sympathetic to the speaker studied the entire file on his case and concluded that he was indeed guilty? Ashen faced, the speaker, Alger Hiss, refused to comment. Now Alger Hiss had paid his debt to society (as the saying goes). He served his time in prison and therefore should be given his chance by society to "go straight". The truth is society has done very well by Hiss; no one has tried to persecute him or hound him. But he has become one of the focal points of the present campaign to rewrite the history of that era. He is being presented as an innocent victim of the thing called "McCarthyism", martyred by intolerant witch hunters. But, wait a moment -- the late Senator McCarthy hadn't even been heard from when Alger Hiss was charged with being a member of the Soviet underground. But the scholar mentioned by that questioner at Rutgers should end the myth of martyrdom. Professor Allen Weinstein of Smith College believed so much in the innocence of Alger Hiss that he invoked the Freedom of Information Act to get all the trial records and secret government files on Hiss. Painstakingly he studied more than 30,000 pages. Then in 1976 he informed Hiss that he had spent four years researching the case because he believed in his innocence, but that he was now convinced of his guilt. Professor Weinstein's book entitled "Per jury: The Hiss-Chambers Case", should be read by all who want the truth about that era. It is especially credible coming as it doe s from one who wanted the answer to be different. It's also exciting as a "who-done-it" and most informative. "Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case" is published by Knopf. This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening.		Details Batch Number 78-07-B1 Production Date 05/15/1978 Book/Page RPtV-297 Audio Youtube? No
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