LeMod Pol wrote:
AG Tom Clark played along with the post-war
anti-communist hysteria, approving federal wiretaps on
Alger Hiss, the State Department official accused being
a Soviet mole.
And the FBI, despite 24 hour-a-day phone taps and mail openings, never
found any evidence of Hiss being a communist or engaging in espionage.
However, the FBI did learn a great deal about which guests got invited
to Hiss dinner parties (sorry, no communists invited), and what topics
were discussed at those parties (sorry, violent overthrow of the United
States government was never a topic.)
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| User: "Orval Fairbairn" |
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| Title: Re: Was Hiss guilty? |
30 Dec 2004 04:23:49 PM |
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In article <1104430284.834244.216590@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
wrote:
LeMod Pol wrote:
AG Tom Clark played along with the post-war
anti-communist hysteria, approving federal wiretaps on
Alger Hiss, the State Department official accused being
a Soviet mole.
And the FBI, despite 24 hour-a-day phone taps and mail openings, never
found any evidence of Hiss being a communist or engaging in espionage.
However, the FBI did learn a great deal about which guests got invited
to Hiss dinner parties (sorry, no communists invited), and what topics
were discussed at those parties (sorry, violent overthrow of the United
States government was never a topic.)
Examination of old Soviet documents has shown that Hiss was, indeed, a
Soviet agent.
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| User: "Bert Hyman" |
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| Title: Re: Was Hiss guilty? |
30 Dec 2004 04:26:06 PM |
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In news:1104430284.834244.216590@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com
vesuvian.doppelgange@lycos.com wrote:
LeMod Pol wrote:
AG Tom Clark played along with the post-war
anti-communist hysteria, approving federal wiretaps on
Alger Hiss, the State Department official accused being
a Soviet mole.
And the FBI, despite 24 hour-a-day phone taps and mail openings, never
found any evidence of Hiss being a communist or engaging in espionage.
I suggest you look into the recently declassified documents of the CIA's
Venona program. For starters, see
http://www.cia.gov/csi/books/venona/venona.htm
--
Bert Hyman St. Paul, MN bert@visi.com
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| User: "Harry Thompson" |
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| Title: Re: Was Hiss guilty? |
31 Dec 2004 11:36:38 AM |
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"Bert Hyman" <bert@visi.com> wrote in message
news:Xns95CFA74B27388VeebleFetzer@news.mpls.visi.com...
In news:1104430284.834244.216590@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com
vesuvian.doppelgange@lycos.com wrote:
LeMod Pol wrote:
AG Tom Clark played along with the post-war
anti-communist hysteria, approving federal wiretaps on
Alger Hiss, the State Department official accused being
a Soviet mole.
And the FBI, despite 24 hour-a-day phone taps and mail openings,
never
found any evidence of Hiss being a communist or engaging in
espionage.
I suggest you look into the recently declassified documents of the
CIA's
Venona program. For starters, see
http://www.cia.gov/csi/books/venona/venona.htm
There are only two decrypts possibly concerning Hiss. One mentions Hiss
by name in a harmless context. There is no way to determine if Alger is
meant or his brother Donald, or somebody else. See Decrypt Ext No 1579,
Sept 28, 1943, Translation 3/NBF/T243.
The second decrypt is a report on ALES, a GRU agent in the State Dept.
The NSA footnote identifies ALES as probably Hiss, but there is nothing
in the decrypt itself that identifies him. Presumably the footnote is
based on police work, that is, the FBI. See Decrypt Ext No 1822, Mar 30,
1945, no Translation no given.
BTW, the NSA has removed almost all the decrypts from their web site.
You can still view them at John Young's shadow, Cryptome.
So, let me ask, just what is one supposed to see at
http://www.cia.gov/csi/books/venona/venona.htm?
Hap
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| User: "Bert Hyman" |
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| Title: Re: Was Hiss guilty? |
31 Dec 2004 12:12:21 PM |
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In news:33lh0vF3vtk3aU1@individual.net "Harry Thompson" <me@privacy.net>
wrote:
BTW, the NSA has removed almost all the decrypts from their web site.
You can still view them at John Young's shadow, Cryptome.
So, let me ask, just what is one supposed to see at
http://www.cia.gov/csi/books/venona/venona.htm?
I wasn't aware that they'd removed the decrypts from their Web site. Maybe
that's to protect the commercial sales of products related to the
documents.
Everything I've read has told me that the conclusion that ALES was Hiss
was not controversial.
--
Bert Hyman St. Paul, MN bert@visi.com
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| User: "Harry Thompson" |
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| Title: Re: Was Hiss guilty? |
31 Dec 2004 03:00:36 PM |
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"Bert Hyman" <bert@visi.com> wrote in message
news:Xns95D07C45ABE57VeebleFetzer@news.octanews.com...
In news:33lh0vF3vtk3aU1@individual.net "Harry Thompson"
<me@privacy.net>
wrote:
BTW, the NSA has removed almost all the decrypts from their web site.
You can still view them at John Young's shadow, Cryptome.
So, let me ask, just what is one supposed to see at
http://www.cia.gov/csi/books/venona/venona.htm?
I wasn't aware that they'd removed the decrypts from their Web site.
Maybe
that's to protect the commercial sales of products related to the
documents.
The NSA has not explained the removal. At the URL they say that the
removal is temporary to correct errors. However, I discovered that the
removal is permanent. NSA has no intentions of exhibiting the decrypts
again.
So, whatever guess we can make must be speculative.
I like John Young's guess, in the Intelligence Forum. He guesses that
publishing the decrypts has willy-nilly involved the NSA in an old, old
political squabble between Left and Right. It makes the NSA a Right wing
partisan in a domestic political squabble. That's dangerous to NSA's
mission. He supposes that the NSA realized this after the fact, and so
has removed the decrypts. They are still available in book form, not
likely to be widely looked at.
Young's guess is as good as any. I buy it. In my personal opinion, the
decrypts should never have been published. It's like publishing raw
police files. They can be used for any political purpose. To repeat,
that is harmful to NSA's mission.
There are several decrypts, for example, concerning Right wing plots to
abandon the Constitution and install a military dictatorship after the
War. Supposedly, one of these plots involved the Twelve Apostles (a
fetching name!) at the War Dept. One of the leaders supposedly was
Truman Smith. Why has there been no examination of Right wing scheming
as revealed in the decrypts? Why didn't the Schniers jump on this?
Because, I suppose, very few people have actually read the darn things.
Hap
Everything I've read has told me that the conclusion that ALES was
Hiss
was not controversial.
That may be, but not based on Venona. One thing I have promised myself
is not to get involved in any Alger Hissing matches. Sheesh, what a
political mess! I limit myself only to Venona.
Someday, when I work up enough nerve, I might come out on Harry Dexter
White. I think he is incorrectly identified as RICHARD in the decrypts.
My candidate for LAWYER, JURIST, and RICHARD is Sam Rosenman, the FBI's
first suspect. But that's another controversy, and I wouldn't insist on
Rosenman either.
Hap
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| User: "Jim Gillogly" |
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| Title: Re: Was Hiss guilty? |
31 Dec 2004 01:53:08 PM |
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On Fri, 31 Dec 2004 18:12:21 +0000, Bert Hyman wrote:
In news:33lh0vF3vtk3aU1@individual.net "Harry Thompson" <me@privacy.net>
wrote:
BTW, the NSA has removed almost all the decrypts from their web site.
You can still view them at John Young's shadow, Cryptome.
So, let me ask, just what is one supposed to see at
http://www.cia.gov/csi/books/venona/venona.htm?
I wasn't aware that they'd removed the decrypts from their Web site. Maybe
that's to protect the commercial sales of products related to the
documents.
Everything I've read has told me that the conclusion that ALES was Hiss
was not controversial.
The decrypt is also at
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/hiss/hissvenona.html
This page discusses the main evidence -- that both ALES
and Hiss visited Moscow after the Yalta conference, and
that a defector, Oleg Gordievsky, said six years before
the VENONA decrypts were released that Alger Hiss was
code-named ALES.
The Gordievsky identification would seem to seal it, but
at http://www.nybooks.com/articles/983 it says Gordievsky
cited the Thomas Powers 1989 pre-release story in the
New York Review on VENONA for his identification of ALES
with Hiss. It looks to me like "Probably Alger HISS" is
still the most that can be said... and even that may be
too much.
--
Jim Gillogly
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Was Hiss guilty? |
30 Dec 2004 09:42:57 PM |
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Hiss could not have been "Ales," because, according to Venona, Ales was
in the American military.
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| User: "RTO Trainer" |
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| Title: Re: Was Hiss guilty? |
30 Dec 2004 08:44:57 PM |
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On 30 Dec 2004 10:11:24 -0800, wrote:
LeMod Pol wrote:
AG Tom Clark played along with the post-war
anti-communist hysteria, approving federal wiretaps on
Alger Hiss, the State Department official accused being
a Soviet mole.
And the FBI, despite 24 hour-a-day phone taps and mail openings, never
found any evidence of Hiss being a communist or engaging in espionage.
However, the FBI did learn a great deal about which guests got invited
to Hiss dinner parties (sorry, no communists invited), and what topics
were discussed at those parties (sorry, violent overthrow of the United
States government was never a topic.)
What about Whitaker Chambers' Pumpkin Papers?
---
COFFEE.EXE missing
Insert CUP and press ENTER to retry.
Signaleer http://signaleer.blogspot.com
This Day in U.S. Military History http://tdiumh.blogspot.com
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Was Hiss guilty? |
31 Dec 2004 04:22:11 PM |
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What about Whitaker Chambers' ten years of lying about Alger Hiss,
including lying under oath? Before 1948, Chambers asserted that Hiss
was neither a spy nor a member of the Communist party. What Chambers
was saying for close to ten years about Hiss was that he might become a
recruitment target for Communists. Chambers was forced at the Hiss
trials to confess his repeated lying and perjury under oath.
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