Alger Hiss, Whittaker Chambers and the Case That Ignited McCarthyism

Alger Hiss, Whittaker Chambers and the Case That Ignited McCarthyism

Author: Lewis Hartshorn

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2013-07-17

Total Pages: 227

ISBN-13: 0786474424

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This is a consensus-challenging history of the Alger Hiss-Whittaker Chambers controversy of 1948 to 1950, a criminal case in which Hiss was convicted of perjury after two long trials. Chambers claimed that Hiss had passed classified State Department documents to him in 1937 and 1938 for transmittal to the Soviet Union. Hiss denied the charges but was found guilty at his second trial (the jury could not reach a decision in the first). Hiss was not charged with espionage because of the statute of limitations. The main focus of this narrative concentrates on the early months of the affair, from August 1948 when Chambers appeared before the House Committee on Un-American Activities and denounced Hiss and several others as underground Communists, to the following December when Hiss was indicted for perjury. The truth emerges as the story unfolds, based in part on grand jury records unsealed by court order in 1999, leading to the conclusion that the stories Whittaker Chambers told the authorities and later published about himself and Alger Hiss in the Communist underground are completely fraudulent.


A Pack of Lies

A Pack of Lies

Author: John Arundel Barnes

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1994-06-09

Total Pages: 222

ISBN-13: 9780521459785

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Defining lies as statements that are intended to deceive, this book considers the contexts in which people tell lies, how they are detected and sometimes exposed, and the consequences for the liars themselves, their dupes, and the wider society. The author provides examples from a number of cultures with distinctive religious and ethical traditions, and delineates domains where lying is the norm, domains that are ambiguous and the one domain (science) that requires truthtelling. He refers to experimental studies on children that show how, at an early age, they acquire the capactiy to lie and learn when it is appropriate to do so. He reviews how lying has been evaluated by moralists, examines why we do not regard novels as lies and relates the human capacity to lie to deceit among other animal species. He concludes that although there are, in all societies, good pragmatic reasons for not lying all the time, there are also strong reasons for lying some of the time.


The Invincible Quest

The Invincible Quest

Author: Conrad Black

Publisher: McClelland & Stewart

Published: 2009-02-24

Total Pages: 1186

ISBN-13: 155199254X

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The Invincible Quest is an authoritative biography of one of the most accomplished and controversial leaders of the twentieth century. Beginning with Richard Nixon’s birth to Quaker parents in 1913 and ending with his death in 1994, Conrad Black traces Nixon’s career, assessing both his achievements and the evolution of popular and historical thinking about him since his death. Drawing on recently opened tapes and documents, and on Black’s personal interviews with many of the major players in Nixon’s administration, The Invincible Quest reveals a new side of Nixon: a man who didn’t have the advantage of charisma but was surprisingly self-assured and effective; a man dogged by political scandal yet seemingly unstoppable. Opinionated, balanced, and perceptive, The Invincible Quest makes a significant contribution to re-evaluating the idiosyncratic president’s entire, eventful career.


Nixon's First Cover-up

Nixon's First Cover-up

Author: H. Larry Ingle

Publisher: University of Missouri Press

Published: 2015-07-07

Total Pages: 285

ISBN-13: 0826273351

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Have you ever thought you completely knew a story, inside and out, only to see some new information that shatters what you had come to accept as unquestioned fact? Well, Richard Nixon is that story, and Nixon’s First Cover-up is that new information. With few exceptions, the religious ideologies and backgrounds of U.S. presidents is a topic sorely lacking in analysis. H. Larry Ingle seeks to remedy this situation regarding Nixon—one of the most controversial and intriguing of the presidents. Ingle delves more deeply into Nixon’s Quaker background than any previous scholar to observe the role Nixon’s religion played in his political career. Nixon’s unique and personally tailored brand of evangelical Quakerism stayed hidden when he wanted it to, but was on display whenever he felt it might help him advance his career in some way. Ingle’s unparalleled knowledge of Quakerism enables him to deftly point out how Nixon bent the traditional rules of the religion to suit his needs or, in some cases, simply ignored them entirely. This theme of the constant contradiction between Nixon’s actions and his apparent religious beliefs makes Nixon’s First Cover-up truly a groundbreaking study both in the field of Nixon research as well as the field of the influence of religion on the U.S. presidency. Forty years after Nixon’s resignation from office, Ingle’s work proves there remains much about the thirty-seventh president that the American public does not yet know.


Crimes Of The Century

Crimes Of The Century

Author: Gilbert Geis

Publisher: Northeastern University Press

Published: 2016-04-01

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 1555538681

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In compelling narrative, the authors probe the sensational cases of Nathan F. Leopold, Jr., and Richard A. Loeb, the Scottsboro "boys," Bruno Richard Hauptmann, Alger Hiss, and O.J. Simpson, highlighting significant lessons about criminal behavior and the administration of criminal justice. Each case study details the crime, the police investigation, and the court proceedings, profiles the major players, and examines the outcome and aftermath of the trial. The authors untangle the perplexities surrounding the cases and illuminate the many mysteries that remain unsolved today. These celebrated trials reveal issues of overzealous prosecution, sloppy police work, judicial bias, race, class, and ethnic struggles, and the role of wealth in securing a competent defense. They also show how the temper of the times and frenzied media coverage heightened the intensity of drama in the cases.


Richard M. Nixon

Richard M. Nixon

Author: Conrad Black

Publisher: PublicAffairs

Published: 2008-10-23

Total Pages: 1169

ISBN-13: 0786727039

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From the late 1940s to the mid-1970s, Richard Nixon was a polarizing figure in American politics, admired for his intelligence, savvy, and strategic skill, and reviled for his shady manner and cutthroat tactics. Conrad Black, whose epic biography of FDR was widely acclaimed as a masterpiece, now separates the good in Nixon -- his foreign initiatives, some of his domestic policies, and his firm political hand -- from the sinister, in a book likely to generate enormous attention and controversy. Black believes the hounding of Nixon from office was partly political retribution from a lifetime's worth of enemies and Nixon's misplaced loyalty to unworthy subordinates, and not clearly the consequence of crimes in which he participated. Conrad Black's own recent legal travails, though hardly comparable, have undoubtedly given him an unusual insight into the pressures faced by Nixon in his last two years as president and the first few years of his retirement.


The Press on Trial

The Press on Trial

Author: Lloyd E. Chiasson

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 1997-08-28

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 0313019169

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Perhaps no drama catches the interest of the American public more than a spectacular trial. Even though the reporting of a crime may quickly diminish in news value, the trial lingers while drama builds. Although this has become seemingly more pronounced in recent years with the popularity of televised trials, public interest in criminal trials was just as high in 1735 when John Peter Zenger defended his right to free speech, or in 1893 when Lizzie Borden was tried for the murder of her father and stepmother. This book tells the stories of sixteen significant trials in American history and their media coverage, from the Zenger trial in 1735 to the O. J. Simpson trial in 1995. Each chapter relates the history of events leading up to the trial, the people involved, and how the crimes and subsequent trials were reported.


Casting Her Own Shadow

Casting Her Own Shadow

Author: Allida M. Black

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 1997-02-06

Total Pages: 348

ISBN-13: 9780231104050

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Black shows how Eleanor Roosevelt, after being freed from the constraints imposed by her role in the White House, eagerly expanded her career and unabashedly challenged both the Democratic party and American liberals to practice what they preach.