Witness

by Whittaker Chambers

  At supper, Mrs. Berle took swift stock of the two strange guests who had thus appeared so oddly at her board, and graciously bounced the conversational ball. She found that we shared a common interest in gardening. I learned that the Berles imported their flower seeds from England and that Mrs. Berle had even been able to grow the wild cardinal flower from seed. I glanced at my hosts and at Levine, thinking of the one cardinal flower that grew in the running brook in my boyhood. But I was also thinking that it would take more than modulated voices, graciousness and candle-light to save a world that prized those things.

  After the coffee, Mrs. Berle left us. Berle, Levine and I went out on the lawn. Three anticipatory chairs were waiting for us, like a mushroom ring in a pasture. The trees laid down islands of shadow, and about us washed the ocean of warm, sweet, southern air whose basic scent is honeysuckle. From beyond, came the rumor of the city, the softened rumble of traffic on Connecticut Avenue.

  We had scarcely sat down when a Negro serving man brought drinks. I was intensely grateful. I drank mine quickly. I knew that two or three glasses of Scotch and soda would give me a liberating exhilaration. For what I had to do, I welcomed any aid that would loosen my tongue.

  Levine made some prefatory statement about my special information, which, of course, they had already discussed before. Berle was extremely agitated. “We may be in this war within forty-eight hours,” he said, “and we cannot go into it without clean services.” He said this not once, but several times. I was astonished to hear from an Assistant Secretary of State that the Government considered it possible that the United States might go into the war at once.

  Gratefully, I felt the alcohol take hold. It was my turn to speak. I remember only that I said that I was about to give very serious information touching certain people in the Government, but that I had no malice against those people. I believed that they constituted a danger to the country in this crisis. I begged, if possible, that they might merely be dismissed from their posts and not otherwise prosecuted. Even while I said it, I supposed that it was a waste of breath. But it was such a waste of breath as a man must make. I did not realize that it was also supremely ironic. “I am a lawyer, Mr. Chambers,” said Mr. Berle, “not a policeman.”

  It was a rambling talk. I do not recall any special order in it. Nor do I recall many details. I recall chiefly the general picture I drew of Communist infiltration of the Government and one particular point. In view of the war danger, and the secrecy of the bombsight, I more than once stressed to Berle the importance of getting Reno as quickly as possible out of the Aberdeen Proving Ground. (When the F.B.I. looked for him in 1948, he was still employed there.)

  We sat on the lawn for two or three hours. Almost all of that time I was talking. I supposed, later on, that I had given Berle the names of Bykov and the head of the steel experimental laboratory whom I have mentioned in Part 8 of this book. They do not appear in the typed notes. Levine remembers that we discussed micro. film. I have no independent recollection of that. But, while we must have covered a good deal of ground in two or three hours, it is scarcely strange that none of us should have remembered too clearly just what he said on the lawn, for most of the time we were holding glasses in our hands.

  Around midnight, we went into the house. What we said there is not in question because Berle took it in the form of penciled notes. Just inside the front door, he sat at a little desk or table with a telephone on it and while I talked he wrote, abbreviating swiftly as he went along. These notes did not cover the entire conversation on the lawn. They were what we recapitulated quickly at a late hour after a good many drinks. I assumed that they were an exploratory skeleton on which further conversations and investigation would be based.

  After midnight, Levine and I left. As we went out, I could see that Mrs. Berle had fallen asleep on a couch in a room to my right. Adolf Berle, in great excitement, was on the telephone even before we were out the door. I supposed that he was calling the White House.

  In August, 1948, Adolf A. Berle testified before the House Committee on Un-American Activities not long after my original testimony about Alger Hiss and the Ware Group. The former Assistant Secretary of State could no longer clearly recall my conversation with him almost a decade before. His memory had grown dim on a number of points. He believed, for example, that I had described to him a Marxist study group whose members were not Communists. In any case, he had been unable to take seriously, in 1939, any “idea that the Hiss boys and Nat Witt were going to take over the Government.”

  At no time in our conversation can I remember anyone’s mentioning the ugly word espionage. But how well we understood what we were talking about, Berle was to make a matter of record. For when, four years after that memorable conversation, his notes were finally taken out of a secret file and turned over to the F.B.I., it was found that Adolf Berle himself had headed them: Underground Espionage Agent.

  VIII

  Here are the notes that Adolf Berle jotted down as I talked in 1939—or a typed copy of them made for him later—as they were introduced into evidence in the second Hiss trial.

  LONDON Underground Espionage Agent

  (1) Dr. Philip Rosenbliett-Formerly of 41st B’way, NE).

  Dr. Greenberg—MD (West 70th NY) Brother-in-law American leader of British Underground C.

  Head in America Mack Moren (alias Philipovitch-allegedly Yugoslav)—real name—?

  Rosenbliett—in U.S. connected with Dr. Isador Miller—Chemist’s Club—41st St. Chemist, Explosive Arsenal, Picatinny, N.J. war “front” behind Mack Moren existed—in Miller’s employ Knew Pressman—his alias was “Cole Philips”—Introduced him to Mack Moren, buying arms for Spanish (Loyalist) Gov’t.—

  Pressman—as counsel—helped Moren—made a flight to Mexico with him; forced down at Brownsville, Tex. in late ’36 or early 37-probably fall of ’36.

  Pressman

  Underground organized by the late Harold Ware; Pressman was in his group—( 1932-3??) Pressman then in the A.A.A.—

  Nathan Witt—Secretary of the NLRB—head of the underground group after Harold Ware—

  John Abt—followed Witt in that group—Tax Div’n—Dep’t of Justice & now in CIO (M. Ware’s widow—Jessica Smith Ed. Soviet Russia).

  Mr. Abt—Sister: Marion Bacharach—Secretary—Communist from Minnesota. (Jessica Smith: With Reuters in 1926—friend of Louis Fischer) Meeting place: John Abt’s house—igth St.

  Charles Krivitsky—alias Charles Kramer—(CIO) worked in La Follette Committee—Physicist.

  Vincent Reno—Now at Aberdeen Proving Grounds—Computer—Math. Assist. to Col. Zornig (Aerial bombsight Detectors) Formerly CP organizer under alias “Lance Clark.”

  Philip Reno—in Social Security (??)—was head of Underground Trade Union Group Political leader

  Elinor Nelson, treasurer of Fed. Employees’ union—(Fed. Workers’ Union, CIO—headed by Jake Baker)

  Reno connected with Baltimore Party organizer—Benjamin (Bundey) Friedman alias Field—then California—then Russia—now organizer for Baltimore & Washington of Above-Ground Party—Underground connections—

  STATE

  Post—Editorship, Foreign Service ]ournal. Was in Alexandria Unit of CP—in “Underground Apparatus”—

  Duggan—Laurence—(Member CP??) (Wadleigh?) Wadley—Trade Agreement Section

  Lovell—Trade Agreement Section Communist Shop Group Elinor Nelson—Laurence Duggan—Julien Wadleigh—

  West European Div’n—Field—still in—(Levine says he is out went into I.E.O. Then in committee for Repatriation

  His leader was Hedda Compertz Lauchlin Currie: Was a “Fellow Traveler”—helped various

  Communists—never went the whole way.

  S.E.C.

  Philip Reno—used to be

  TREASURY

  Schlomer Adler (Sol Adler?) Counsel’s Office

  Sends weekly reports to CP (Gen. Counsel’s Office) Frank Coe—now teacher at McGill.

  There ar
e two: brother—One of them in CP’s “Foreign Bureau”—Bob Coe

  Known from Peters—formerly in Bela Kun Govt. Agricultural Commissariat—called Gandosz (?)

  Then to Russia—then here, in Business Office of Communist paper “Uj Elori”—then, after 1929—head of CP Underground, lived in Hamilton Apts., Woodside, L.I.—under alias “Silver”—& lectured in Communist camps—Friend: “Blake” of “Freiheit”—real name—Wiener—American: Polish Jew.—

  Peters was responsible for Washington Sector

  Went to Moscow—where is he now?—

  Wife—a Comintern courier—

  West Coast—Head: “The Old Man”—Volkov is his real name—daughter a Comintern courier. He knows the West Coast underground—Residence: San Francisco or Oak-land—

  Alexander Trachtenberg—Politburo—member of the Execu. Committee Head of GPU in U.S. Works with Peters—

  Plans for two Super-battleships—secured in 1937—who gave—

  Karp—brother-in-law of Molotov—working with Scott Ferris, got this released—

  Now: Naval Architect working on it, why??

  Field was original contact

  He introduced Duggan to Gompertz (Hedda) Duggan’s relationship was casual—

  Shall excuse?—Where is Hedda Compertz?—Duggan & Field supposed to have been both members of party.—

  Donald Hiss

  (Philippine Adviser) Member of CP with Pressman & Witt—Labor Dep’t.—Asst. to Frances Perkins—Party wanted him there—to send him as arbitrator in Bridges trial—Brought along by brother—

  Alger Hiss

  Ass’t. to Sayre—CP—1937

  Member of the Underground Corn.—Active Baltimore boys—

  Wife—Priscilla Hiss—Socialist—Early days of New Deal

  NOTE—When Loy Henderson interviewed Mrs. Rubens his report immediately went back to Moscow. Who sent it? Such came from Washington.

  These notes are obviously rambling and garbled. Even I can no longer remember what some of the references mean or how I came to know of them—for example, that the Russians had obtained the plans for two super-battleships in 1937. For while I have remembered a great deal, many facts that were fresh in my mind in 1939 have dropped out of it beyond recovery.

  But if the notes are studied carefully, it will be seen that the essential framework of the conspiracy is here, even down to such details as the fact that Reno was working as Colonel Zornig’s asssistant at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds. It is equally clear that I am describing not a Marxist study group, but a Communist conspiracy. The Communists are described as such. The reader has only to ask himself what he would have done, if he had been a security officer of the Government, and such information had come into his hands, or even if he had been told no more than the address for cables to the Soviet apparatuses, which is the meaning of one of the entries, or the fact that a Communist was working on the bombsight.

  Two names I deliberately omitted from my conversation with Berle. They were those of George Silverman and Harry Dexter White. I still hoped that I had broken them away from the Communist Party. Perhaps it is worth observing, too, that the last name on the list, the one that I could not bring myself to mention until the very end, though I was repeating it for the second time that night, is the name of Alger Hiss.

  IX

  Isaac Don Levine went back to his hotel and sensibly wrote down at once as many names as he could remember from my conversation. It was fortunate that he did so. For when I was testifying before the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1948, and I foresaw that I might have no choice but to go into the espionage story, I was disturbed by the fact that I could not remember the name of one of the sources in the State Department.

  I telephoned Levine. The name I had forgotten, he was able to inform me by glancing at the jottings he had made in 1939, was Julian Wadleigh.

  The same night that I had talked with Berle, I returned to New York. For the second time in two years, I had laid my life in ruins. I had only to wait for what would happen next. One of the things most likely to happen, it seemed to me, was my arrest.

  X

  But nothing at all happened. Weeks passed into months. I went about my work at Time. Then, one day, I am no longer certain just when, I met a dejected Levine. Adolf Berle, said Levine, had taken my information to the President at once. The President had laughed. When Berle was insistent, he had been told in words which it is necessary to paraphrase, to “go jump in a lake.”

  The thought crossed my mind that the story might have been put out to conceal the Government’s real purpose. Surveillance and investigation were necessary. It might be some time before the Government was prepared to act. Meanwhile, it would watch and check.

  I tried to believe that that was the fact. But I knew that it could not be, for if the Government were checking, it could not fail also to check with me.

  XI

  In going to Berle, I had keyed myself to the highest pitch of effort. When nothing came of it, I felt like a wire that has been stretched to the snapping point and let go slack. The effect on me was twofold.

  On one hand, I felt a sense that causes beyond my grasp or control, causes not necessarily good in themselves, were working toward a beneficent purpose which I could obscurely feel, but not define. I believed that I had done what I should do; I had proved myself. But I had then come up against something unexpected with which I could not cope. One effect was to give me a reprieve, to give me time to prove myself in a larger way so that when my time came to speak out (and in my heart I never believed that the truth to which I was a witness could be indefinitely hidden) I would speak with an authority that I now lacked, an authority based upon accomplishment. Let no one suppose that this is wise hindsight. Those were my groping thoughts at the time. And I thought a great deal about the subject, for the failure of the mission to Adolf Berle filled me with astonishment.

  And with astonishment I took my first hard look at the New Deal. This was the second effect of the Berle failure on me. It is surprising how little I knew about the New Deal, although it had been all around me during my years in Washington. But all the New Dealers I had known were Communists or near-Communists. None of them took the New Deal seriously as an end in itself. They regarded it as an instrument for gaining their own revolutionary ends. I myself thought of the New Deal as a reform movement that, in social and labor legislation, was belatedly bringing the United States abreast of Britain or Scandinavia.

  I had noted its obvious features—its coalition of divergent interests, some of them diametrically opposed to the others, its divided counsels, its makeshift strategy, its permanently shifting executive personnel whose sole consistency seemed to be that the more it changed, the more it remained the most incongruously headed hybrid since the hydra. Now with a curiosity newborn of Berle, I saw how misleading those surface manifestations were, and tactically how advantageous, for they concealed the inner drift of this great movement. That drift was prevailingly toward socialism, though the mass of those who, in part directed, in part were carried along by it, sincerely supposed that they were liberals.

  I saw that the New Deal was only superficially a reform movement. I had to acknowledge the truth of what its more forthright protagonists, sometimes unwarily, sometimes defiantly, averred: the New Deal was a genuine revolution, whose deepest purpose was not simply reform within existing traditions, but a basic change in the social, and, above all, the power relationships within the nation. It was not a revolution by violence. It was a revolution by bookkeeping and lawmaking. In so far as it was successful, the power of politics had replaced the power of business. This is the basic power shift of all the revolutions of our time. This shift was the revolution. It was only of incidental interest that the revolution was not complete, that it was made not by tanks and machine guns, but by acts of Congress and decisions of the Supreme Court, or that many of the revolutionists did not know what they were or denied it. But revolution is always an affair of force,
whatever forms the force disguises itself in. Whether the revolutionists prefer to call themselves Fabians, who seek power by the inevitability of gradualism, or Bolsheviks, who seek power by the dictatorship of the proletariat, the struggle is for power.

  Now I thought that I understood much better something that in the past had vaguely nibbled at my mind, but never nibbled to a conclusion—namely, how it happened that so many concealed Communists were clustered in Government, and how it was possible for them to operate so freely with so little fear of detection. For as between revolutionists who only half know what they are doing and revolutionists who know exactly what they are doing the latter are in a superb maneuvering position. At the basic point of the revolution—the shift of power from business to government—the two kinds of revolutionists were at one; and they shared many other views and hopes. Thus men who sincerely abhorred the word Communism, in the pursuit of common ends found that they were unable to distinguish Communists from themselves, except that it was just the Communists who were likely to be most forthright and most dedicated in the common cause. This political color blindness was all the more dogged because it was completely honest For men who could not see that what they firmly believed was liberalism added up to socialism could scarcely be expected to see what added up to Communism. Any charge of Communism enraged them precisely because they could not grasp the differences between themselves and those against whom it was made. Conscious of their own political innocence, they suspected that it was merely mischievous, and was aimed, from motives of political malice, at themselves. But as the struggle was really for revolutionary power, which in our age is always a struggle for control of the masses, that was the point at which they always betrayed their real character, for they reacted not like liberals, but with the fierceness of revolutionists whenever that power was at issue.