Read Online Six Crises by Richard Nixon - Free Book Online

bird.”
    The lease on the apartment expired in September 1935, Hiss said. “And I think I saw him several times after that. I think he told me he moved from here to Baltimore.”
    â€œEven though he didn’t pay his rent, you saw him several times?” I asked.
    â€œHe was about to pay it and was going to sell his articles. He gave me a payment on it on account once. He brought a rug over which he said some wealthy patron gave him. I have still got the damned thing.”
    â€œDid you ever give him anything?” I asked.
    â€œNever anything but a couple of loans. Never got paid back,” Hiss replied.
    â€œHave you ever heard of him since 1935?” I asked.
    â€œNo. Never thought of him again until this morning on the train,” Hiss answered.
    Hiss said that to his knowledge Crosley was not a member of the Communist Party and that they had never discussed Communism. Crosley claimed to have written for American Magazine and for Cosmopolitan, but Hiss said he had never seen Crosley’s name on any articles and that he personally had never seen anything Crosley had written. Apart from the rug, he had paid only $15 or $20 on the rent—which would have been $225 for the three-month summer period.
    I told Hiss that Chambers had indicated his willingness to take a lie detector test with regard to this testimony and asked him if he would also be willing to do so. Hiss said that he would like to have an opportunity for further consultation as to the accuracy of such tests before he gave his answer.
    Just before the end of the session, the Committee voted to hold a public hearing on Wednesday, August 25, in the caucus room of the Old House Office Building—at which time Chambers and Hiss would have the opportunity to confront one another. Hiss agreed to be present.
    â€¢Â Â â€¢Â Â â€¢
    That evening Stripling and I spent several hours in my office comparing notes on our reactions to Hiss’s testimony. We were convinced that Crosley and Chambers were the same man. Chambers did know Hiss. But the key question remained: which man was telling the truth as to the character of that relationship?
    Hiss’s story was plausible. But could an argument over his failure to pay a $200 rent bill cause Chambers—thirteen years later—to risk hisreputation, a $25,000-a-year job, and a prison term for perjury, in order to get revenge on Hiss? Where was the motivation?
    And then there was the testimony about the car. Why would Hiss, who was not a wealthy man, give even an old car in those depression days to a “deadbeat” free-lance writer with whom he had only a casual acquaintance? I recalled, too, that Hiss had spoken with rather strange and uncharacteristic vehemence when we asked him about the car. “It wasn’t worth a damn,” he had said. And he seemed to have a similar reaction when we spoke of Chambers giving him the rug. “I still have the damn thing,” he had exclaimed. Was there something about the car and the rug that especially worried him? Like Lady Macbeth, was he saying, in effect, “Out, damned spot!” 4
    But we had not been able to find the records on the car, and Chambers had not even mentioned the rug. Stripling and I decided that every available member of our small Committee staff should concentrate between now and August 25 in trying to find out what had happened to that “slightly collegiate model Ford with the sassy little trunk on the back.”
    Stripling left my office shortly before midnight, but I continued to appraise the testimony of both Hiss and Chambers. I knew that we had reached the critical breaking point in the case. Timing now became especially important.
    If Hiss’s story about Crosley were true, why had he not disclosed it to the Committee when he first appeared in public session? Why had he first tried so desperately to divert the Committee from questioning him on the facts Chambers had