Scholars Restudy Alger Hiss Spy Case

Alger Hiss is shown in this 1980 file photo. A Russian researcher, delving anew into once-secret Soviet files from the Cold War, says she has found no evidence that Alger Hiss spied or that Soviet intelligence had any particular interest in him. (AP Photo/file) (AP)

Also Thursday, Timothy Hobson, an 80-year-old retired surgeon who was Hiss' stepson and grew up in the family home in Washington, D.C., said that Whittaker Chambers, whose bombshell allegations against Hiss broke the case open, had lied about his personal relationship with Hiss and had never visited the home as he claimed.

Hobson said that as a 10-year-old boy, he suffered a broken leg and was in a cast for months, during which time he met everybody who came calling.

Chambers was a former American communist party member who spied for the Soviets during the 1930s. He defected before World War II and accused others of being spies, but his claims did not attract FBI interest until after the war. He joined Time magazine in 1939 and as a writer and editor was a severe critic of communism. He died in 1961.

"It is my conviction that he was in love with Alger Hiss, that he was rejected by Alger Hiss and he took that rejection in a vindictive way," Hobson said.

Hobson said Chambers' sexual orientation had been mentioned in a book and was recorded in unreleased FBI files.

Hobson shared the platform with his younger half-brother, Tony Hiss, who has written two books that make the case their father was innocent. Hobson was close to tears as he said that he, as a gay man, was given an undesirable discharge from the U.S. Navy _ and said that was what kept Hiss' defense lawyers from calling him as a witness in court.

"This puts it all on the record," Hobson said, to a partial standing ovation from the audience, including university faculty and students.

Among the speakers arguing that Hiss was guilty, author G. Edward White said Hiss supporters use a "thread strategy," seizing on any "inconsistency" to unravel a scenario aiming to vindicate him of the spy charges.

Whether Hiss was Ales need not rely on a single piece of evidence, White said. There is no reason that pieces of evidence must corroborate one another, and "we can't say that the absence of evidence is evidence," White said.