Weeds, Roses & Jam

The florid man with the brush haircut rose, walked over to the jury box and grasped the rail with both hands. His manner was cozy. "We've all been here a long time," he confided, "and I feel I have come to know you well." Then he began buttering up: "In this sanctuary of justice, a holy place, to me second only to a church, I see you not as just twelve ladies and gentlemen. I see you strong, resolute and courageous soldiers of justice!"

Lawyer Lloyd Paul Stryker, who commands some of the highest fees in the business (up to $75,000 a case), was going into his big act: the summation for the defense in the perjury trial of Alger Hiss, onetime bright young man of the State Department.

It was a virtuoso performance. Stryker thundered and whispered. He banged the jury rail, sketched imaginary portraits, nourished a roll of microfilm until it snapped into a tangled mess. He invoked Almighty God, motherhood and the American flag. He accused the FBI of "impairing" defense witnesses. He pronounced the Government's star witness, Whittaker Chambers, a "traitor, thief, liar, perjurer, enemy of his country and a hypocrite," likened him to a coiled scorpion and a germ in a bottle of milk.

Orchestral Theme. At first Stryker talked almost into the jurors' faces until he was apparently warned off by his colleagues. They observed that the jurors were not warming up to the performance. After this Stryker stood back. There was only one witness in the whole world who said Hiss had transmitted State Department documents to Chambers in February and March of 1938, Stryker pointed out. That was Chambers. He quoted Prosecutor Tom Murphy's opening statement: "If you don't believe Chambers, then the Government has no case."

Stryker paused to conjure up a picture of Toscanini at Carnegie Hall. "Now in a good orchestration," he declared, "there is always a theme. Perhaps the first violins take up the theme first . . . You sit back and soon [Toscanini] is bowing and the audience is a pulp." Said Stryker: "I pray I can stand in front of this orchestra of justice and take the theme of 'if you don't believe Chambers, then we have no case.' "

It was the only theme he had, and he played it threadbare--but the audience was not reduced to pulp.

The Letter "G." The defense had loftily announced that it was going to win not only acquittal but vindication in the trial. But Stryker sounded like a man trying not so much to vindicate his client as to get him off. He fled from accusing facts, or brushed them off with a sneer. Seemingly counting on sheer noise to drown out doubts, he assaulted the jury with windblown oratory.

The FBI's expert had testified that the State Department documents had been typed on the Hiss typewriter; he could tell by the formations of the letter "G" for example. "You can look at all the 'Gs' you want," Stryker snorted, "they look good to me." He airily dismissed Mrs. Chambers' detailed testimony of homely intimacies between the two families. "You remember her," he said scornfully. "She sat there waving her hands as though she were priming a pump."

"Alger Hiss," he whispered huskily, "is a brilliant man. Everything he has ever done is pure, wholesome, clean, fine. Do you think that Alger Hiss would ... prostitute his great career . . . ? This isn't a case, it's an outrage!"

Stryker faced Hiss. His voice was choked with emotion. "Alger Hiss," he said hoarsely, "this long nightmare is drawing to a close. Rest well. Your case, your life, your liberty is in good hands." The summation had taken just over four hours.

The Use of Reason. Stryker sat down confidently. The defense notified the press that the Hisses would hold a "mass interview" as soon as the verdict was in. Perhaps they had underestimated their opponent.

Big Tom Murphy was an $8,500-a-year assistant U.S. attorney, and an unknown. Throughout most of the trial his conduct had been pedestrian and plodding. Now, in his summation, he surprised everyone. He marshaled his facts impressively. He matched sarcasm with Stryker, and outdid him. When he was through, the issue was no longer Hiss's word against Chambers'; it was Hiss's word against an impressive structure of evidence.

As Murphy began, Stryker leaned back and closed his eyes, trying hard to look bored. Before long he was sitting forward, listening closely. "Let's see if we can't apply reason and not emotion," Murphy began quietly. "You can't say 'I don't like the guy, I don't like the way he combs his hair, and I wouldn't believe him on a stack of Bibles.' You have to apply reason."

Murphy turned and pointed to the Government table. There, side by side, were the Woodstock typewriter, copies of the State Department documents which Chambers said Hiss had delivered to him, and the trial's testimony in four green-bound volumes. "There are the three solid witnesses in this case," said Murphy.

Jam on the Face. There were, he continued, three uncontradicted facts: 1) that Chambers had in his possession copies of secret State Department documents; 2) that these documents were all dated in the first three months of 1938; 3) that all but one of the typed documents were copied on the Hiss typewriter. With all "that country bumpkin stuff," the defense attorney had refuted none of these points.

"Let us suppose one of your children is apprehended in the kitchen with jam on his face," said Murphy. "We don't have to get a stomach pump to find out if he's been eating jam. We have the jam on his face."

Murphy dismissed the testimony to Hiss's good reputation--until caught up with, "Judas Iscariot had a reputation." So did Major General Benedict Arnold, who "could have called George Washington as a character witness." Murphy shouted: "Alger Hiss was a traitor. Another Benedict Arnold. Another Judas Iscariot. Another Judge Manton, who was in high places and was convicted right here in this building . . .* Someone has said that roses that fester stink worse than weeds. A brilliant man like this man, who betrays his trust, stinks. Inside that smiling face is a heart black and cancerous. He is a traitor."

A Word to the Foreman. Then Murphy took up the defense's explanation of where the Hiss typewriter was at the time the confidential documents were typed on it.

The Hisses had said that in 1937 they had given it to Pat Catlett, son of their Negro maid. Well, then, how did State Department documents get typed on it in 1938? "The Catletts didn't know how to type. And the Catletts didn't know Chambers."

He reminded the jury of Pat Catlett's testimony that he had taken the Hiss typewriter to one of two Woodstock repair shops soon after the Hisses gave it to him--but one shop had not opened until May 1938, the other not until September 1938. "Those are facts you cannot change," said big Tom Murphy.

Then Murphy looked straight into the eye of handsome, white-haired H. E.

James, an executive of the General Motors Acceptance Corp., and the jury's foreman. Murphy had received a report from the FBI that James had admitted prejudice in favor of Hiss. "You are all individual jurors," Murphy said pointedly. "The foreman . . . has no authority other than to announce the verdict." Murphy talked directly to James: "Assuming that you told your wife, Mr. Foreman, or anyone else, that you thought so-and-so was lying, today I ask you as a representative of the U.S. Government to come back and put the lie in that man's face." Murphy was pointing to Hiss. James turned beet-red.

Eight to Four. After the jury retired, Alger Hiss sat in the courtroom reading a magazine. He seemed unworried, even happy. As the evening wore on, he read bulldog editions of the morning papers, chewed gum. As hour after hour dragged by, Hiss's confident smile faded. Everybody thought that if there were to be an acquittal, it would come fast. That was the way Stryker and Hiss had pitched their case--to brand the whole charge ridiculous. Obviously, some members of the jury did not think so.

In the jury room, tempers grew short. The jury was locked up for the night and returned still undecided. Twice, the foreman reported that they did not think they could reach a verdict. Twice, Judge Kaufman sent them back to try again. Finally, 28 hours and 40 minutes after it had received the case, the jury announced a hopeless and final deadlock. One of Hiss's attorneys leaned over to ask a juror how they had balloted. The answer was a shock to him; eight to four for conviction.

Discharged by the judge, the eight majority jurors were angry and anxious to tell their story. Several walked over to shake Murphy's hand and congratulate him. His summation, said one juror, Mrs. Helen Sweatt, "was the real turning point of the case." The jury had been eight to four almost from the beginning. The leader of the holdouts for acquittal had been Foreman James--the man whom Murphy had singled out. But, said one juror, all twelve had agreed on two facts: that the documents were typed on the Hiss machine and that it was in the Hiss house during the critical months.

The four who voted for acquittal simply could not believe that the impeccable Hisses could be guilty of typing the documents. Said Juror James Hanrahan: "They kept referring to a Mr. X, who got into the Hiss house." Said another juror: "They thought Yehudi did it!" The Government said it would try again (probably in October).

Amid the closing hubbub, Alger Hiss sat motionless, staring straight ahead. Priscilla Hiss watched him, her eyes moist. At last she took his arm and they walked out together. Hiss said, "Please, please," to questions and walked on. Outside, they got into a red Chevrolet with some friends. Photographers rushed to the windows. Alger Hiss hid his face behind a magazine.

Next day, a squall broke over the head of Judge Samuel H. Kaufman. California's Representative Richard M. Nixon demanded an investigation "to determine his fitness to serve on the bench." Cried Nixon: "His prejudice for the defense and against the prosecution was so obvious and apparent that the jury's 8-to-4 vote for conviction frankly came as a surprise to me." Illinois' Freshman Congressman Harold Velde, an ex-FBI agent, joined in: he cited six specific examples* of Judge Kaufman's actions which he said "bordered on misconduct." Nixon thought the Un-American Activities Committee (of which he is a member) should investigate the judge. Many a lawyer, in & out of Congress, who had his own reservations on the handling of the trial, had bigger reservations about allowing Congress to invade the province of the judiciary.

The question of Judge Kaufman's conduct had been raised during the trial, but had been muted in the press for fear of causing a mistrial. Part of the criticism could be traced to Judge Kaufman's own history. New on the federal bench, he had been put in charge of the calendar for May (a rotating position) and had assigned himself to the Hiss trial. He had been recommended for a judgeship by Tammany Hall and by Bronx Boss Ed Flynn; nominated by Harry Truman, and confirmed by the 81st Congress--though Kaufman was refused endorsement by the Federal Bar Association of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut and by the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. His appointment had been supported by one group--the New York County Lawyers' Association; the chairman of the judiciary committee of that group was Hiss's lawyer, Lloyd Paul Stryker.

* The late Martin T. Manton, senior judge of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, convicted in 1939--on evidence uncovered by then District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey--of accepting $186,146 in loans or bribes from litigants in his court. * Among them: permitting a defense psychiatrist to sit in court, conspicuously watching Chambers while he was on the stand; allowing Stryker to question Chambers about a suicide in his family, but barring similar testimony about Hiss's family.

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