Witness: Cold War Classics

Chapter 7, “Underground: The Second Apparatus,” begins with Chambers’s identification of a small core of upper-middle class professionals—most notably Alger Hiss—whom he regards as having had a greater impact on the political fate of humankind than any similarly sized group in history. Hiss also names Harold Ware as prominent Communist. Ware had built a peerless network of collaborators within the US government and other powerful social circles. Chambers believes the New Deal facilitated radical socialists’ rise through Washington’s ranks by creating a bevy of worker-oriented programs, none of which were guarded themselves against Communist infiltration.

Chambers eventually moves from New York to Washington, DC, where he becomes an agent for Ware. In this new circle, he meets Alger Hiss and his wife Priscilla, along with many other prominent officials in the State and Treasury departments. Rather than engage in the dangerous espionage, Ware’s group coaxed agents to shift US policy towards pro-Communist positions.

The Chambers hire a Black maid and insist that she share the table with them at dinner: a point on which Chambers notes an overlap between Communist and Christian teachings.

Chambers becomes strongly associated with Hiss, who initially regards Chambers as a Russian. Accordingly, Hiss treats him with great generosity. Chambers and Esther build their friendship with the Hisses, enjoying both a covert professional relationship and a warmly vivacious private friendship.

Chambers and Hiss both combined ideological seriousness and ironic playfulness, which made them kindred spirits. Hiss was compelling, a mild-mannered gentleman, albeit one who could also speak with unbridled malice toward humanity. Yet a slight class difference endured between them: Hiss once rebuked Chambers for his poor teeth.

Chambers begins to work for a Red Army officer named “Bill.” Their goal is to reorganize the courier system between British and American Communists. Chambers also learns about Party efforts to procure false passports for spies to travel inside the United States. Efforts to reorganize the courier network in England make little process, so Ware’s group decides to focus on building up contacts in Japan instead. Chambers successfully recruiting a Japanese American citizen to form the core of a new spy network.

Hiss finds Chambers the farmhouse that he had always wanted, and will eventually buy. On an early inspection of the house, Chambers sees Hiss talking to wild birds with great joy and levity.

Hiss then moves to the Justice Department, where he plans to expand the network further than ever. Ware dies, leaving his group leaderless. Chambers asserts an informal authority by blocking one stubborn member’s bid for formal leadership. 

Hiss changes jobs again, becoming Assistant Secretary of State to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Chambers begins to meet many of the associates who will have roles to play in Hiss’s future trials. One friend of Hiss resists recruitment into the Ware group on the grounds that he is already working for a different Communist cell. This strongly suggests that local DC Communists formally split.

The Ware group acquires Harry Dexter White as a “fellow traveler,” who is an ally but not a formal affiliate with it. Chambers eventually meets the other local network, which is under the leadership of one David Carpenter. Carpenter resents Chambers as a potential threat to his power.

The network in Japan collapses, and one of its agents tries to shift blame onto Chambers by calling him a Trotskyite. Chambers survives the accusation and hunts down Ludwig Lore, a legendary old Communist living in Brooklyn. Chambers befriends him, despite being wary of his family’s denunciations of the Communist Party. Chambers later learns that the Soviets are keeping an eye on Loring, who eventually denounces Chambers.

The Chambers family lives with the Hisses for a time. The Chambers later move to a rural stone house, where their second child is born.

The Ware network takes a major hit when the dentist, distraught over the death of his daughter, can no longer provide them with a safe meeting spot. Chambers encounters a forger who suddenly falls on the wrong side of the Party line, after which he disappears and is never heard from again, leaving behind a grieving widow.

Chambers receives a letter from his handler in which he explains that Chambers is to be assigned a new handler. Through coded language, his original handler tells Chambers to be careful.

Chambers addresses critics who view Hiss as a martyr for having gone to prison without informing on his friends. Chamber insists that Hiss is no hero, that his silence helps to protect the guilty from accountability.