Suspicion Still Remains : Hiss case not put to rest by surprise Russian disclosure

The perjury conviction of Alger Hiss nearly 43 years ago, which grew out of charges that as a high State Department official he passed secret information to the Soviet Union, remains the case that will not die. This was the dramatic and divisive affair that pitted the reputation of Hiss, at the time very much an Establishment figure, against that of the seedy and unsympathetic ex-Communist Whittaker Chambers. This was the case that made the political career of Richard M. Nixon.

Hiss, now 87, has always professed his innocence. But the evidence that convicted him, re-examined and written about endlessly over the last four decades--perhaps most fairly and exhaustively by Allen Weinstein in his 1978 book “Perjury”--strongly suggests otherwise. Earlier this year Hiss asked Gen. Dmitri A. Volkogonov, head of the Russian government’s military archives, to inspect all Soviet files relating to his case. Volkogonov now says he has done so, without finding “a single document” that “substantiates the allegation that Mr. A. Hiss collaborated” with Soviet intelligence.

Hiss says he is elated. But others with a less emotional stake urge caution. Richard Pipes, a Russian historian at Harvard, calls attention to the enormous volume and wide dispersal of the Soviet archives, and questions whether Volkogonov’s two-month search could produce a conclusive finding. Allen Weinstein raises a similar point and notes that he was denied access to the archives earlier this year. Other questions can be raised, among them whether Russia’s jealously competitive intelligence services would in fact cooperate with Volkogonov or anyone else to identify their past agents or espionage networks.

What Volkogonov says is intriguing. It is not, however, definitive. The evidentiary case against Hiss was strong. It continues to be convincing.