Whittaker Chambers: A Biography

Title: Whittaker Chambers: A Biography
Author: Sam Tanenhaus
ISBN: 9780394585598
Publisher: Random House
Published: 1997
Binding: Hardcover
Language: English
Condition: Used: Very Good
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Biography 1630540

Publisher Description:
Nearly half a century after giving the testimony that sent Alger Hiss to prison, Whittaker Chambers remains among the most controversial of 20-century Americans, hated by many, revered by others. "Whittaker Chambers" is the first biography of this complex and enigmatic figure. Drawing on dozens of interviews and on materials from 40 archives in the United States and abroad -- including still-classified KGB dossiers -- Sam Tanenhaus traces the remarkable journey that led Chambers from a sleepy Long Island village to center stage in America's greatest political trial and then, in his last years, to a unique role as the godfather of post-war conservatism. "Whittaker Chambers" is rich in startling new information about every phase of its subject's varied life: his days as New York's 'hottest literary Bolshevik'; his years as a Communist agent and then defector, hunted by the KGB; his conversion to Quakerism; his secret sexual turmoil; his turbulent decade at "Time," where he rose from the obscurity of the book-review page to transform the magazine into an oracle of apocalyptic anti-Communism.

But all this was merely a prelude to the memorable events that began in August 1948, when Chambers was summoned by a Congressional committee to testify about his past as a Communist agent. Reluctantly, he divulged his key part in a spy ring that had penetrated the most sensitive areas of the U.S. government, including the State Department, where one of his accomplices, Alger Hiss, had risen to a senior position. Chamber's allegations, and Hiss' prompt, emphatic denial, held the nation spellbound -- and initiated a drama that changed the face of America. Drawing on an array of new sources,including transcripts of secret HUAC testimony, Whittaker Chambers goes far beyond all previous accounts of the Hiss case, re-creating its improbable twists and turns, and disentangling the motives that propelled a vivid cast of characters in unpredictable directions.