Pumpkin Parable

The Interior Department has designated as a national historic landmark a place called Pipe Creek Farm; that’s where, in 1948, Communist-turned-conservative Whittaker Chambers hid inside a hollowed-out pumpkin the microfilm that was later used to convict Alger Hiss of perjury. Public tours and pilgrimages, presumably under the aegis of the better right-wing political-action committees, may yet turn the Westminster, Md., farm into a tourist mecca; anything is possible in the Reagan Administration’s rush to celebrate Chambers, who died in 1961. Four years ago President Reagan post-humously awarded Chambers the Presidential Medal of Freedom. And Interior Secretary Donald P. Hodel, in granting landmark status to the hiding place of the “pumpkin papers,” called Chambers “a figure of transcendent importance in the nation’s history” and a personal hero.

Heroism, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Many conservatives view Chambers as the protagonist of an epic struggle between totalitarianism and freedom who exposed Hiss, the haughty former State Department official, as a traitor; they are remarkably forgiving of Chambers’ acknowledged activities as a spy and courier for the Soviets during the 1930s. As for Hiss, he still disputes Chambers’ charges that he belonged to a Communist cell and supplied him with secret documents from State Department files. But Hiss, who denied under oath even knowing Chambers, has never been able to persuade an appellate court to overturn his perjury conviction.

As long as there are any loose ends in the case--did the microfilm, for example, contain any secrets worth stealing?--the controversy will undoubtedly continue to rage. It is because of such unanswered questions that listing Chambers’ one-time farm as a historic landmark strikes us as a mistake; it is too early to tell how large he--or the pumpkin patch--will loom in American history. The National Park Service’s advisory board had unanimously argued against the designation, citing the general rule that the nation should wait at least 50 years after a historic incident before deciding what merits landmark status.

Fifty years seems too soon to us; often the judgments of history take longer. We are mindful of a story told about the late Mao Tse-tung, who, despite his many faults, at least knew all his life what side he was on in the battle between communism and capitalism--more than could be said for either Hiss or Chambers. Mao was once asked what his countrymen, 100 years hence, would think of Chinese communism. Knowing history, Mao replied in his laconic way, “It may look quite ridiculous to them.” Perhaps like the bronze plaque at Pipe Creek Farm.