Alger Hiss

Re “Alger Hiss, Key to Cold War Spy Controversy, Dies at 92,” Nov. 16: Alger Hiss acquitted himself in life rather well. He bore adversity well. While contentious about his innocence, he was not a bitter man. The case did not destroy him. But then Hiss was not a destroyer himself. The same cannot be said of many of his accusers. Some of them proved such spectacular destroyers that they did not even stop when it came to themselves.

The crime of Hiss, if it did occur, was probably a naive and misguided “internationalism”--commonplace in this country in the 1930s. His alleged espionage probably didn’t amount to a hill of beans. In the 1930s, when Hiss was supposedly active, the Soviet Union had many well-meaning sympathizers in this country. The real enemy for them was fascism.

After Stalin’s nonaggression pact with Hitler in 1939 most of the support in the U.S. collapsed. Then came the war. The U.S. poured millions in aid into the Soviet Union, notwithstanding strong reservations about communism, in the successful effort to defeat Hitler.

But Hiss’ great contribution in foreign affairs was not as a silly spy. It was his instrumental work, after World War II, in helping put together the United Nations. What happened to Hiss after that--the criminal case, ignominy, celebrity, the continuing debate over his innocence or guilt--transformed and harmed the country much more than it transformed and harmed the man.

FRED T. UEBBING

San Diego