Whittaker Chambers

 

Whittaker Chambers is perhaps one of the most well-known former spies. He joined the Communist Party in 1925 after becoming inspired by Vladimir Lenin’s speech “The Soviets at Work.” He and Herbert Solow were close friends from college and in the 1930s they were both interested in Marxism. But as Solow’s disillusionment with Stalin and the Soviet Union increased, the pair began to argue frequently. In 1934, the two nearly came to blows and angrily parted ways. Chambers meanwhile, had moved into the Soviet Underground.

In 1937, when he learned about Juliet Stuart Poyntz‘s disappearance, Chambers decided to take his wife and two children and leave. In 1938, he sought out his old friend Solow who immediately asked him whether he knew anything about Poyntz’s disappearance; Chambers said he did not. Later he would tell Solow that he heard she had been liquidated.

Chambers stayed quiet during World War II. But by the postwar years, anticommunism came to define the United States foreign and domestic policy. Chambers was subpoenaed to testify in 1948 and was thrust into the public eye. He accused Alger Hiss, a government official, of being a spy. This became the most famous spy case of the Cold War.

In 1950, Chambers began writing his memoir which was published in 1952. By this point, he seemed to know much more about the Poyntz disappearance, certainly more than what he told Solow in 1938. By 1950, Poyntz’s disappearance appeared frequently in the testimony and written work of several other anticommunist witnesses. Clearly Chambers had been influenced by others who were forging careers as witnesses, leaving a great deal of doubt about his Poyntz claims. The American Communist Party wrote several reviews of the book countering many of Chambers’ accusations. But by this point, Poyntz’s disappearance had become a weapon used by many anticommunists against the Communist Party.