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Before the Trial / 11
ate the evidence and decide whether or not Hiss was telling the truth.
Read carefully. Think carefully about everything you read. Do not make your decision lightly, for Alger Hiss's future is in your hands.
Who Was Alger Hiss?
As a young man, Hiss attended Johns Hopkins University on scholarship and graduated with honors. He went on scholarship to Harvard Law School and was an outstanding student there, too. He served as a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. From 1930 to 1933 he practiced law in Boston and New York. From 1934 to 1947 he held important jobs in the federal government. When Chambers accused Hiss of having been a spy, Hiss was the president of the Carnegie Endowment for Peace. At the time of the trial forty-four-year-old Hiss was married and lived in Washington, D.C., with his wife, Priscilla, and his eight-year-old son, Tony.
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