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32 / THE ALGER HISS TRIAL
prosecuted the first Hiss trial. He was determined to win the jury over this time. His deep, rumbling voice filled the courtroom.
Madame Forelady, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you must decide if Alger Hiss lied. How do you prove that a person lies? Obviously we cannot have a film of it. We do not always have direct proof of this crime. You will decide by circumstantial evidence. You must reason and look at the facts.
Now what do we say Hiss lied about? On December 15, 1948, a grand jury questioned Hiss. We say he told two lies then. The first lie was that he did not give State Department documents to Chambers. The second lie Hiss told was that he did not see Chambers after January 1, 1937. That date is important because the stolen documents were all dated the first three months of 1938.
One of our witnesses is Whittaker Chambers. From his twenty-third birthday until he was thirty-eight, Chambers was an active paid worker of the Communist party and a spy for Russia. From 1935 until 1938, Hiss passed him stolen documents. During that time Chambers and his wife were most intimate with Hiss and his wife. Chambers will tell you what they did together and where they went. He will tell you how Hiss gave him his apartment to live in
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