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Defense's Closing Statement / 145
had really paid him, it would have been a good deal. The Hisses had already notified the electric company to disconnect the electricity in their old apartment before he offered the apartment to Chambers.
Now about that old Ford. Chambers used the Ford in the fall of 1935 and took possession of it in spring 1936. If Hiss was a Communist, would he have told HUAC that Chambers had borrowed his car a number of times and then that he had turned it over to Chambers?
Cherner Motor Car Company sent the title papers to Hiss to sign. Hiss wrote in the name of Cherner Motor Company, indicating that he insisted on knowing who the transferee was to be before he signed it. Mr. Smith, a lawyer who worked down the hall from Hiss, notarized this signing. If there had been anything sinister, do you suppose Hiss would have let a government official do this? Hiss left blank the reassignment of the title of the car, because he didn't know it was going to anybody else but Chambers. Only Chambers knew that. Remember on the Ford, as with everything else, you only have the testimony of an admitted perjurer, an admitted liar.
Chambers says he gave Hiss an Oriental rug in December 1936 in appreciation from the Russian people for what Hiss had done. But Chambers testified that Hiss met Bykov in January 1937. Now why did he give Hiss the rug before Hiss had supposedly seen
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