Martin Tytell

Tytell was a typewriting and documentary expert hired by the defense for its motion for a new trial. After Alger Hiss claimed he was a victim of forgery by typewriter, his lawyers set out to test the theory that this could be done by building a typewriter that would match the typing on the "Hiss Standards," the personal letters and documents acknowledged to have been done in the 1930s on the Hisses' typewriter. Tytell was able to produce almost perfect copies of the standards. The defense's theories about typewriter forgery had been ridiculed by the prosecution, but the British government had successfully used typewriter forgery during World War II. This remarkable story is recounted in detail in A Man Called Intrepid by William Stevenson.