Francis B. Sayre

An Assistant Secretary of State during the Roosevelt administration, and Woodrow Wilson's son-in-law, Sayre was Alger Hiss's boss in the Far Eastern Division of the State Department. He testified for the defense at the second trial, saying that a number of the documents placed in evidence came not from his (and Hiss's) office, as was asserted by Whittaker Chambers, but from a different section of the State Department, the Trade Agreements Division, where Julian Wadleigh, who admitted passing documents to Chambers, worked.

Sayre also testified before the grand jury in New York, but he had been out of the country, and was unable to appear until after Hiss had been indicted. Nonetheless, Sayre made a strong defense of his former assistant. See the entry on Malcolm Cowley for more on Sayre.