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Podcast: Today In History with The Retrospectors
Episode: Alger Hiss and the Pumpkin Papers
Description: The most notorious accused spy of the early Cold War, Alger Hiss, emerged from Lewisburg Penitentiary on 27th November, 1954; calm, composed, and determined to reclaim his reputation. Surrounded by a scrum of journalists, he insisted fear had shaped his conviction, and vowed to vindicate his name.
A reserved, cultured “grey man” who had risen through the New Deal, attended the Yalta Conference with Roosevelt, and served as acting Secretary-General at the UN’s founding, Hiss’s conviction for perjury when accused of Soviet espionage had captured America’s attention.
Former communist Whitaker Chambers claimed Hiss had been p...