The case of Alger Hiss
Sir: Mr Peter Paterson (10 April) describes Alger Hiss as another Dreyfus, i.e. a man falsely accused of treason. He describes Whittaker Chambers, who provided the Principal but not the only evidence against the 'major establishment figure' and `brilliant lawyer', as another Titus Oates, i.e. a criminal liar. Your contributor adds that Chambers was also 'a misfit, thief, homosexual . .. and fantasist', as though the complaint that he had been gay was an important disqualification in face of the abundant technical evidence produced in court.
Only one criticism of the article need be Made: ex uno disce omnes. Mr Paterson finds it 'fascinating' that in the huge library once possessed by the late Mr Chambers, there is a famous book in which events oc- cur in a house in `Bykov Street'. That must be the source of the persistent claim that 'a Russian Colonel Bykov' was spy-master! Trouble is, 'the existence of this individual' actually was corroborated by other people, including William Edward Crane and Julian Wadleigh.
When researching his book on the Hiss- Chambers case, Professor Allen Weinstein interviewed the wife of Bykov's Soviet superior Alexander Ulanovski. Or perhaps Mr Paterson thinks that, somewhere in a fiction collection at Smith College in Massachusetts, there is a reference to `Ulanovski Street'?
Mervyn S. Hirsch
London SW I
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