Today is Monday, August 3rd, 2020.

On this day in 1948, Time magazine editor Whitaker Chambers made a grave accusation.

His acquaintance, Alger Hiss, former State Department diplomat, was a communist spy.

Welcome to today in true crime, a parcast original.

Today we're covering the accusation

that Alger Hiss secretly operated

as a communist spy while he worked

in the State Department in the 1930s.

Let's go back to a humid August 3rd. in the

department in the 1930s. Let's go back to a humid August 3rd in 1948 as newspapers along the East Coast

began running their late headlines. 47 year old Whitaker Chambers was about to take the stand in Washington

before one of the most imposing groups known to Capitol Hill in the 1940s.

The House Un-American Activities Committee,

Huak, as it was known, was a small investigative body within the U.S. House

of Representatives. It was instituted in the late 1930s with the aim of rooting communists out of American society.

Within the stately walls of the Capitol's hearing rooms,

Huak had already questioned dozens of civil servants,

not to mention business tycoons and celebrities

about their political histories.

Before Whitaker Chambers, there had been studio head

Jack Warner of Warner Brothers' fame

and even Walt Disney himself.

...