Chapter 14: Hiss makes the mistake of Oscar Wilde

A Pumpkin Patch, a Typewriter, and Richard Nixon: The Hiss-Chambers Espionage Case

In this Podcast, Chambers appears on Meet The Press and repeats his accusations. Hiss sues him for libel, after assembling a Dream Team of eminent lawyers to vindicate his reputation.(Chambers was superbly represented, too.)In a pre-trial interview called a deposition, Hiss’s lawyer William Marbury asks Chambers to produce any written documents he has from Alger or Priscilla Hiss. Chambers, ever the man of mystery, travels to Brooklyn to retrieve a large manila envelope from the top shelf of a linen closet behind a bathtub in an apartment once inhabited by a local lawyer who was Mrs. Chambers’ nephew.(Chambers gave it to the lawyer when he deserted the Communist underground and told him to hide it and make its contents public if he ever disappeared. The lawyer chose the odd hiding place.)When Chambers’ deposition resumes, he produces contents from the envelope. Mr. Marbury has perhaps the worst surprise of his life and this Case becomes ten times more sensational than it had been. As one Baltimore lawyer is reputed to have said, Bill Marbury went on a fishing expedition and he brought up the whole damn sea bottom.