Alger Hiss: Why He Chose Treason
URL to article: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/05/03/alger-hiss-why-he-chose-treason/
Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Christina Shelton, a retired US intelligence analyst; she spent the major part of her thirty-two year career (twenty two years) working as a Soviet analyst and a Counterintelligence Branch Chief at the Defense Intelligence Agency. She is the author of the new book, Alger Hiss: Why He Chose Treason.
FP: Christina Shelton, welcome to Frontpage Interview.
Shelton: Thank you, Mr. Glazov.
FP: Let’s begin with you telling us what inspired you to write this book.
Shelton: I have always had an abiding interest in both the Soviet Union and the intriguing world of espionage. For the first major paper I wrote in high school a very long time ago, I chose the subject: “Stalin’s Forced Labor Camps.” My interest continued at George Washington University where I studied at the Sino-Soviet Institute. This led to a career in the Intelligence Community that covered counterintelligence in general and Soviet military and intelligence services in particular. For a couple of years before I retired from the government in 2009, I thought about writing a book, despite the fact that I had spent thirty-two years writing intelligence assessments. And the subject of Hiss “came to me” in a very natural way. Except for the Rosenbergs, Alger Hiss is probably the most famous American spy of the 20th century. The case has all the trappings of a great story–a struggle between two titans (Hiss and Whittaker Chambers), a fallen idol, a divided nation over Hiss’s innocence or guilt, all occurring against the background of the important years in American history during the Great Depression and World War II. This story has drama – unlike the current cases where an individual spies for money.
FP: Share with us some of the evidence that has surfaced over the recent years that confirms Hiss was a spy.