The following is a response from Kai Bird and Svetlana Cheryannova to this article by Ron Rosenbaum:

Subject: “Alger Hiss Rides Again”

Ron Rosenbaum is horrified, even "stunned" and "shocked" by our essay, "The Mystery of Ales" [The American Scholar, summer 2007; to read it click here, and to read an extended Web-only version, click here].

Please, history is not written in stone. We have brought forth serious evidence that Alger Hiss could not be the individual code-named "Ales" by Soviet-era intelligence.

Mr. Rosenbaum concedes that we have raised "a legitimate question about the Hiss/Ales identification." But he is unhappy, alas, that the archival clues further suggest that there is only one other candidate for "Ales."

So would Mr. Rosenbaum not have us profile for our readers the one man who does fit the slender clues for being "Ales"? After all, for years those historians who have been so certain that Hiss was Ales have taunted the skeptics with the question, "If not Hiss, who?" And so now Mr. Rosenbaum would not wish us to follow the evidence to anyone other than Hiss?

Even at the end of his fulminations, Mr. Rosenbaum concedes, "One can't rule out the possibility that Bird and Chervonnaya are right, but they haven't proved it here." Fine. We haven't convinced Mr. Rosenbaum--yet. But clearly, even he has reluctantly left the door open to new revelations from the archives.

Kai Bird is co-author with Martin J. Sherwin of the 2006 Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenenheimer. Svetlana Chervonnaya, a Russian historian and TV documentary writer and producer, has a special interest in the history of Cold War espionage.

Ah, yes, the same Kai Bird who has lied his about Hiroshima. Who willfully disregarded the actual evidence of the pre-Japan invasion estimates of US casualties.

By your fruits are you known, Kai.

What difference if Gorsky knew or didn't know that Hiss was in Washington, if Hiss wasn't Ales. The point is that Gorsky said Ales was in Mexico. Presumably he knew this for a fact. Of course, he may have been wrong. Nevertheless the VENONA decrypt logically cannot be taken as corroboration that Hiss spyed. Haven't I read somewhere that less that one percent of the 700,000 pages of decrypts for the period have been made

available? If that is so, how can one begin to draw conclusions?

I suppose no amount of evidence will be ever enough for liberals.

Personally it's enough for me to know that Alger Hiss was a communist during the times when the commies were exterminating millions and millions of people, while putting even more people into government slavery. It's obvious that scum like him could not be allowed to work for the State Department. It's like having a fucking nazi advising FDR during WW2. It makes no sense.