Rosenbaum is certainly a piece of work. Rather dishonest, perhaps ignorant, I'm not sure, but quite willing to engage in the same guilt by surmise of which he accuses Bird.

He should know, or course, that Hiss was never charged with perjury for "denying he'd been spying," so he could not have been convicted of such. His perjury conviction dealt with the dates of his relationship with Chambers. If such an elementary fact about the case has escaped him it is small wonder he so airily dismisses and ignores the evidence for Hiss' innocence. He might have mentioned, at the very least, that the particulars of Ales's espionage activities in the infamous Venona cable do not match at all those charged against Hiss by Chambers. He also might have mentioned the only Venona transcript that mentions Hiss by name in the text works to exonerate Hiss not convict him. He might have mentioned that Gorsky was closely associated with "Ales," if not the man's handler, and would have been very interested in his whereabouts, as is evident by Gorsky's remarking that Ales had not returned as of March 5. This at a time when Hiss had been back from Mexico for nearly two weeks.

Rosenbaum also misrepresents Gorsky to have worked as a "press specialist," whatever the hell that might be. But as Bird clearly states: "[Gorsky's] main job as the Soviet Embassy’s first secretary was that of a press officer [emphasis mine], which involved, with the help of his press aide Antonina Koltsova daily monitoring of the press, reports of information agencies, and radio broadcasts. Each month he sent lengthy “press diaries” to both the Soviet Commissariat of Foreign Affairs Press Department and the All-Union Society for Cultural Contacts (VOKS), whose authorized representative he was." Thus, Rosenbaum first lies about and downplays Gorsky's actual work then ridicules Bird and Co. for honestly portraying Gorsky's job and arguing convincingly that it would have been hard for Gorsky to miss Hiss's presence in the USA, since he was prominently in the newspapers and on the radio, and it Gorsky's main function to report on such. It is Rosenbaum and Rosenbaum alone that deals in "suppositional evidence." He supposes, based on nothing at all, that Gorsky most likely was a slacker and hadn't a clue as to what was reported in the press that week. So therefore Bird must be wrong.

Rosenbaum is the strange bird here. He appears to know Navasky well enough to speak to him a cocktail party but is apparently innocent of anything Navasky has written on the case, otherwise he'd have been hard put to praise Weinstein's extremely sloppy and dishonest Perjury and Tanenhaus's tedious rehash of Witness.

But absurdity hits a new high when Rosenbaum describes his lunch with Alger and how "his charming, dignified, head-held-high facade gave me a sense of how he enlisted well-meaning volunteers into 'the cause.'" Ah yes, Satan first beguiles. . . . Guilt by association is one thing, but guilt by table manners?

But even greater inanities await. Ron then claims that somewhere between the soup and the salad he sensed that Alger Hiss really wanted to confess -- proudly, like Kim Philby in Moscow -- but that as a good Communist he "could best continue to serve the cause by portraying himself as a living embodiment of American injustice and anti-communist hysteria." All this, Rosenbaum informs us, was based on a "feeling" he had, perhaps due to a bad piece of fish or one martini too many, but a "feeling" it was and the peerless Rosenbaum is not one to let a "feeling" pass lightly.

(Here, one should point out, the merits of their argument aside, that at least Bird and Chervonnaya based their argument on more than a "feeling" over lunch.)

Rosenbaum's dishonesty continues: he mentions in passing " a brief moment in the '90s when a Soviet archivist claimed Hiss did not appear in a search of Soviet spy records, but the search seems to have been woefully incomplete." The man was not an "archivist" but a high-ranking officer in Soviet intelligence, and the search was very extensive, as has been documented time and again. Other Soviet intelligence officers of the time, those who were in a position to know, have also stated that Hiss was not an agent. He also might have mentioned that to this date Hiss's name has never been found in any Soviet archive in connection with espionage. But, of course, he won't.

One thing is certain about the Hiss case. Those like Rosenbaum will continue to misrepresent and deny the considerable evidence in support of Hiss while deriding the man himself and all those, who for very good reasons, remain unconvinced of his guilt. Why, who knows? Perhaps, in these days of right-wing ascendancy, it is good for one's career.

All the above, the original article and the subsequent posts should be rock solid evidence that people take the same evidence, sift it to suit their bias, and go on to prove their position beyond a shadow of a doubt. It is kind of fun but don't fool yourself. Someone else will prove you dead wrong till another person proves them wrong. I'd settle for some winning lottery ticket numbers.

It's simply wrong to say "Hiss was never charged with perjury for 'denying he'd been spying,'" and "His perjury conviction dealt with the dates of his relationship with Chambers."

The second count of Hiss's conviction related to his denial that he ever knew Chambers. The first count on which he was convicted, however, specifically alleged that Hiss falsely denied participating in espionage with Chambers. Here's the text of the indictment:

"That the aforesaid testimony of the defendant, as he then and there well knew and believed, was untrue in that the defendant, being then and there employed in the Department of State, in or about the months of February and March, 1938, furnished, delivered and transmitted to one Jay David Whittaker Chambers, who was not then and there a person authorized to receive the same, copies of numerous secret, confidential and restricted documents, writings, notes and other papers the originals of which had theretofore been removed and abstracted from the possession and custody of the Department of State, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1621."

In re Hiss, 542 F.Supp. 973 (S.D.N.Y. 1982).

And I guess I'm not sure what the big difference is between "press specialist" and "press officer."

Alas, Tom is correct. Hiss was also charged with lying about passing documents to one not authorized to receive same.
Although, I might add that "spying" or espionage is legally a different kettle of fish than the "unauthorized passing" of information.

A "press officer" we know. It is a long-standing job title with a specific meaning. I have never encountered anyone or any such thing as a "press specialist." But it is wonderfully vague. Perhaps a journalism professor, or one who studies the history of the press?

I somehow doubt Rosenbaum is so sloppy a writer that he believed "Press specialist" to be an accurate precis for Bird's description of Gorsky's job.