Pumpkin Papers

The Pumpkin Papers are a set of typewritten and handwritten documents, stolen from the US federal government (thus information leaks) by members of the Ware Group and other Soviet spy networks in Washington, DC, during 1937-1938, withheld by courier Whittaker Chambers from delivery to the Soviets as protection when he defected. They featured frequently in criminal proceedings against Alger Hiss from August 1948 to January 1950. The term quickly became shorthand for the complete set of handwritten, typewritten, and camera film documents in newspapers.^[1][2][3]

Background

For the Ware Group in Washington (1935-1938), Chambers couriered documents from federal officials to New York City to Soviet spymasters, the last of whom was

On August 3, 1948, Chambers testified under subpoena before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in Washington, DC, that he had been a Soviet courier in the 1930s. He named former federal officials in the Ware Group cell, including: John Abt, Nathan Witt, Lee Pressman, and Alger Hiss. On August 5, Hiss appeared before HUAC and denied the allegations. On August 20, Abt, Witt, and Pressman pled the Fifth, all three under advice of counsel Harold I. Cammer. On April 27, Chambers asserted on Meet the Press, then a national radio show, that Hiss had been a communist; in late September, Hiss filed a slander suit in a federal court in Baltimore against Chambers for making that allegation publicly.

Events

According to the Central Intelligence Agency, the Pumpkin Papers added a "dramatic sequence of events".^[5] Between April and November (when Chambers was asked to produce evidence of Hiss' CPUSA membership in the slander case), Chambers had flip-flopped on whether his Ware Group had engaged in espionage. On November 17, 1948, Chambers surrendered the typewritten and handwritten documents to Hiss' lawyer William L. Marbury Jr. as part of pre-trial deposition in a slander case. At Hiss' request, Marbury in turn surrendered the typewritten and handwritten documents (sometimes called the "Baltimore Documents") to the United States Department of Justice in the hope that Justice would indict Chambers for espionage. The hard copy documents included summaries of United States Department of State documents in Hiss' handwriting as well as typewritten copies of official government reports. On December 2, 1948, HUAC investigators arrived at Chambers' farm in Westminster, Maryland, and took from Chambers five canisters of microfilm, after he retrieved them from a pumpkin he had hollowed out overnight to keep them safe – hence the "Pumpkin Papers". Nixon and HUAC investigation director Robert E. Stripling paraded the microfilm before the press. In less than two weeks, instead of indicting Chambers, Justice indicted Hiss, in part because the collective Pumpkin Papers provided strong evidence of espionage on Hiss' part.^[6][7][5]

During two trials against Alger Hiss in 1949, "the star witnesses were the Pumpkin Papers".^[5] FBI analysis proved that typewritten copies had been typed on a Woodstock typewriter (No. 230099) belonging to the Hiss family.^[5] The majority of handwritten documents were in Hiss' hand (the others being in the hand of Treasury official Harry Dexter White). The Hiss defense team was unable to discredit the typewriter or typewritten documents during the trials.^[5] In January 1950, a jury found Hiss guilty, and he was sentenced to 5 years in prison.

In 1950, Representative Nixon made a Pumpkin Papers speech to Congress, a few weeks after Senator Joseph McCarthy cited the Hiss case, starting McCarthyism.

In 1950 for passage of the

Subsequent, scandalous documents whose name mirrors to the Pumpkin Papers include the Pentagon Papers (1971) and the Panama Papers (2016).

Media

In his 1949 book The Red Plot Against America, HUAC investigator Robert E. Stripling claimed that he had named the Pumpkin Papers.^[9]

The nascent conservative movement led by William F. Buckley Jr. lionized Chambers as a hero,^[10] and Buckley's magazine National Review (founded 1955) continues to mention the Pumpkin Papers regularly.^{[11][12][13][14][15]}

The Pumpkin Papers receive regular mention in the press, from local^[7] to national outlets.^[16]

Books about the Hiss case starting coming out before the it finished and continued in the 21st century, all mentioning the Pumpkin Papers.^{[17][18][19][20][21][22]} Richard Nixon, who rose to national fame during the Hiss case, mentions the Pumpkin Papers in four of his books.^{[23][24][25][26]} The name Pumpkin Papers even appear in book titles on its own.^[27][28] Even the Pumpkin Papers Irregulars appear in a novel.^[29]

The Pumpkin Papers appeared in film as well. Actor

Recipients of the group's annual "Victor Navasky Prize" include:

• Writer Saul Alinsky
• Actress Jane Fonda
• Contractor Edward Snowden
• Senator Dianne Feinstein (2018)^[15]

Speakers have included:

• Philosopher Sidney Hook (1978)^[36]
• CIA Director William J. Casey (1984)^[37][38]
• Journalist John O'Sullivan (1990)^[39]
• Judge
  Laurence H. Silberman (2005)^[40]
• Senator Jon Kyl ^{[citation needed]} and Writer Diana West (2013)^[41]
• Anti-democracy Activist Steve Bannon (2017)^[42]
• Columnist Mary Anastasia O’Grady (2018)^[15]

A supporter of Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter White who has attended several dinners described a typical evening at the "one time secret institution".^[43]

References