Chanibers as Witness
SIR,—Being on -my travels, 1 have only now seen Dr. Conor Cruise O'Brien's reply, in your issue of March 26, to my letter to you about his view of the Hiss case. In spite of the time elapsed, 1 hope you will let me make a brief comment, in view of the importance of the issue and the importance, or at least pervasiveness, of Dr. O'Brien.
For I should not like it to be thought that, he had been left in possession of the field, from which he has in fact escaped in a cloud of rhetoric, accord- ing to his custom. He originally proved that Whit- taker. Chambers was a perjurer by three instances. In his reply, he reduces these to one, maintaining the probability of perjury in the other two because of that one. This is a queer way to argue!
On the single point yet remaining to him, I would of course concede that Dr. O'Brien 'knows' (though that is perhaps the wrong expression) more of the detail, of the case than most of us—just like Baconians 'know' more about Shakespeare. But when I said that Chambers had originally committed per- jury in connection with the conspiracy he was involved in, I was just compressing: there was indeed a long interim period in which he continued, for motives one may condemn but which are at least understandable, to shield his former ac- complices.
I don't care for Chambers's emotional problems. And it's a great pity the case was made a sort of party issue, swamping it in other people's emotion. But all that is past, and nowadays only the most feuding liberal' goes along with the old party line. I am a liberal myself, but not that sort.
The point about Chambers's account is that all the material evidence fitted in with it. It is possible, as always, to construct an alternative story (as with the Oswald case!), but there is no grown-up reason to believe these ingenious devices. Credal hibernicus Apella, but not
HARRY C OHEN
c/a American Express, Haymarket, SW 1
Previous page
