The Earth Is Round!

National Review Online, March 1, 2001

He was a liberal hero once, a brilliant policy wonk at the pinnacle of government. He was their martyr too, a victim of a vast right-wing conspiracy, the target of a vicious congressional witch hunt. In the end, he had to admit to perjury, but that was a petty matter, a trumped-up technicality designed only to save a vindictive prosecutor's face. Now, at long last, liberal opinion is changing. There is new evidence that their hero was flawed after all, that he may indeed have been the crook that the Right always said he was. One by one, former defenders are beginning to change sides and admit the truth: Alger Hiss was guilty. Yes, Alger Hiss. Did you think that I meant anyone else?

The latest condemnation of the treacherous Mr. Hiss came, rather surprisingly, in the usually predictably liberal TV show, The West Wing. Last night's episode featured a sub-plot in which Donna, one of West Wing's more irritating staffers (we have been waiting for her to start an affair with her boss, the sanctimonious Josh Lyman, for far too long) is approached by an old friend, Stephanie. Stephanie wants a presidential pardon for her grandfather. Her grandfather, a billionaire commodities trader, has been on the run from justice for the best part of two decades, and is accused of having traded with enemies of the United States. Actually, I made that up, no one would ever believe that that sort of person would ever be eligible for a pardon.

No, Stephanie's grandfather, Daniel, was something else. He had been a high government official in the 1940s accused of spying for the Soviets. The espionage was never proven, but Daniel Galt was convicted of perjury. He served six months, and died some years later, still proclaiming his innocence. He is, of course, the show's proxy for Alger Hiss. The reason that Stephanie wants the pardon is that her father (Daniel Galt's son) is now near his deathbed. A pardon would be a farewell gift to the dying man.

Donna puts Stephanie in touch with Sam Seaborn (played by Rob Lowe), the White House's deputy communications director, an always entertaining figure who is part George Stephanopoulos, part Melrose Place. Sam is having an emotional crisis, but agrees to help. Some work he had done while at Princeton supported the case for Galt's innocence.

To move the pardon forward, Sam calls the First Lady's brothers, followed by the president's half-brother and a number of Democratic fundraisers. No, I made that up too. This West Wing has some sense of propriety. Sam goes through more normal channels. He shows up at the FBI to give them a heads up about a possible pardon. The meeting goes badly, the FBI man is not enthusiastic, and it concludes with a rant from Sam making the case for Galt. Anyone who has followed the Alger Hiss saga in the pages of the New York Times will be familiar with the arguments (never proven, unreliable witnesses, post-Soviet exoneration, anti-Communist hysteria, madman prosecutor and so on).

So far, so predictable, but then there is a surprise. Sam is summoned in by the national-security adviser. She hands him what is, in effect, the fictional equivalent of the Venona intercepts. As everyone should know, (but too many still do not) these intercepted (and now declassified) Soviet signals prove conclusively that Hiss was, indeed, in Stalin's pay. Their fictional equivalents do the same for Daniel Galt. The liberal martyr, Sam discovers, was guilty after all. Galt was a Communist spy. Sam decides to proceed no further with the pardon. Unfortunately, after a tense discussion with Donna, it is decided not to explain the truth to the traitor's dying son. They blame the lack of a pardon on bureaucratic delays. Daniel Galt will be allowed to get away with one last deception.

But this is to quibble. In showbiz terms, the unmasking of the treacherous Galt/Hiss was real progress. A prime-time liberal TV show was essentially admitting that Whittaker Chambers was right. Hiss was a spy, a liar, and a friend of the Gulag. This guest of honor at so many liberal soirees was revealed as nothing more than an accomplice of mass murder, a glorified Jeffrey Dahmer with a tweed jacket, clean hands, and a dirty ideology. Of course, this truth was obvious years ago, but even if the moment was long overdue, it was good to hear it in a ratings-topping Hollywood show.

And this trend is set to continue. Next week, apparently, Sam Seaborn will discover that the Earth is not flat.