Debate about Hiss's innocence, and the larger significance of the trial, has continued since. Much of that debate has centered on the mysterious Chambers, whose legacy has been reduced to stereotype by partisans contesting the meaning of the trial.
Especially confounding to critics was Chambers's remarkable political metamorphosis, on which his role in the Hiss trial pivoted. He had begun his writing career as one of the leading fiction writers of the Communist Party in the 1920s. By the time of the Hiss trial, however, he had swung to the far-right wing of the political spectrum, writing articles championing political conservatism and religious rededication. As a "witness" to the alleged depravities of communism, Chambers's political writing garnered enormous attention. For postwar conservatives, he was a hero whose journey from far left to far right offered a platform from which to attack communism and the liberalism that conservatives associated with it. Properly regarded, therefore, Chambers is one of the most important political writers of the mid twentieth century and a leading literary figure in modern conservative thought.
Jay Vivian Chambers was born on 1 April 1901 in Philadelphia. His father, Jay Chambers, was a graphic artist, and his mother, Laha (née Whittaker), was a former actress troubled by her family's loose grip on middle-class respectability.
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