SOURCE: Sheed, Wilfred. “Private Chambers v. Public Chambers.” Encounter 36, no. 3 (March 1971): 61-5.

In the following positive review, Sheed maintains that Odyssey of a Friend provides insight into Chambers's true political ideology, religious beliefs, friendships, and personality.

A reviewer is not, thank God, often required to judge an author on his legal merits. But the strange warp of Whittaker Chambers' career insists that even a benign collection of posthumous letters, Odyssey of a Friend¹ must be read in the gloomy light of litigation. Never mind about his literary virtue—would the writer of this prose lie under oath or wouldn't he? When he testified against Alger Hiss, Chambers went for good from the anonymity of a Time editor to a desk in Macy's window where his words and his personality could never be separated again.

William F. Buckley, who received the letters in the first place, bows to the...