SOURCE: McGurn, William. “The Witness of Whittaker Chambers: A Bitter Hope.” Modern Age 28, nos. 2-3 (spring 1984): 203-07.

In the following essay, McGurn addresses the repercussions of the Hiss-Chambers case, particularly on the conservative movement in the United States.

Twenty-three years after his death, thirty-two years after the publication of Witness, and thirty-six years after he first appeared before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, the name Whittaker Chambers still provokes. On the one side line up the stout-hearted partisans of Alger Hiss. To these people, whose resolute faith in the innocence of Mr. Hiss puts to shame that of the American bishops in divine Providence, Chambers is the black villain. He is the man who ruined everything and, in the process, bequeathed to us Richard Nixon. To the other side, which includes the current occupant of the White House, Chambers is reverenced as a founding father of conservatism...