|
Alger Hiss was born in 1904, the fourth of five children in an
upper-middle-class Presbyterian family in Baltimore. The Hiss
family was financially comfortable but emotionally troubled.
When Alger was only two years old, his father committed suicide by
cutting his throat with a razor. When Alger was 25, his sister
Mary Ann committed suicide by drinking a household cleanser.
Hiss’s older brother Bosley, died when he was in his early
twenties of Bright’s disease, a kidney disorder aggravated by
Bosley’s overindulgence in alcohol.
As a young man, the slim, handsome, and dapper Alger impressed
most people as self-confident and more than a few as arrogant. He
appeared to have avoided the depression that afflicted other members
of his family and achieved success at a young age. Hiss
graduated from John Hopkins University in 1926. While there,
he shone both academically and in extracurricular activities.
He was a Phi Beta Kappa, a cadet commander in ROTC, and was voted
“most popular student” by his graduating class.
Psychological theory of that era held that male homosexuality was
caused by too much female influence and young Alger was to remark
that it was a wonder that he was heterosexual. He was also
more than a bit of a prude and sometimes scolded others for telling
off-color jokes or stories. In early adulthood he made a few
half-hearted, and unsuccessful, attempts to lose his virginity with
prostitutes.
Thus, Alger was still a virgin himself when, in 1930, having just
graduated from Harvard Law School, he married Priscilla Hobson, an
intelligent, high-spirited, and pretty divorcée with a
three-year-old son named Timothy. Hiss had fallen in love with
her several years previously, pined for her as she married and
divorced another man and comforted her through the trauma of an
illegal abortion. Finally, the patient Alger found his love
enthusiastically returned. Contrary to the custom of the time,
Priscilla planned to continue with her work as a writer and editor
after their marriage.
 |
Young Alger Hiss
(CORBIS) |
Alger Hiss became a law clerk for the famous Supreme Court
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. Hiss later practiced law in New
York and Boston. Then he was appointed to several posts in
Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal administration. He was
welcomed into the State Department in 1936 and made a quick climb up
the ladder. He was at the pivotal Yalta Conference with the
American delegation. In 1945 he presided at the United Nations
organizing meeting that was held in San Francisco, and in 1947 he
joined the Carnegie Endowment.
Mr. Hiss seemed to lead a charmed life. Then, in 1948, when he
was 43-years-old, something changed, or more accurately someone,
did.
|
