Gods of deception, p.72
Gods of Deception, page 72
“I never said Jim wasn’t his father—because he is his father.”
“Not what you told me, baby sister.”
“I was just pissed. I was justifying myself to you.”
“She’d been having an affair with Levon for years, not to mention the other boys,” said Jim, catching Cordelia’s eye.
“I was only filling in on keyboard for Garth or Richard when they were indisposed,” pleaded Cordelia.
“And if it wasn’t Levon, it could have been half a dozen others.” Jimmy threw back his head in frustration. “They bragged about it on tour. And, worse, wrote her into their fucking lyrics.”
Alice just shook her head at this pathetic excuse from the defendant and went over to her sister and spoke softly. “The saddest part, I don’t think you’ve got a conniving or malicious bone in your body. If not innocent, exactly, you certainly lack common sense, never mind the most basic feminine wiles. Daddy’s little angel … where did you come from, Cordy?” She cocked her head in wonder. “Couldn’t have been from Annie—not her style, none of her steel; and from everything Martha and I could make out, she wouldn’t let Daddy touch her after Teddy was killed. They had separate bedrooms on opposite ends of the apartment. And why the hell do you think Daddy offered Jim here fifty thousand dollars not to marry you?”
Cordelia glanced in disbelief at Jim, who returned her dismay with a broad smile.
“And come to think of it, why pay the back taxes and legal fees and child support for George and keep you in this dump, when, like you said, he could have pretty much forced you back with him on Fifth Avenue, put George in Collegiate, or even his beloved Groton. He certainly talked about it enough when he picked me up at the airport and drove us up here.” A curious look came over Alice’s face and she sidled over to George and studied his face for a moment. “You know, I think that had been his intention all along, to reclaim you and your mother. How did he put it in the car on the way? ‘Why, she could take Annie’s old room and he could have Teddy’s.’ Hah, Annie’s old room—can you believe it! And then something happened as we stood here, Cordy, with little George sulking and confused at your side.” She continued examining the subjects before her. “Did he see something in George that—I don’t know—put him off? Perhaps the Altmann nose—a hint of Jewish blood? Or was it because you, Cordy, defiantly refused to ask for help that he changed his mind? Or he feared something in himself? Do you remember how he suddenly walked around this pigpen, nodding to himself, hit a key on the out-of-tune ‘Jap piano,’ flinched, and then spun around as if everything was decided and ordered me to draw up the papers, complete the legal niceties, and he’d, in effect, buy this place for you and keep you here? Why’d he do that, Cordelia? Why didn’t he take you home? Annie, if she’d been alive, would’ve had you and your son back in a flash, if only to shame you and reform you.” She tottered over to the New York City Ballet poster and pressed a fingertip to the scribbled name with a large B executed with a flourish. “My God, I saw you dance at Lincoln Center once. You were stupendous; you could have been the toast of the town.” Her gray-green eyes touched with a hint of wonder, if not nostalgia, she turned again to her little sister. “But not Daddy. And you know why—and why he insisted I do all the legal work? Because he was guilty about something, whether he’d let Annie down, or molested you at the Ritz-Carlton, or because having you back with those notorious nude photos at Woodstock would have proved problematic when he was still on a short list for the Supreme Court. Or maybe it was as simple as the fact he didn’t want you and George hanging about messing up his love life in the city with his mistress du jour.” She went and tapped George on the shoulder. “What does he have to say about that in his memoir, George—why he abandoned you to all this shit? No, don’t answer. Because you don’t need to answer. I already know.”
Cordelia gave her sister a petulant shove. “Just stop bullying, Alice. You and Martha”—she shook her head vehemently—“made more out of the Ritz-Carlton thing than it deserved.”
“Tell that to Karen.”
“Hey, Karen and me,” said Cecily, piping up from the kitchen door, giving Wendy a quick squeeze and going over to her mother. “Don’t I get some blame—or maybe credit, even if Karen did most of the flirting?” She stuck her tongue out at her mother. “You’re always hounding everybody, throwing your weight around. Why don’t you just leave these good people in peace?”
“Me?” she said, glaring at her daughter. “When you just walked out on the most brilliant, accomplished, and highly regarded surgeon on the planet—without even bothering to at least breed with him—a man who’s a credit to his race.”
“Oh my God! Another of your black saviors, huh? Is that it? Talk about fucking guilt.”
Alice raised her hands as if in surrender.
“That’s it,” she yelled. “I’ve got better things to do than once again provide free legal help every time someone in this family fucks up her life. No more wasting my time on a bunch of aging hippies with your moronic banter about the good old days when you were going to save the world with peace and love, as if only the music and drugs could make it all better. The younger generation might lap up your goodtimes shit, but it’s not going to change anything in this fucked-up racist country.” Alice gave Cecily, who had now retreated to where Wendy sat with George, an icy look. “And now we’re going to have another war in Iraq cooked up by the Bushes, another war to get everybody distracted from the continuing inequality and greed in this country. While fattening the pockets of Halliburton and the oil companies, manna from heaven for the arms dealers.”
“Did you know that your nephew was almost killed on nine-eleven?” scolded Cordelia.
“Well, not exactly,” said George with a hapless shrug, slipping a hand around Wendy’s arm.
“Look at those three,” said Alice, waving at George, Wendy, and Cecily as she began to gather up her papers. “Just like all my students, timid lemmings. They have no idea what made their world.” She assumed a more dignified pose. “The real story was always in the streets, organizing communities, demanding minority rights, fighting in the courts to free the innocent and oppressed, and electing leaders on the side of the people. Demand equal rights—not handouts for the special interests and big business. And now we have a brain-dead generation of kids who have no idea how the world really works. My students are clueless. They make pilgrimages to Woodstock for some of that sixties vibe, peace and love and sex, sex, sex. They watch porn on their laptops during my lectures.”
Cecily raised her right fist in a black-power salute. “Mother, blow it out your ass and let these people take care of their own shit. You stuck me with one hell of a fucked-up story—more than enough for a lifetime.”
Alice eyes blazed out at her daughter.
“At least I saved something of your father—little you care. Even if he managed to get himself killed, and almost get me killed.”
“And Billy killed, too, I suppose.” Cecily spun away from her momentarily stunned mother and stalked off to the kitchen.
George stood, eyebrows knotted, clutching Wendy, who looked on, uncharacteristically speechless.
“Come on, Cecily,” yelled her mother, “we’re outta here.”
“You’ve had too much to drink,” said Cordelia. “Maybe George can drive you home.”
“Listen,” said George, “if everybody will just calm down a minute. I told the Judge we’d all try to make it for Thanksgiving at Hermitage. Can we agree to that? Martha, Karen and Erich, Nancy and Max are all on board.”
“No damn way,” said Alice. “If that old fascist thinks he’s going to get one last chance to do mind-fucks on his offspring, he’s got another think coming.” She spun around and almost tripped, catching herself, going face-to-face with George. “Here’s the deal: You send me a copy of the memoir and Stan and I will consider Thanksgiving. It’s about time we got our stories straight, since the old man has obviously got you hog-tied.”
“Oh, Alice,” said Cordelia, “Daddy’s ninety-five. He hasn’t got much more time left. Can’t we forgive and forget?”
Cecily came hurrying back and put her arms in solidarity around George and Wendy.
“I don’t mind seeing the old guy—and he’s the only goddamn grandfather I’ve ever had—even if he still blames me for trying to burn down his boathouse. I have a hankering for Hermitage right now; I still dream about those woods and lakes. In some ways, those were the happiest times of my life, hanging with the cousins there”—she cocked her head at her mother—“without you.”
Alice grabbed her keys and turned for a final volley.
“Oh, that was another emergency flight—from a conference in Santa Fe to pick you up that summer when his highness kicked you out.” She pointed a finger at George. “The memoir or else.”
44
A Life in the Law and Out: Yalta
I OFTEN FOUND it odd that Alger put so much store by his connections with such luminaries as Dean Acheson, Francis Sayre, Felix Frankfurter, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and John Foster Dulles, especially as character witnesses—when, during the war years, when I was on the War Production Board, I regularly heard a much more exalted list of names dropped from Priscilla’s lips at social gatherings, including both Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Hopkins, Laughlin Currie, Henry Morgenthau (and Harry Dexter White at Treasury), Cordell Hull at State, Henry Stimson at War, and others in the top echelons of government. None of these names, central to the planning and signing of the Yalta agreement (much less the development of the atomic bomb), was broached in my pretrial discussions with Alger, nor were they mentioned except in passing to HUAC or the FBI. Alger was clearly playing down his role at Yalta. I, perhaps naïvely, thought by playing up his role at Yalta, it would help the credibility of our case: such great confidence in and enormous responsibility entrusted to my client Alger Hiss! Yet time and time again he insisted to me that his role was minimal, mostly administrative in nature, while emphasizing that the accomplishment he was most proud of was his role in the formation of the United Nations to promote world peace. When I pressed him on Yalta, based on my understanding from conversations with Priscilla in various social settings during and immediately after the war—she boasted gleefully about his illustrious associations, saying that he had pretty much been the president’s right-hand man—I was laughed off. Alger reacted as if he was a little fed up with Priscilla’s boasting: He’d been nothing more than a “glorified clerk” keeping track of briefing papers for Stettinius—secretary of state, “in way over his head”—and Franklin, who “half the time couldn’t even remember what time of day it was.”
“Well,” I proposed, “Franklin and Hopkins are dead, but Currie, Harriman, and Bohlen are still with us—why not at least invoke their names, play up their confidence in you; and why not Eleanor and Currie and Bohlen as character witnesses? Let’s tout your role at Yalta to the sky, since that will surely resonate with the jury. Any juror worth his salt will be impressed to know that you sat in with Roosevelt at Yalta, with Churchill and Stalin!” To this suggestion, an alarmed Alger was unequivocal and dismissive: “Franklin was a rank amateur who presumed on his charm rather than marshaling the details of the business at hand.” Alger further demurred: He would not presume on the time of the former First Lady, and besides, he barely knew Lauchlin Currie, who was now out of the country in Colombia. “Bogotá,” he mentioned offhandedly, as if the place was, thankfully, on the dark side of the moon. Again, Alger insisted he’d played a very minor role at Yalta and had only been included at the last moment for his expertise on the “bureaucratic mechanics” of organizing the United Nations.
When I persisted along these lines, noting that Alger was, after all, one of only four immediate political advisers to the president— along with Stettinius, Hopkins, and Bohlen—Alger turned on me with sudden fury, eyes glittering: a fox, who, spying the succulent bait in a leg-hold trap, disdains the deadly prize with a circuitous detour. With another dismissive wave, he lowered his voice and with a knowing smile couched in an offhand remark informed me, “The dirty little secret, Edward, Yalta was a joke from start to finish. The Soviet NKVD had Roosevelt’s headquarters bugged from top to bottom; there was not a discussion that we had privately among the American delegation—or, I dare say, with our allies—that did not end up in a hand-delivered report to Stalin at breakfast the following morning. He knew everything, all Roosevelt’s stupidities and inanities and misplaced confidence in his charm and ability to play honest broker between Churchill and Stalin. So, forget about Yalta; never mention the word Yalta in the trial. I just so happened to catch Stettinius’s eye and he took me along to Yalta to hold his hand—a neophyte secretary of state way out of his depth—since I knew my way around the technicalities of the staff work. Edward, the issue is Chambers and those fake papers he says I gave him back in 1938. That’s the thing, the only thing that matters. Your job is to destroy Chambers’s credibility, and with his credibility gone, his lying testimony goes up in smoke.”
I think, at the time, I was quite taken in by Alger’s sincerity—perhaps seeing it as modesty on his part, the way he played down his Yalta role, which, on the face of it, only made sense, given his position as a career staffer. Now, almost fifty years on, I’m not so sure. How was he so knowledgeable, if not blithely sanguine about the bugging? Alger Hiss, was, if he was anything, a brilliant lawyer and understood the looming implications of Yalta as well as anyone in the foreign policy establishment in the late forties, of which he, as president of the Carnegie Endowment, was a premier member. He was also one of us; we shared the same background and values as all those who voluntarily took up his defense. And so his word—his judgment—even his confident tone, mimicking our own, became our lodestar. And I have to keep reminding myself—when I have second thoughts—that this was late 1949, before the full implications of Yalta were fully realized, so I tell myself; and yet we had a pretty good idea of Stalin’s perfidy in the Soviet’s proxy takeover of Czechoslovakia and Poland. And so among members of the defense team, I think we simply closed ranks, kept our doubts to ourselves, and justified our focus on the indictable offenses with the admonition: Alger’s got enough problems with what happened in 1938, so why bring up the subject of Yalta and the postwar situation and get blamed for that, as well? Legally, strategically, he was right: The focus had to be Chambers and the so-called Pumpkin Papers stolen from the State Department in 1938 (copied on the Hisses’ Woodstock typewriter), and doing whatever necessary to protect Alger’s good name and bona fides.
But I did make one last feeble foray into more recent events—how could I not, since only that August we had found out the Soviets had exploded their own atom bomb—by in the most offhand manner, simple curiosity, so to speak, broaching the question if Alger, while at State, had had any inkling of the Manhattan Project, since he circulated at such high levels, and had, in fact, been separated from the State Department for requesting materials on atomic energy development, far beyond his bailiwick of expertise. He just laughed at me as if I were the village idiot. “Edward, for mercy’s sake, I was a terrible student at Johns Hopkins in math and science—no head for figures—why Pross balances our checkbook; I wouldn’t have known the difference between a proton and an electron to save my life. I was as shocked as everyone else by what happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. My God man, you were a top dog on the War Production Board—didn’t you have an inkling?”
And that was how the subject was left: A great lawyer never answers a question he doesn’t want asked.
45
Yalta Redux
I think it is accurate and not an immodest statement to say that I did to some extent, yes.
—Alger Hiss’s response to a question during the 1948 HUAC hearings about whether he had “drafted or participated in the drafting” of parts of the Yalta agreement
In the persons of Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter White, the Soviet Military Intelligence sat close to the heart of the United States Government. It was not yet in the Cabinet room, but it was not far outside the door. In the years following my break with the Communist Party, the apparatus became much more formidable. Then Hiss became Director of the State Department’s Office of Special Political Affairs and White became an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury. In a situation with few parallels in history, the agents of an enemy power were in a position to do much more than purloin documents. They were in a position to influence the nation’s chief enemy, and not only on exceptional occasions, like Yalta (where Hiss’s role, while presumably important, is still ill-defined) or through the Morgenthau Plan for the destruction of Germany (which is generally credited to White), but in what must have been the staggering sum of day-to-day decisions. That power to influence policy had always been the ultimate purpose of the Communist Party’s infiltration. It was much more dangerous, and, as events have proved, much more difficult to detect, than espionage, which besides it is trivial, though the two go hand in hand.
—Whittaker Chambers
OF ALL THE subjects in the Judge’s memoir, the section on Yalta, though short, ultimately proved the most disturbing and the most controversial, for its implications reached the furthest. In George’s continuing correspondence by e-mail and phone with Weinstein, the subject of Yalta came up repeatedly. Perhaps it was because Weinstein was so perplexed at how both he and Edward Dimock had failed to grasp the full implications of Hiss’s role at Yalta during the trial. And how guilelessly Hiss had finessed his participation at Yalta not only to Dimock and his defense team but also to the prosecution, the public at large, and in the many interviews the young scholar did with Hiss for his definitive book on the trial, Perjury. Never at any time, not even many years later in his 1988 memoir, where Hiss discussed his time at Yalta, did he mention publicly the Soviet tapping of the Livadia Palace. Only to his defense lawyer, Edward Dimock, did he mention this.
