Probing the Fundamental Why of Alger Hiss
Once upon a time, people wondered whether U. S. State Department official
Alger Hiss transferred stolen government documents to Soviet intelligence. Then
the question became more a matter of why.
Like why did Hiss steal the documents, and why did he keep lying about it after
he served his time, right up until he died?
“The fundamental why”
is the way Joseph Conrad put it in his epic novel about the nature of guilt, Lord Jim, contrasting it with “the
superficial how.” Allan Weinstein
quotes that passage in his famous takedown of Hiss, Perjury, which pretty much laid out the how part to most people’s satisfaction more than 30 years ago.
Since then, he has never as satisfactorily addressed the why.