Sam Tannenhaus

One is to say he's a homosexual.

That's a term that was used back then.

Two, that he's mentally unstable.

And three, he's an alcoholic.

They said this about Chambers.

And Chambers did happen to have a history of homosexuality.

The others were untrue.

And so there's a really famous moment in the Hiss case.

It's one that brings tears to the eyes of grown men, Steve.

It's when they finally bring... Hiss is the only one of the accused...

who insists on answering chambers he says no these are he sends a letter after chambers is named him and seven or eight others hiss sends a note to the committee the house committee and he says i demand equal time i want to come before the committee and repudiate these lies have been told about me so they said well come on in mr hiss so he does

And the other thing he's got going for him, Steve, is that the HUAC...

congressmen are really held in low repute.

It's the committee nobody wants to be on.

They're the red baiters.

They've done the Hollywood 10, right?

There were two blacklists, and we only hear about one of them.

We hear about the blacklist of the accused communists.

We don't hear about the blacklist of the witnesses who never got work again because they came out and testified.

Ayn Rand actually came out of that politics.