Nations’ (UN) organizing
conference in San Francisco
(1945–1946). In February 1947, with support from John
Foster Dulles, Hiss became head of the Carnegie Endow-
ment for International Peace.
In August 1948 Whittaker Chambers, a self-confessed
ex-communist, accused Hiss of having been a member of
the Communist Party in the 1930s and of having betrayed
State Department secrets to the Soviets. Hiss strenuously
denied the charges under oath. He was subsequently
indicted by a grand jury for perjury, as the statute of limi-
tations for treason had expired, and was bound over for
trial, which resulted in a hung jury in July 1949. Then, in a
highly publicized retrial in January 1950, Hiss was found
guilty and served forty-four months in the Lewisburg Fed-
eral Penitentiary. He continued to assert his innocence and
so too did a large and influential body of supporters, which
precipitated one of the most intense and enigmatic debates
of the entire Cold War.
Archival revelations in the 1990s, including those from
Russian sources, vindicated neither Hiss nor his defenders.
Historical evidence now seems to suggest that Hiss was
indeed guilty of treason. The strange case of Alger Hiss
was a defining episode not only in the Cold War but also in
modern American politics. It rallied conservatives, gave
birth to the excesses of McCarthyism, and spotlighted
Hiss’s nemesis, the little-known California Congressman
Richard M. Nixon, who would later go on to become a U.S.
senator, vice president, and president. Hiss died on 15 No-
vember 1996 in New York City.
Phillip Deery
See also
Chambers, Whittaker; McCarthy, Joseph Raymond; McCarthy Hearings; McCarthy-
ism; Nixon, Richard Milhous
References
Lowenthal, John. “Venona and Alger Hiss.” Intelligence and National Security 15(3)
(2000): 98–130.
Weinstein, Allen. Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case. New York: Knopf, 1978.
White, G. Edward. Alger Hiss’s Looking-Glass Wars: The Covert Life of a Soviet Spy.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Vietnamese nationalist, founder of the Vietnamese Communist Party (1930),
and first president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (1946–1969). Ho
912
Ho Chi Minh
U.S. citizen Alger Hiss was convicted of perjury in 1950 as
part of an investigation into an alleged spy ring. Hiss was
accused of being a communist and of sharing state secrets
with the Soviet Union. The matter of his guilt or innocence
is still debated today. (Library of Congress)
Ho Chi Minh
(1890–1969)
is considered the most influential political figure of mod-
ern Vietnam. Born Nguyen Sinh Cung on 19 May 1890
in Kimlien, Annam, Vietnam, his father was a Confucian
scholar who had served in the Vietnamese imperial bureau-
cracy but resigned to protest the French occupation of his
country. Nguyen received his secondary education at the
prestigious National Academy, a French-style lycée in Hue.
In 1911 he hired on as a merchant ship cook, traveling to
the United States, Africa, and Europe. He then became first
a photography assistant and then an assistant pastry chef in
London. With the beginning of World War I, Nguyen
moved to Paris, where he became active in the French
Socialist Party. Changing his name to Nguyen Ai Quoc
(Nguyen the Patriot), he became a leader in the large Indo-
Chinese community in France. After the war, he helped
draft a petition to the Allied leaders at the Paris Peace Con-
ference demanding self-determination for colonial peoples;
the petition was ignored.
When the Socialist Party split in 1920, Nguyen became
one of the founders of the new French Communist Party.
He spent the early 1920s in Moscow at the headquarters
of the Communist International (Comintern). In 1924 he
went to Guangzhou (Canton), China, and during the next
two years worked to form a Marxist-Leninist revolutionary
organization in French Indochina. In 1925 he organized
the Vietnamese Revolutionary Youth League as a training
ground for the future Vietnamese Communist Party. In
1929 he presided over a meeting in Hong Kong that
brought several communist factions together, forming a
single Vietnamese Communist Party, later renamed the
Indochinese Communist Party (ICP).
By the early 1940s Nguyen had taken the name Ho Chi
Minh (Bearer of Light). He left Hong Kong and returned
to Vietnam in early 1941, where he formed a broad nationalist alliance, the
League for the Independence of Vietnam (Viet Minh), to combat both the
French and Japanese occupations. The Viet Minh generally downplayed
orthodox communist ideology and emphasized anti-imperialism and land
reform, although it was dominated by the ICP.
During World War II Ho shuttled between Vietnam and China to build
support for his movement. He was held in detention for a year in China by
the anticommunist Chinese Guomindang (GMD, Nationalists), who released
him in 1944. He had also worked with the U.S. Office of Strategic Services
(OSS). When Japan surrendered in August 1945, the Viet Minh occupied
Hanoi, and Ho established the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North
Vietnam). He became president of the newly formed nation on 2 March
1946. Ho sought to avoid hostilities with France, but differences between the
Viet Minh nationalists and the French, who steadfastly refused to give up
Ho Chi Minh
913
Pictured here in 1954, Vietnamese communist and nation-
alist Ho Chi Minh founded the Indochina Communist
Party in 1930 and was president of the Democratic
Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam) from 1945 to
1969. (Library of Congress)