Chapter 28: The Defense - the Catlett Family

A Pumpkin Patch, a Typewriter, and Richard Nixon: The Hiss-Chambers Espionage Case

Podcast #28 recounts the testimonies of three black Washingtonians named Catlett. Claudia Catlett, the Hisses’ household servant, had only one memory of Chambers being in the Hiss house. She’d likely have seen him more if he’d been coming by regularly to pick up spy documents. Two of her sons, teenagers when the alleged spying occurred, did handyman jobs for the Hisses and received The Hiss Home Typewriter from the Hisses as part payment for helping them move within Georgetown, maybe in December 1937. If the Catlett Kids had the Typewriter in early 1938 (the dates of The Typed Spy Documents), obviously The Typed Spy Documents were typed when the Hisses no longer had the Typewriter. That exonerates Hiss, doesn’t it? Unfortunately for Hiss, the three Catletts proved very weak on cross-examination, changing their stories often and in ways that hurt Hiss. Their changes are excellent proof of the value of cross-examination. And if the Typewriter was in the Catlett’s house when The Spy Documents were typed on it, how could Chambers have found it there and done the typing himself? Can you picture Chambers sneaking into a black household and typing 64 pages of documents? Wouldn’t someone notice a smelly white guy, missing half his teeth, banging away at the Typewriter for hours? FURTHER RESEARCH Two journalists who covered the trials and were sympathetic to the Hisses gave remarkably unfavorable accounts of the Catletts’ testimonies. Alistair Cooke (at 183) describes Mrs. Catlett as “a big comfortable . . . simple, intelligent woman, a devoted servant and friend of the Hisses with a happy memory of her work with them and a grateful memory for many favors.” Cooke, however, describes (at 187) one of her sons as embodying the extreme low point of human articulateness. John Chabot Smith, who believed Hiss innocent, concedes (at 373) that the Catletts “didn’t remember the details very clearly” and “were too vague to stand up under Murphy’s cross-examination.” Murphy, says Smith (at 374), shot down their story about the Typewriter “easily, and there was no way for the defense to repair the damage.” One Catlett Kid “became more and more confused and resentful” as his cross-examination wound on.(Smith at 374.). “It was all very confusing and fatiguing, and by the time it was over there wasn’t much left of Hiss’s main line of defense.” (Smith at 377.) The aforementioned Catlett Kid complained about his treatment by one FBI agent, and Prosecutor Murphy later had the agent testify that he had treated young Catlett fairly. Lloyd Paul Stryker’s cross-examination of the FBI agent was a masterpiece, according to Cooke. Over 40 minutes Stryker “insinuate[d] the sort of terrorism that would throw an illiterate colored [sic, remember we’re back in the 1940s] family into more kinds of confusion than a forgetfulness about dates.” He tried to make the FBI’s appearance and interrogations resemble an afternoon with the KGB or The Spanish Inquisition.It was “a bravura performance . . . that probably few modern lawyers could rival, in this age of the bureaucrat and the corporation lawyer sticking prosily to his brief. . . . [Stryker loosed] an ack-ack crackle of insinuation that had the court reporter’s good right hand shuttling like a piston” (Cooke at 233) and “squeez[ed] every simple answer for some diabolical F.B.I. intent.” (Cooke at 236.) Questions:In evaluating the Catletts’ testimonies, ponder a few variables. First, what weight do you give their very friendly association with the Hisses? (The Hisses attended a Catlett family wedding in the 1940s and paid the Catletts money to help them find the Typewriter.). Second, can you expect anyone to remember with precision the month of an event that occurred 10 to 15 years before and that was unremarkable at the time? Third, the Catletts were black people at a time of segregation, hundreds of miles from home and surrounded by powerful white men asking them skillfully shaded questions. Even if it’s understandable that they gave varying answers, does that leave you able to believe with confidence any of their answers, whether favorable or unfavorable to Hiss? This completes The Hiss Defense. Has it (a) convinced you that Hiss was not guilty, (b) raised a reasonable doubt in your mind about Hiss’s guilt, or (c) been such a mess that, added to The Prosecution’s evidence, it strengthened the case that Hiss was guilty? I know of a federal ex-prosecutor who says that more defendants should say absolutely nothing, put on no defense, and insist that the government has not proved its case, as it must, beyond a reasonable doubt. He says he always rejoiced when a defendant mounted a big defense because almost always, in cross-examining the defendant’s witnesses, he proved things that were essential or helpful to The Prosecution’s case. Do you think Prosecutor Murphy proved much with his cross-examination of Hiss’s witnesses? On the whole, did Hiss’s witnesses help or hurt Hiss?