orig. Jay Vivian Chambers
born April 1, 1901, Philadelphia
died July 9, 1961, near Westminster, Md., U.S.
U.S. journalist and principal figure in the Alger Hiss case.
He joined the Communist Party in 1923 and worked at various times as an editor at New Masses , The Daily Worker , and Time magazine. In testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee in August 1948, he named former State Department official Alger Hiss as a fellow member of a 1930s Communist spy ring. Hiss denied the charges and sued Chambers for slander. In the trials that followed, Chambers produced material he claimed Hiss had given him to pass along to Soviet agents. His autobiography, Witness , was published in 1952.