1. 4 Pi ger ss Imo:4311g ypewri er ody Powell's Ordeal by Fire/John Rockwell on Linda Ronstadt „ tis A S I,' 4 '1 1 + OCTOBER 14. 1977 SI Oil THE FEATURE NEWS MAGAZINE .11OULD ThS DOLPHIN lairiRsrammAL LUBER/WIWI CASE. CTENSIN Are* Cittlaw • -- I 11 The typewriters are a:ways the key" (Richard 'iron to Chuck Colson, as told hyionn Deane BY FRED COOK New evidence from F.B.I. files, involving double agents and a typewriter that was apparently purchased before it was built, raises old questions about the Hiss case. The Alger Hiss case, the water- the year in an effort to wipe out his 1950 Hall. was Schrnahrs employer in the lat- shed episode of an entire generation conviction for perjury, based on the er 1930s and 19-1.0s. Broady recalls one tarred with the shadow of an alleged charge that he lied in denying Whittaker daring exploit of Schmahi's that illus- Communist menace, is heading for a new Chambers' accusations that he had been trates both his skill as a double-agent and and probably final showdown in the a Communist and a spy. his skill in getting out of scrapes. During a visit to Germany in the courts based on two discoveries. It ap- The two elements—the activities pears that the antecedents of the Water- of the double-agent and the origin of the days shortly after Adolf Hider seized gate "plumbers" are to be found in this Woodstock—interlock to give a new pic- power. Schmahl ingratiated himself with controversial case, which altered the ture of a Byzantine struggle that was to Hider's personal photographer to such course of American politics and stimu- profoundly influence the political struc- an extent that he managed to steal and lated much of the rhetoric of the cold ture of two decades. Out of it Richard duplicate the keys to the darkroom and war. Nixon emerged as a national public the private filing cabinets containing un- As a result of recent Freedom of figure, his feet set on the path that would published pictures of the Fuehrer. He Information suits. Hiss' attorneys have ultimately lead to the presidency, Water- purloined some of the best prints and discovered: first, that Hiss was victim- gate and disgrace. Out of it came the smuggled them back to the United ized by a double-agent, a detective McCarthy era with its chant of "twenty States. "Some were not exactly flatter- hired to help him who was actually art in- years of treason." Out of it came the ing." Broady recalls, with a chuckle. formant for the Federal Bureau of Inves- knee-jerk, hardline reflexes of Demo- tigation: and second, that the Justice De- cratic administrations, forever shy of be- "and of course those were the ones that partment deliberately withheld from the ing labeled "soft on communism''—and sold for the most money here. There was defense exculpatory material in FBI files so, in the end, committed to the ultimate a great furor in Germany when these pic- tures appeared in the American media, indicating that the mysterious Wood- folly of the war in Vietnam. stock typewriter—a vital exhibit that The key figure. a man of intrigue and the Nazis arrested Schmahl. They played a major role in Hiss' conviction— and mystery, is a German-born private thought they had him dead-to-rights, and was a phonied and fraudulent machine. detective, Horace W. Schmahl—short, it was touch-and-go there for awhile. Of These will be the major pillars of squat, with a heavy guttural accent: mas- course. I pulled all the strings I could a cot-am nobis action (a writ to correct ter of many languages and endowed with here, and Schmahl is pretty wily. He earlier judicial error) that Hiss' attorneys a wily ability to talk his way out of the finally talked his way out of it." are determined to file before the end of most precarious situations. The man who could walk away John G. (Steve) Broady. the fa- unscathed after rifling the private photo- Fred Cook is the author of The Unfin- mous private eye once convicted and im- graphic flies of Adolf Hitler was still ilhed Case of Alger Hiss and The FB prisoned for bugging New York's City working for Broady in 1948 when the Noboly Knows. .4E0.1-WS 23 P.-G T. 44UP. ay NEIL SELK.14( Enter the double agent. Edward C. McLean, Hiss' original attorney, con- tacted Broady. Hiss recalls McLean lat- er telling him: "We're not big enough for Steve Broady to handle this-himself, but he'll assign a couple of his men." The in- vestigators Broady put on the case were Schmahl and Harold B. Bretnall. It would appear from McLean's time sheets, however, that Schmahl was in charge. All conferences, telephone calls and reports deal with Schmahl; Bret- nail's name never appears. Hiss met Schmahl in a conference in McLean's office on October 22, 1948. "I didn't like him," he recalls now. "He was short, squat, with a heavy German accent . and there was just some- thing about him [Hiss shrugs recalling his intuition] that I didn't like. But Broady vouched for him, and so . [another s hrug]. • It was not, Hiss says, until years Schmahl and Broady: On the Woodstock trail later—after he had been convicted and was preparing an appeal—that Chester Hiss-Chambers cast erupted in eight- dared. Hiss had brought home for his Lane, his new counsel, shocked him column headlines during the height of wife to copy on an old Woodstock type- with the question: "Did you know that the Dewey-Truman presidential cam- writer the family once had owned. Schmahl was a double agent?" paign. This started a typewriter hunt un- Chester Lane had seen much war- A cornerstone of the Republican rivaled in history. Hiss' wife, Priscilla, time service in Washington. running campaign strategy was the oft-repeated nee Fansler. had been given the Wood- Lend-Lease and inevitably coming into charge that the Roosevelt and Truman stock by her father. Thomas. Fansler contact with intelligence agencies. When Administrations had been dyed pink by had been in partnership with Harry L. Hiss told him he had no idea that Moscow. Support for this thesis was Martin in a Philadelphia insurance busi- Schmahl had played a double role, Lane offered by• Whittaker Chambers, a ness from the spring of 1927 (a signifi- insisted: "Well, I know he was a double round-faced. beefy editor of Time maga- cant date) until late 1930. When the part- agent. I can't tell you how I know, but I zine. nership broke up, Fansler gave his know. Try to think back on everything he Chambers rook the stand before daughter the Woodstock that he had pur- did for you." the House Un-American Activities Com- chased. Mrs. Hiss had used the machine Thinking. however, could not mittee in the hot summer of 1948 and to type letters, but it had long since van- prove the deed. Proof rested in FBI files. testified that a number of second-eche- ished from the Hiss household, having then closed to the defense but forced lon New Deal figures in the 1930s had been discarded as a virtually worthless open now through Freedom of Informa- been Communists. Among those he piece of junk. Where was it now? And if tion actions. These documents reveal named was Alger Hiss, who had gone on it could be found, would it prove or dis- that Schmahl had been an undercover to become a rising young star in the State prove Chambers' tale of document agent for U.S. intelligence agencies in Department and had been a member of copying? various capacities for 20 years and that. the American delegation at the wartime big-power conference at Yalta. Amazingly, in the light of subse- quent developments. Chambers repeat- Chambers , who had sworn Hiss had never edly testified under oath that Hiss had been a spy, declared Hiss' had always never been a spy. He had been too valu- able to the party to be risked in such a been a spy. role, Chambers declared; his function had been to influence policy. In November 1948, the totally unexpected happened: Truman defeated Dewey. And Chambers, as he later re- vealed in his book, Witness, felt threat- ened. The administration he had done so much to blacken had been returned to power and was in a position to investi- gate and possibly prosecute him. Instantly, Chambers' oft-times repeated tale of subversion took a ISO- degree turn and became a story of es- pionage. Hiss had sued Chambers for li- bel; and when depositions in the libel case were taken in Baltimore, Cham- bers. who had sworn Hiss had never been a spy, declared Hiss had always been a spy. And he produced a batch of State Department documents that. he de- St NEW IMES 10/1 AfT7 for more than two years. he regularly in- Hiss' story concerning the typewriter dent FBI investigation: it was an authori- formed the FBI of everything he learned and 'several other points' has been zation to make full use of the double- about the Hiss defense. found to be inaccurate. , . Schmahl agent to penetrate the Hiss defense. The Schmahl was born Horst W. did state that if Hiss were proven wrong New York bureau responded in a tele- Si.hrnahl in Dusseldorf, Germany, on on 'one more thing' his firm would with- type December 23.