Witness

Rating:
Summary: Tragedy and Redemption
Review: The most important autobiography of the 20th Century, Whittaker Chambers' Witness improves with each reading. One man's struggle between good and evil has rarely been so eloquently recorded. Embroiled in an internal dilemma that personified the Cold War battle, Chambers remains America's quintessential dark horse hero.

While some seem eager to defile Chambers' credibility, time has proven Witness to be the sincere accounting of a unique man's winning battle against evil. True, Chambers was a troubled and desperate man, but only such an individual could have recorded this stunning work of both political and literary significance. It saddens this reviewer that Witness is not required reading for all American high school seniors.

Witness is recommended to all readers who desire a better understanding of American communism in the wake of the New Deal. Chambers offers an insider's perspective that is unmatched in the genre. While Chambers doubted that his choice against communism was a triumphant one, the reader now knows that the author's fears were never realized. Americans have their deity, and Chambers (among others) to thank.

Rating:
Summary: The Essential Struggle of the Twentieth Century.
Review: This book essentially revolves around the key social struggle of the Twentieth Century, Communism v. Capitalism. However, as I read this work I realized that the struggle, as Chambers saw it, was Modernity v. Christianity. Chambers paints himself as a man who is convinced that Modernity would reign supreme, and that the quientessential representative of Modernity is Communism.

Chambers also exposes Alger Hiss and brought the infiltration of Communism in US Government to the fore. This topic is a passionate one on both sides, but the Venona Papers (declassified KGB documents) bear witness to the accuracy of Chamber's accusations. In the end, Alger Hiss was convicted of perjury for lying about being a Soviet agent. The statute of limitations for the crime of being an agent had lapsed.

This is a powerful, emotional book. If a book can pursuade a lifelong Democrat to register Republican for the first time, and put him on a collision course with history, then the book is worth the read--even if you disagree with the thesis. From what I gather, this book led to Ronald Reagan running for President.

Rating:
Summary: FUN TO READ
Review: This book is fun to read. It can be read easily by a teen for an insight into the times involved. It is more an autobiography of Chambers than a discussion of Hiss specifically.

Rating:
Summary: Important, Interesting and Beautiful
Review: This book is IMPORTANT because it is the first person chronicle of a very real and very dangerous conflict.

The cold war was not just fought across the Berlin Wall, or in Vietnam. It was also fought on American soil, and America's enemies included some of her own citizens -- not just communist sympathizers, or fellow-travellers, or even members of the Communist Party, but spies and saboteurs, members of the communist underground who lived in deep cover and took their orders from Moscow.

The tendency now is joke about "commies," and how the "Russians are coming!" _Witness_ is important because we must remember that the threat was real, and people like Whittaker Chambers (who left the communist underground and testified against it) and Ronald Reagan (who fought the very real communist presence in Hollywood before entering the Oval Office to fight it on a grander scale) are heroes.

The book is also INTERESTING, among other reasons, because it details -- from Chambers's perspective -- the famous Hiss Trial. Chambers names the names (well, most of the names) of his underground associates, and the 20th century -- the New Deal, Yalta, McCarthyism -- just doesn't look the same after you've read this book.

Best of all, _Witness_ is BEAUTIFUL. It's a very well written memoir by a powerful writer whose own spiritual journey -- from the godless quasi-religion of communism to faith in a divine Creator -- had repercussions throughout America, and, arguably, the world.

Rating:
Summary: Whittaker Chambers, 20th cetury hero
Review: This book is more than an account of a trial or a political movement--it is an account of a "suffering servant". Chambers was truly an American hero as well as a prophet. He not only unmasks Soviet Communism, he also paints a dark picture of the materialistic nihilism that animates the West. If he had lived to see the universal homogeneous society that our world has become he would not have been surprised. He considered himself in the tradition of the Russian radicals of the 19th century--those radicals who destroyed themselves to fight injustice--and his life was consistent with this. Today he is castigated as a "conservative" by the fashionable left . He abhorred being called a conservative-preferring "man of the right". He was much more than any ideological label can convey. Instead he was closer to the Old Testament figures who dared to call the people back to Truth. Like many of them he was destroyed for it. Experience this book!

Rating:
Summary: Great first draft of a great book
Review: This book is sloppy, disorganized--and a great read. Anybody with a romantic view of communism or the Communist Party, USA, would profit by reading Chambers' account of the Party as it really was in the 1930's. Anybody who thinks that Nixon and the HUAC were merely on a witch hunt in the late 40's would profit as well. Anybody who reflexively pooh-poohs allegations of high level conspiracies will think again after reading this book. Chambers names names and provides a myriad of detail which simply could not have been made up. His claims have stood the test of time much better than the dissemblings of Hiss' supporters. Chambers movingly describes how his world came apart when he broke with the Party. He describes how the left--both Communists and liberals, reacted with a smear campaign against him when he came forward. His prose is powerful, no more so than when he is writing about his children and how he had to defy the party even to have children in the first place.

Having said that, however, one must admit that this book could have profited from an editor who insisted on more coherence. The book raises as may questions about Chambers as it answers. For example, Chambers never does convincingly explain the attraction of Communism to an educated person such as himself or Hiss. The excesses of Lenin, Stalin & Co. were so patent and so well known, long before the show trials and the pact with Hitler, that only the worst sort of self-deception can explain one's conversion to the communist cause in the first place. But Chambers paints himself and his former pals as idealists bent on constructing a new and better world on the ruins of capitalism--which, of course, is the very argument used to excuse every excess of the left, be it the Soviets, the Sandanistas, or the SDS. Eventually, Chambers saw through this fantasy. But why did Chambers succumb to the fantasy in the first place? The book is curiously unsatisfactory on this point.

Later, Chambers rats out the Communists in the State Department, but for years tries to protect them by withholding evidence of espionage --treason -- until pressed by Hiss in a libel suit. He never adequately explains why to him, the thought (adhering to the tenets of communism) is worse than the act (treason). Most people would hold just the opposite--that the act, not the thought, is reprehensible.

This book was written in a white heat during a fearful period of our history, when nobody knew how the cold war would turn out. (Do we, even today?) It took guts for Chambers to come forth, and it took guts for him to write the book. Thus I enthusiasticaly recommend the book as an intensely felt and written period piece. But it is also timeless as an autobiography of ideas. And in a way, it is as up-to-date as today's headlines. The Hiss case reverberates loudly 50 years later, when the right is attempting to get revenge on the left and its poster boy, Clinton, for the Nixon impeachment, which itself was the left's revenge on Nixon and the right for the Hiss case.

Rating:
Summary: Good vs. Evil on the Battlefield of Political Ideology
Review: This book was very exciting to read! At some points, I was literally sitting on the edge of my seat! And the unmistakable message of the story is that there was (and is) a very real struggle for the human soul played out on the political battlefield - between Communism and Freedom, enslavement and Liberty, godlessness and Faith. The story demonstrates the depths to which Communism will go to further its goal of conquering the world and enslaving mankind. And it also demonstrates the ease with which "enlightened" intellectuals (esp. media and liberals) come to the aid of the Communist cause; and how quickly they scold and deride the common man who opposes Communism for being the incarnation of Evil on Earth. Of course in that respect, not much has changed since the writing of Witness in 1952. In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan consistently reminded the liberal establishment (media, universities, etc.) that the "evil empire" would end up on the "ash heap of history" and how the "West won't contain Communism. It will transcend Communism. It will dismiss it as some bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages are even now being written." And while Reagan was correct, "enlightened" intellectuals still try to justify their reasons for supporting the Communist cause and for opposing the "simple-minded" and "unenlightened" folk who fought against it. But history has vindicated Chambers, Reagan, and many others who had the God-given wisdom to understand the real battle as one between the forces of Good and the forces of Evil. There may no longer be a Soviet menace, but you can be sure that it is not the end of politically manifested Evil. All Patriots and lovers of Freedom need to read this book to understand the struggle of those who have preceded us so that we may have the strength, courage, and wisdom to follow in their footsteps if and when an Evil menace arises to threaten mankind anew.

Rating:
Summary: A journey into light
Review: This is the true story of Whittaker Chambers. Born in depravity, he lashed out at the status quo in a typical outburst of youthful angst. Driven by the depression and a trip to post-Great War Europe, he sought a rational mental framework in the writings of Karl Marx. He immersed himself in his writings and philosophy and adopted the tactics of Lenin. He joined the American Communist Party and later migrated into the Soviet-run Communist Underground. He was charged with creating and maintaining a Communist "apparatus" in Washington DC for the purpose of generating espionage at a later date. He had several Russian masters while in this role and formed close relationships with the operatives he controlled. One of these was Alger Hiss, a darling of the liberal elite in power in FDR's administration. Chambers broke from the Communist party and returned to a seemingly normal life for a decade. Then he becomes a focal point for the House Committee that Richard Nixon was on, which was charged with finding Communist influence in US Government. Chambers served as a lightning rod for all those who saw an attack on Hiss as a challenge to the status quo. Much of what is detailed in this book has been corroborated in other's testimony and in the more recent Venona transcripts, the FBI deciphered Soviet cables.

There is another side of this book that is at least as interesting as the actual spy tale. It is the passage of a person from spiritually dead to brimming with an awake spirit willing to join in the battle between good and evil. Chambers identifies God's will as fighting the godless Communists and unraveling their efforts to cause the US to more closely resemble the USSR through the New Deal and other social programs. He laments how these imbedded Communists managed to change US policy that led to years of totalitarian rule in China. His spiritual journey is detailed here, including his failings, in considerable detail. At 800+ pages, it is not a casual read, but not merely for its length.

It is kind of eerie to read about these hidden cells of terrorists in light of the US' recent history. The tactics have not evolved that much, and yet they are still deadly in the US because of the freedoms we enjoy.

Rating:
Summary: Extraordinary
Review: This may be the best biography written in the 20th Century. It tells the story of a man's journey from an agent of the Communist underground to a witness against the traitor, Alger Hiss. It is also a spiritual journey from atheism to Christianity.

I think this story should keep most intelligent readers' attention. An additional benefit is that Chambers' literary style is on such a high level, it is sure to be of benefit to readers seeking to improve the quality of their own writing.

Rating:
Summary: Provocative and enlightening. Of great value!
Review: This was an immensely profitable book. Particularly, Chamber's description of the requisite "faith" which drove him to seek out an ideology whose theory practiced. What an incredible indictment of those who shun purely humanistic religions in order to hold to a God-centered faith--but fail in the out-working of that faith in every decision and step of daily life. The historical data found within the book is well worth the price, but Chamber's descriptions of his personal crises and their resolutions are priceless. If Mr. Chambers were alive in 1999, he would remind us that although communism has changed its clothes, it is far from dead.