ABSTRACT
A new kind of autobiographical memoir began appearing in the United States describes how their authors had ceased to believe in Communism and were produced partly in response to such historical events as the Franco-Soviet Pact, the Moscow trials, and the Nazi-Soviet Pact. The most famous of these memoirs was Whittaker Chambers' Witness, which focused on one of the most notorious cases of period-that of Alger Hiss. The special authenticity which Chambers attributes to farming life aligns with a tradition of national self-images stretching back to Crevecoeur, who rhapsodized over the fact that America was a nation of independent smallholders. The Quaker meeting house became a special place of silent peace for Chambers, and his new-found faith enabled him to conflate spiritual and secular notions of witness in giving legal testimony at the Hiss hearings. Chambers' narrative of his heroic attempts at bearing witness supplied a kind of precedent for one of the most amazing cases of the Cold War.
