Progressives/Liberals/Leftists are always demanding that apologies be given for things that happened in 200 years ago...
//But here's the thing: the people Chambers named were, in fact, guilty.
They include Henry Collins, employed at National Recovery Administration and later the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA); Lee Pressman, assistant general counsel of the AAA. John Abt, chief of Litigation for the AAA from 1933 to 1935, assistant general counsel of the Works Progress Administration in 1935, chief counsel on Senator Robert La Follette, Jr.'s from 1936 to 1937, council to the Communist Party USA, and special assistant to the United States Attorney General, 1937 and 1938; Charles Kramer, employed at the Department of Labor National Labor Relations Board (NLRB); Nathan Witt, employed at the AAA and the NLRB. George Silverman, employed at the Railroad Retirement Board; Marion Bachrach, sister of John Abt; John Herrmann, who introduced Chambers to Hiss and was an author assistant to Harold Ware (who ran the communist cell in Washington) employed at the AAA; Nathaniel Weyl, Donald Hiss, and Victor Perlo of the War Production Board and later the Departments of Commerce and Treasury.
Either by their own admission or released records, all of these people were revealed to be communists acting against America.
For a queer, paranoid, disheveled lump, Chambers racked up quite a batting average.
The incredible thing about Perlstein's passage is that, if you follow its logic, it's clear that he regrets that these people were actually caught. He posits that if not for Whittaker Chambers -- and Nixon -- Alger Hiss would have faded into obscurity. In other words: had Chambers not come forward, one of the leaders of an international criminal conspiracy to bring down the United States would have gotten away with it.
Why do people like Perlstein continue to hold on to their defense of Hiss?//
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