Chambers, Whittaker - Philip Abbott (essay date 1987)
Philip Abbott (essay date 1987)
SOURCE: Abbott, Philip. “Judging: Whittaker Chambers and Lillian Hellman.” In States of Perfect Freedom: Autobiography and American Political Thought, pp. 91-124. Amherst, Mass.: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1987.
[In the following essay, Abbott contrasts Witness and Lillian Hellman's Scoundrel Time, contending that “both these autobiographies fail from the standpoint of political theory.”]
Consider the testimony of these two witnesses before the House of Representatives' Un-American Activities Committee.
“Almost exactly nine years ago—that is, two days after Hitler and Stalin signed their pact—I went to Washington and reported to the authorities what I knew about the infiltration of the United States Government by Communists. For years, international Communism, of which the United States Communist Party is an integral part, had been in a state of...
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