In 1948, the year Alger Hiss was accused before the House Un-American Activities Committee of being a Communist, the law was split in two.

FORBES: It's a Fib Thing

McCarthy, however, didn't focus his ire on the CIA until 1953, when he tried to subpoena the analyst Bill Bundy, who had contributed to Alger Hiss's defense fund.

WSJ: Book Review: The Ideal Man

Alger Hiss and Julius Rosenberg were Soviet spies.

ECONOMIST: History of espionage: Dark secrets | The

It was therefore ironic that his most famous achievement was to build a typewriter at the request of the defence lawyers for Alger Hiss, who was accused in 1948 of spying for the Soviet Union.

ECONOMIST: Martin Tytell

They are about the men and women active in the communist and labour movements in America during the late 1920s and 1930s, and on into the McCarthy aftermath Alger Hiss and Whittaker Chambers, Edmund Wilson, John L. Lewis (a union boss), the Reuther brothers, who brought General Motors to its knees, and others, many now forgotten.

ECONOMIST: Small but perfectly formed | The