Six Crises by Richard Nixon Read Free Book Online

necessary doubts and then, at the critical moment, to make a choice and to act decisively. The men who fail are those who are so overcome by doubts that they either crack under the strain or flee to avoid meeting the problem at all.
    On the other hand, if one is to act and to lead responsibly he must necessarily go through this period of soul-searching and testing of alternate courses of action. Otherwise he shoots from the hip, misses the target, and loses the battle through sheer recklessness.
    Even in a struggle as clear-cut as that between Communism and freedom, there are gray areas. But there are intrinsic principles which must be adhered to. Anyone who shirks this inner debate in waging this struggle acts irresponsibly. It is this soul-searching and testing which ultimately gives a man the confidence, calmness, and toughness with which to act decisively.
    â€¢Â Â â€¢Â Â â€¢
    In the period between August 7 and August 16, when Hiss was totestify again, I not only insisted that the Committee staff, by the most intensive possible investigation, try to establish the truth or falsity of Chambers’ testimony by corroborative evidence but, in addition, I tried to check the objectivity of my own judgment against the opinions of men whom I respected.
    I asked Bert Andrews, chief Washington correspondent of the New York Herald Tribune, to come to my office. I felt he would be predisposed to believe Hiss rather than Chambers. He had recently won a Pulitzer Prize for a series of articles attacking the fairness of the State Department’s loyalty program. Along with James Reston of the New York Times, he had recommended Hiss to Dulles for the Carnegie post. From my brief acquaintance with Andrews and from his reputation among his colleagues in the press corps, I was convinced he would be objective. He had the rare quality which distinguishes a great reporter from just a good one—he never allowed his prejudices or emotions to get in the way in his search for and reporting of the truth. He once told me, “An editor has the right to write from his heart. But a reporter must never allow his heart to override what his head tells him are the facts. The trouble with too many reporters who cover the State Department, for example, is that they forget that their job is to write about the Secretary of State and they proceed to write as if they were the Secretary of State.”
    I asked Andrews to read the testimony, with the understanding that he could write nothing about it until it was released for publication to all papers. When he finished his reading, he turned to me and said, “I wouldn’t have believed it, after hearing Hiss the other day. But there’s no doubt about it. Chambers knew Hiss.”
    The next day I asked William P. Rogers, who was then chief counsel for the Senate Internal Security Sub-committee investigating the Bentley charges, to read the testimony. Rogers, who was later to become Attorney General, had made a brilliant record as one of Tom Dewey’s young prosecutors in New York, and I felt that he would be a good judge of Chambers’ credibility. He reached the same conclusion as Andrews.
    That night I had dinner with Congressman Charles J. Kersten, Republican of Wisconsin, with whom I served as a member of the Labor Committee and who was a keen analyst of Communist tactics and strategy. After Kersten read the testimony he made a suggestion which was not only to have a great bearing on my own conduct of this casebut on the course of my career in the years ahead. He told me he had heard that Hiss was trying to get John Foster Dulles and other members of the Carnegie board to make statements in his behalf. He suggested that I should give Dulles the opportunity to read the testimony.
    The following morning, August 11, I telephoned Dulles and he said he would be willing to see me that night at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York, where he was working on the Dewey presidential