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Witness

Name: Witness
Author: Whittaker Chambers

by Whittaker Chambers

Whittaker Chambers’s landmark 1952 memoir of communism, espionage, and conversion — a founding document of the modern conservative movement.

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About the author

Whittaker Chambers

Jay Vivian Chambers (1901 –1961), known as Whittaker Chambers, was an American editor who denounced his Communist spying and became respected by the American Conservative movement during the 1950s. After early years as a Communist Party member and Soviet spy, he defected from communism (underground and open party) and worked at Time magazine. Under subpoena in 1948, he testified in what became Alger Hiss's espionage trials and he became an outspoken anti-communist (all described in Witness). Afterward, he worked briefly as a senior editor at National Review. President Ronald Reagan awarded him the Medal of Freedom posthumously in 1984.