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April 06, 2007
"Arnie, It's Alger Hiss on Line 2"
Powerline's item Thursday about the stepson of Alger Hiss defending his dad brought back one of my favorite memories of a career in journalism. It stands as an example of journalism's great appeal to people with an interest in history.
During the summer of 1978, I was a summer intern at Newsday in Garden City, N.Y. We interns spent our days answering the phones, which constantly rang. The head of the intern program, a great guy named Bernie Bookbinder, impressed upon us the need to always be polite on the phones. He said, "You may answer the phones 100 times a day, but this may be the first time somebody ever called the newspaper." I got into the swing of the job, listening carefully, taking notes, not promising anything but giving the callers a respectable customer service experience as we picked up lines on the Nassau County desk and the national desk. Arnold Abrams was the national editor (so I recall; that's also the name of a current reporter at Newsday. If I'm confusing the names, I'll correct it).
That was the summer Allan Weinstein published his book Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case. Newsday was covering the controversy about the book.
One day I was working the desk amidst the usual chaos of calls -- a widow with a heart condition plagued by raccoons in her chimney, a drunk demanding to talk to an editor because he was a shareholder of Times-Mirror Co., furtive voices dropping a dime on corruption in local politics, subscribers vowing rudeness to paperboys because their paper landed in the begonias, when I picked up a phone and said, "Newsday, National Desk."
"I'd like to speak with Arnold Abrams, please." Another rule of the desk: Always get the name of the person who's calling, so an editor or reporter is not surprised.
"Certainly. May I ask who is calling?
"Alger Hiss."
"One moment please."
As a semi-educated Ivy Leaguer, I knew full well who Alger Hiss was. But I treated it as just another call.
I bellowed over to where the editors sat, "Arnie, it's Alger Hiss calling for you on line 2."
Arnie Abrams was dubious. "No, really, who is it, Van?"
"Arnie, it really is Alger Hiss."
"OK, transfer him over."
So I did.
And that was my brush with history on the national desk. Years later I read Weinstein's book The Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America—the Stalin Era and found it very compelling. After all, I actually had my 15 seconds of one-on-one contact with one of the characters.
Van | 04/06/07 at 07:41 AM | Categories: - Useful idiots
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Comments
I don't blame Hiss's stepson or for that matter the Rosenberg sons for defending their parents. If my father had committed espionage for one of history's most murderous regimes I'd have a hard time coming to terms with it.
I do blame anyone who takes them seriously, as the guilt of their parents really isn't in question.
Alex Bensky | April 6, 2007 10:38 AM
Arnold Abrams? Bernie Bookbinder?
Who else worked there?
Carl Cohen? David Dubinsky?
Robert Schwartz | April 6, 2007 09:18 PM
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