Six Crises by Richard Nixon

interruptions by telephone calls or by mail.
    We had not reckoned with radiograms.
    The first full day at sea, Friday, December 3, I received a wire that Bert Andrews had sent late Thursday night. It read: “Information here is that Hiss-Chambers case has produced new bombshell. Stop. Indications are that Chambers has offered new evidence. Stop. All concerned silent. Stop. However, Justice Department partially confirms by saying ‘It is too hot for comment.’ Stop.”
    That evening Pat and I were having dinner at the Captain’s table with Congressman Mike Kirwan of Ohio, Chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee; Congressman Sterling Cole, Republican of New York, who now heads the International Atomic Energy Agency; and their wives. The purser brought me another wire. This one was from Stripling. “Second bombshell obtained by subpoena 1 A.M. Friday. Case clinched. Information amazing. Heat is on from press and other places. Immediate action appears necessary. Can you possibly get back?”
    I knew that Stripling would not have sent such a cable unless the evidence was really of great importance. I read the cable aloud at the table and Pat threw up her hands and said, “Here we go again!”
    The following morning, Sunday, I received the clincher—a long cablegram from Andrews. It read, in part: “Documents incredibly hot. Stop. Link to Hiss seems certain. Stop. Link to others inevitable. Stop.Results should restore faith in need for Committee if not in some members. Stop. New York Jury meets Wednesday. Stop. Could you arrive Tuesday and get day’s jump on Grand Jury. Stop. If not, holding hearing early Wednesday. Stop. My liberal friends don’t love me no more. Stop. Nor you. Stop. But facts are facts and these facts are dynamite. Stop. Hiss’s writing identified on three documents. Stop. Not proof he gave them to Chambers but highly significant. Stop. Stripling says can prove who gave them to Chambers. Stop. Love to Pat. Stop. (Signed) Vacation-Wrecker Andrews.”
    I radioed Stripling to make arrangements, if possible, to get me off the ship. By that time we were in the Caribbean near Cuba and the Captain said that if a Coast Guard amphibian PBY would come get me, he could pilot the ship to a stretch of water calm enough for a landing.
    In Washington, Stripling took the problem to the naval attaché assigned to Congress. He in turn took the matter up directly with Defense Secretary Forrestal, who issued a personal order to the Coast Guard station in Miami to meet the ship and fly me to the mainland. On Sunday morning the ship dropped anchor on the lee side of an island. A Coast Guard PBY landed on the water nearby. Members of the ship’s crew lowered me to the water in a lifeboat and rowed over to the PBY. I climbed aboard and was on my way to Miami.
    Reporters and photographers were on hand to meet me. They asked what comment I had on the “pumpkin papers”?
    I didn’t have the slightest idea what they were talking about and asked, “What is this, a joke?”
    They explained that when he was served with our subpoena, Chambers had led the Committee investigators to his pumpkin patch at midnight, taken the top off one of the pumpkins, and produced five rolls of microfilm containing photographs of secret State Department documents.
    I simply could not believe my ears. On the seven-hour flight from Miami to Washington, I began to have the same misgivings about Chambers I had had when he first told us his fantastic story. Now, I wondered if we really might have a crazy man on our hands.
    Stripling met my plane and took me directly to the Committee office. I soon learned that Chambers was crazy—like a fox. Here is what had happened.
    Shortly after I had seen Chambers in November he had gone toBaltimore to give testimony in the pretrial deposition being taken by Hiss’s attorneys. Hiss’s chief counsel, William Marbury, a