On April 5th, 2007, New York University’s Center for the United States and the Cold War hosted an all-day conference entitled “Alger Hiss and History.” Co-sponsored by NYU’s Tamiment Library, the King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center, and the Harvard Law School, the conference took place at the university’s King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center, 53 Washington Square South. The event was free and open to the public.
Keynoting the conference at 9:30 a.m. was Victor Navasky, publisher emeritus of The Nation. Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, made the closing remarks. Topics discussed throughout the day included: “Alger Hiss: Public and Private;” “The Case as History;” “Repression, Espionage, and the Red Scare;” and “Hiss in History.”
Participants included: Kai Bird, co-author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book American Prometheus: The Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer; Amy Knight, author of How the Cold War Began; Timothy Naftali, co-author of Khrushchev’s Cold War; G. Edward White, author of Alger Hiss’s Looking-Glass Wars; Norman Dorsen, NYU Law professor and former president of the ACLU; Alger Hiss’ two sons, Tony Hiss and Timothy Hobson (who has not previously discussed the case in public); David Oshinsky, University of Texas; and Bruce Craig, University of Prince Edward Island.