Criminal. He was an American diplomat who spent nearly four years in a federal prison, convicted on charges of perjury in a famous 1950 trial. His first trial in 1948 ended with a hung jury and he was retried in January of 1950. In hearings before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC0), he had been accused by Whittaker Chambers, a writer and former editor of "Time" magazine, of being a Communist and of providing secret documents to the Soviet Union. By the time of the trial, the statutes of limitations had expired for the crime of espionage. Chambers had been a member of the Communist Party prior to World War II and he was not the only witness against Hiss. After Hiss had filed slander suits against Chambers, Chambers produced five rolls of 35 mm film that he said came from Hiss in 1938 in support of his allegations against Hiss. These files were called "Pumpkin Papers," as Chambers had hidden them for safekeeping in a pumpkin patch. The U.S. Department of Justice followed with its own investigation and brought indictments of perjury against Hiss. The Congressional investigation of Hiss was a key factor in the national rise in popularity of United States Congressman from California, Richard M. Nixon and added fuel to the anti-Communism crusade of Senator Joseph McCarthy. Hiss was a graduate of Johns Hopkins and the Harvard Law School. After graduation from law school, Hiss was a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. With the start of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal in 1933, Hiss worked first for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and then with the U.S. Department of State. He was a member of the American delegation to the 1945 Yalta Conference. Hiss was appointed temporary secretary-general of the conference that established the United Nations in 1945. In 1946, Alger Hiss was named president of The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Hiss was sentenced five years in prison and served three years and eight months and his appeal was rejected. He was disbarred from the practice of law following his conviction, and upon his release from prison earned a living as an office products salesman. In 1957, he published "In the Court of Public Opinion," claiming evidence against him had been forged. On July 31, 1975 the five rolls of 35 mm film were eventually released by the Justice Department upon request to Hess and other researchers of his trial. One roll of film was blank, two had unclassified Naval information that were almost unreadable, and the last two had photographs of documents already produced during both trials. On August 5, 1975, Hiss was readmitted to the Massachusetts bar. In 1988 Hiss wrote an autobiography, "Recollections of a Life." Hiss himself maintained his innocence until his death in 1996, and his family still does. Numerous books have been written on the Hess trials.