Somehow, the Hiss case never goes away. The basic question—whether Alger Hiss was a spy for the Soviet Union during the 1930s and 1940s—was finally settled during the 1990s, as Cold War archives opened and documents proving his guilt became available. But other issues remained uncertain. Unlike many other Soviet spies who confessed their guilt, Hiss went to his grave in 1996 claiming to be innocent; he left no record of why he had committed espionage or why he denied it publicly for almost 50 years. Now, in Alger Hiss’s Looking-Glass Wars, G. Edward White, a law professor at the University of Virginia and son-in-law of one of Hiss’s lawyers, provides a convincing analysis of Hiss’s reasons.

Born in 1904, Alger Hiss graduated from Johns Hopkins...