Hiss-Chambers Chapter 28: The Catlett Family

  Podcast #28 recounts the testimonies of three black Washingtonians named Catlett.  Claudia Catlett, the Hisses’ household servant, had only one memory of Chambers being in the Hiss house.  She’d likely have seen him more if he’d been coming by regularly to pick up spy documents.  Two of her sons, teenagers when the alleged spying occurred, did handyman jobs for the Hisses and received The Hiss Home Typewriter from the Hisses as part payment for helping them move within Georgetown, maybe in December 1937.  If the Catlett Kids had the Typewriter in early 1938 (the dates of The Typed Spy Documents), obviously The Typed Spy Documents were typed when the Hisses no longer had the Typewriter.  That exonerates Hiss, doesn’t it?  Unfortunately for Hiss, the three Catletts proved very weak on cross-examination, changing their stories often and in ways that hurt Hiss.  Their changes are excellent proof of the value of cross-examination.  And if the Typewriter was in the Catlett’s house when The Spy Documents were typed on it, how could Chambers have found it there and done the typing himself?  Can you picture Chambers sneaking into a black household and typing 64 pages of documents?  Wouldn’t someone notice a smelly white guy, missing half his teeth, banging away at the Typewriter for hours?