Hiss-Chambers Chapter 32: The Surprise Witness

Edith Murray   This is a short podcast, describing a last-minute rebuttal witness for The Prosecution.  Into court came a black woman named Edith Murray.  Alistair Cooke (at 299) found her “lively.”  She testified that, at times in 1935 and 1936, she had been the household servant (cleaning and cooking) for Whittaker and Esther Chambers.  She knew them as the Cantwells and was told that Mr. Cantwell was home so seldom because he was a traveling salesman.  The Cantwells, Mrs. Murray testified, had no social life except for one young white married couple from Washington whose female half she knew as “Miss Priscilla.”  Guess who Mrs. Murray pointed at when she was asked if the young couple was in the courtroom.  Some problems with her came out on cross-examination.  But her testimony, if believed, showed the kind of close relationship between the families that the Chamberses alleged and the Hisses denied.  Most damaging to Hiss, Mrs. Murray remembered Miss Priscilla staying overnight in the Chamberses’ apartment (in a seedy part of Baltimore) taking care of their baby when both Whittaker and Esther Chambers had to be elsewhere.  How many people would you do that for?  Also, this overnighter occurred in 1936, long after the Hisses swore they had got the deadbeat Chamberses/Crosleys out of their lives.  Thus, the major testimonies at the second trial end on a bad note for Hiss.