Hen's House Book Reviews - Witness by Whittaker Chambers
- Dusty Santos
- Apr 22
- 10 min read
Updated: May 13
Preface
I didn't read much as a teen. Harry Potter of course and a Holocaust survivor book my teacher assigned, but not much else. As an adult I'm more interested in doing my own research and reading what everyone else has read.
So I read 1984. Maybe I'll do a review on that one, but what can I say that so many others haven't. That book lead me down a rabbit hole until I researched books on communism.
I wanted to learn more. Why is it so popular? How do communist work and why can't we fully defeat them? How did they infiltrate every country? 'Witness' by Whittaker Chambers was highly recommended.
If you're here for my usual creative process, or my family adventures, that's all good. I don't expect everyone to be into my political side. I will say, this book does have a wonderful chapter on farm life that I think you will enjoy.
Witness is a huge book. 799 pages to be exact. So a Audibled it. That being said I did rent a book from the library to follow along. Along the way I took notes, this review will rely heavily on those notes.
I'm also, not a writer or a reviewer by trade. I'm just a mother of 4, wood worker, just jotting down my thoughts. Enjoy...
Review:
Ease of Reading:
I was born in the 80's and my speech has been adjusted to the newspeak of my time. Witness is written by an accomplished poet and writer for the New York Times in the 30's. It took a bit of adjusting to the nuances of a more eloquent way of speaking.
Chambers rolls off onto poetic thoughts on life. I think he prides himself on being able to do so. Showing off how accomplished he is in his writing career.
On Communism as a Spiritual Crisis
“It [Communism] is not new. It is, in fact, man's second oldest faith. Its promise was whispered in the first days of the Creation under the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil: 'Ye shall be as gods.' It is the great alternative faith of mankind... The Communist vision is the vision of Man without God.”
On Faith and Freedom
“Freedom is a need of the soul, and nothing else. It is in striving toward God that the soul strives continually after a condition of freedom... Without freedom the soul dies. Without the soul there is no justification for freedom.”
The inner workings of communism
The reason I started this book. I wanted to know more about communist and I learned a lot.
They target collage students. My theory is because they are young, and already have a want to learn. Swaying someone like that, someone who hasn't gotten into debt yet and hasn't entered the working class yet, must be the easiest targets.
The length Chambers went to when meeting another spy was careful to an extreme since, in hindsight, I'm not sure anyone was paying attention. The Hiss case came as such a shock, it seems nobody realized how big the communist party really was.
Chambers needed to give himself and his meeting partner plausible deniability. Every little thing was on a need to know bases. Nobody asked you your real name or where things were being sent. They didn't want to know because nobody wanted to be questioned about anything.
Asking about certain things would be immediate expulsion, and not just from the party but from this existence. Communist can't have a rat running around.
One method of handing off documents was called "Dead Drops". Where you place something in a hidden location like a tree hole, or under a mail box, then the other party would come later and get it. The parties never having to see each other. This insured nobody could eye witness anyone. One famous drop was inside a pumpkin.
Chambers would take hours to meet someone. Walking the wrong way, in circles, in and out of train stations with out actually leaving on a train. All to throw off any FBI. Although, thinking on this now, wouldn't that cause the FBI to look closer at you? That's not normal behavior.
Safe Houses, rented under false names, used for meetings and passing of documents. All meetings, in a safe house or on the street, were planed within very few minutes. If anyone was late, it was aborted. No waiting around. The longer you were in the public, the more exposure you had.
Documents were big and hard to hide. So they were photographed. Images on micro-film were easier to hide and transport. Some were even sewn into clothing.
All these methods showed me how carful the communist ring was. They are ruthless and killing in the name of the cause is fully justified, even encouraged. Nothing will stop them.
What could they do with todays technology? Hack voting machines? Use AI to 'memory hole' information? Use AI to create new information? All this has been and will be used.
Amazon:
In this penetrating philosophical memoir, Chambers recounts the famous case as well as his own experiences as a Communist agent in the United States, his later renunciation of communism, and his conversion to Christianity. Chambers' worldview - "man without mysticism is a monster" - helped to make political conservatism a national force.
Get Yours Here:
The Farm Life
"I had thought of moving them (his family) to Washington. But that city was crowded (the New Deal was in full swing) and rents were high."
Chambers, after defecting from communism moves to a farm. The way he talks about his kids joy and his wife's bravery makes this my favorite part of the book.
Whittaker Chambers carrying hay
“We bought this farm in my second year at TIME (1940). We knew something of the hardships we must expect. Soon we knew more of them. But we had decided that our children must grow up close to the soil, familiar with labor, embedded in the nation by attending its public schools and taking spontaneous part in its routine work and play.”
He didn't want his kids surrounded by the news and noisiness of the city. It's like us, wanting to raise our kids without phones.
“I thought: ‘Surely, this is a moment in a man’s life, when he can stand in his fields and see such a son, to whom he has given life, and a tranquil, orderly way of living, wave his gratitude for that life and for that way of living it.’”
His wife he especially respects, she went into this life of breaking from the party knowing full well it would be hard. She didn't complain, she worked.
“My wife was helping a cow give birth to a calf. She had never done such a thing before, but she did it with the calm competence that had become second nature to her in the hard years.”
I love how he saw her. He saw her as strong, just like I want to be.
The story
Whittaker Chambers catalogs his entire life up until the famous trial. I try my best to summarize the story here. I implore you to read, or like I did, listen to the book. I've very briefly summarized what I remember but even this isn't substitute for the real thing.
His child life was quite a struggle. Father, Jay Chambers, prided himself as being intellectual and cultured but didn't care much for the family. He was distant and emotionally abusive. He cheated and abandoned the family, struggling with narcissism and some form of mental illness. The lack of emotional support left a huge impact on Chambers.
Whittaker's mom, Laha Chambers, struggled to keep the family together. Even though the her husband abandoned the family, she took him back because, a bad father is better than no father. She was a sensitive soul and gets overwhelmed by the economic struggles and detached father.
He had one sibling, a brother. Richard Chambers struggled with mental illness like his father. Richard's view of the world and eventual suicide at age 21, lead Whittaker down his dark path of Communism. The world was bad and Whittaker wanted to fix it.
Whittaker is recruited at college. Seems to be a tactic that hasn't changed even today. In Chamber's time, the communist operated in secret, now they operate as full blown teachers. He leaves college early, without graduating.
"I went to my campus friends who had so long and patiently worked to convert me to communism and said that at last I was ready."
Chambers left college to find a labor job. Hard to come by for a greenhorn. When he was turned down the locals helped him in a way I won't spoil here. Ended up working on the new subway rails and living in an apartment complex, barely able to afford bread.
Subway Construction Photos - Chambers not shown
He became a communist (small c) in the 1920s by joining CPUSA. Joining because he thought it was the answer to all of societies problems, the struggles, and the depression everyone in his life was living through.
He started a job writing for The Daily Worker, a communist propaganda news paper. Everyone loved his writing. He even wrote short stories like "Can You Make Out There Voices" (1931). Unfortunately, most of his poems and writing of that time have been lost.
Then, in 1932, his was recruited as a Communist (Large C), the Soviet Underground. This was a completely different group tied directly to Russia. To protect his soviet spy role, he cut ties with his past job, at CPUSA. He then got a job writing for The New York Times.
His jobs included, handling and delivering key messages, film, and other items. Managing a network of spies imbedded in the government. Meeting with them, taking and giving messages and documents.
Of course the most famous of those spies was Alger Hiss, a very highly respected member of the State Department and even a U.N. Planner.
Whittaker photographed and delivered stolen government documents, acting as a middleman between Soviet intelligence and it's American assets.
Then, in 1928 Whittaker defected from the Communist party. He worried his children would grow up in that horrible ideology. He left even though he knew defecting meant a target was on his head. He watched over his shoulder constantly for assassins.
Amazon:
In this penetrating philosophical memoir, Chambers recounts the famous case as well as his own experiences as a Communist agent in the United States, his later renunciation of communism, and his conversion to Christianity. Chambers' worldview - "man without mysticism is a monster" - helped to make political conservatism a national force.
Get Yours Here:
He described an encounter with the daughter of a former German diplomat in Moscow, who struggled to understand her father's sudden disillusionment with the Soviet regime:
“He was immensely pro-Soviet,” she said, “and then—you will laugh at me—but you must not laugh at my father—and then—one night—in Moscow—he heard screams. That’s all. Simply one night he heard screams.”
Chambers himself on why he defected from communism:
“But one day the Communist really hears those screams... They pierce to his soul. He says to himself: ‘Those are not the screams of man in agony. Those are the screams of a soul in agony.’”
He shifted his thoughts from, this is a necessary evil because it's for the greater good, to, this is just evil.
He moved his family to the farm.
After years of silence, Chambers came forward in 1948 and testified before the House of Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Alger Hiss denied everything in such an eloquent and thoughtful manor it took a very long time to get to the bottom of the truth.
Back and forth the questioning went, Chambers, then Hiss. Here is ChatGPT laying it out:
⚖️ First Trial
Start: May 31, 1949
End: July 7, 1949
Outcome: Hung jury (could not reach a unanimous verdict)
⚖️ Second Trial
Start: November 17, 1949
End: January 21, 1950
Outcome: Guilty verdict on two counts of perjury
Hiss was accused of lying under oath about passing classified documents to Chambers during the 1930s.
A break in the trial came in the form of the "Pumpkin Papers" (actually a micro-film hidden in a pumpkin). Alger was found guilty of lying under oath.
In 1952 Whittaker Chambers wrote "Witness". The book is hailed as one of the greatest reads into the workings of communism. Which is why it was recommended to me.
In Conclusion
The book was long but worth every word. I mostly listened through my phone while picking my daughter up from after school activities.
Struggles he went through showed me how easy kids have it today. Most of todays kids wouldn't know how to survive. He went through two world wars, depression, hard labor and starvation. Our kids have a breakdown if they can't see a screen for two seconds.
It's hard to admit when your wrong, in Whittaker's case, it meant he might die. He fought for what he thought was right.
There is so much is in this book I couldn't include it all. His writings are profound and I am forever changed by them.
I now know that you can't weed out communism by being nice. It's war and we have to fight. Others fight with evidence, and laws. I fight with the pen, (or a keyboard in this case). Simply putting these thoughts down, perhaps someone else will read his book, and I will have won.
Thank You
Thank you for reading my review of 'Witness' by Whittaker Chambers. I hope it has inspired you to read it to! The link below is an Affiliate link for Amazon so I get a small kick back if you buy it. Enjoy...
Amazon:
In this penetrating philosophical memoir, Chambers recounts the famous case as well as his own experiences as a Communist agent in the United States, his later renunciation of communism, and his conversion to Christianity. Chambers' worldview - "man without mysticism is a monster" - helped to make political conservatism a national force.
Get Yours Here:
This book review was done by Dusty Santos. She is an accomplished business owner. Making wooden crafts and writing in her blog. She is a mother of 4 and proud of it.
Visit her website: Home Free Hen
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