Whittaker Chambers

A historic Carroll County farm that belonged to former Communist Whittaker Chambers -- who figured in one of the most sensational spy cases of the McCarthy era -- received preliminary approval for agricultural preservation yesterday.The 202-acre farm, owned by Chambers' son, John Chambers, was among nine properties -- totaling more than 1,000 acres -- that the county planning commission recommended be included in the agricultural preservation district.The Chambers farm drew national attention in 1948, when Chambers produced microfilm from a hollowed-out pumpkin that purportedly tied former State Department official Alger Hiss to Soviet agents.

"The other curious thing about the Hiss case is the psychology of believing that Hiss was a spy, which requires abandoning much of what we know about rational thought. " — Newspaper columnist Molly Ivins in 1996 I knew that my Alger Hiss column from a few weeks back would elicit plenty of mail, and I wasn't disappointed. The power of the Hiss story continues to arouse strong emotions even after the passage of more than 60 years. Some who contacted me by phone or email accused me of propagating the idea that Hiss' guilt was still in doubt.

The historic Carroll County farm whose pumpkin patch was at the heart of one of the McCarthy era's most famous spy cases is among nine farms the county will submit to the state as agricultural preservation districts.After a public hearing yesterday, the county commissioners voted to recommend that the state designate the farms, totaling more than 1,000 acres, as preservation districts.This step requires the owners to commit to no development of the land for a minimum of five years.It makes them eligible to sell development rights to the state through an easement, but does not require them to sell the easement.

I was finishing a new book about the same time my backyard got planted for summer. The deadline I faced for Sunday's Charles Village Festival garden walk worked wonders to motivate me. Reservoir Hill is also holding its garden tour this weekend. Both tours offer ways to snoop around and not be chased away, and both neighborhoods have a rich history of international intrigue. My reading mentioned one of the 20th-century's biggest spymasters, Allen Dulles, who operated a station in Bern, Switzerland, during World War II and was married to a Baltimorean, Clover Todd.

A historic Carroll County farm that belonged to former Communist Whittaker Chambers -- a player in one of the most sensational spy cases of the McCarthy era -- received preliminary approval for agricultural preservation yesterday.The 202-acre farm now owned by Chambers' son, John Chambers, was among nine properties -- totaling more than 1,000 acres -- the county planning commission recommended be included in the agricultural preservation district.The Chambers' farm drew national attention in 1948, when Chambers dramatically produced microfilm from a hollowed-out pumpkin that purportedly tied former State Department official Alger Hiss to Soviet agents.

The name was always lurking around the edges of memory, perhaps because it was just odd enough. Long after you forgot why you remembered it in the first place, there would still be this faint murmur from the Cold War, a double-exposure ghost in a black-and-white photograph: Whittaker Chambers. Whittaker Chambers? Weren't pumpkins involved?And another strange name: Alger Hiss. Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss and Richard M. Nixon and Joseph R. McCarthy and maybe J. Edgar Hoover standing in the mind's eye in a faded Cold War snapshot, waving from the Iron Curtain like those old Soviets in bulky coats on Lenin's tomb.

Baltimoreans have long debated the guilt and innocence of Alger Hiss and Whittaker Chambers. As recently as last fall, as I sat at an informal Sunday evening supper party in Guilford, the guests divided into two vocal camps, those who were pro-Hiss and those who backed Chambers. No one's opinion budged a fraction by the end of that evening.To this day, the question simmers whether Alger Hiss, the Baltimore-born favorite son, graduate of City College and Johns Hopkins, willingly handed over classified documents to the Soviets in the 1930s.

Fifty years ago, microfilm squirreled away in a hollowed-out pumpkin at Pipe Creek Farm in northern Carroll County played a pivotal role in one of the most celebrated espionage cases of the Red Scare.No pumpkins grow there anymore.Like air raid drills, fallout shelters and Khrushchev's shoe, this 390-acre Cold War shrine is a fading memory.But another legacy of this tract of steep pastures and breathtaking views persists -- that of the farm itself and the role it played in the life of a frumpy ex-Communist named Whittaker Chambers after the turbulent years of the espionage case.

25 years ago: The Board of Education of Carroll County met in special session on June 26 at Eldersburg Elementary School. The discussion mainly had to do with the construction of the southeast area high school. -- the Community Reporter, July 5, 1974. 50 years ago: Whittaker Chambers, ex-Communist accuser of Alger Hiss, now on trial for perjury in New York, denied reports he is planning to sell his Westminster farm. Chambers, reached at the farm by telephone, said: "You can make it very emphatic.

IT MAY BE 25 years old now, but it could have been uttered last week:"If the Republican Party cannot get some grip on the actual world we live in and actively promote a program that means something to masses of people -- why, somebody else will. There will be nothing to argue. The voters will simply vote Republicans into singularity. The Republican Party will become like one of those dark shops which apparently never sell anything. If, for any reason, you go in, you find at the back an old man, fingering for his own pleasure some oddments of cloth.

25 years ago: The Board of Education of Carroll County met in special session on June 26 at Eldersburg Elementary School. The discussion mainly had to do with the construction of the southeast area high school. -- the Community Reporter, July 5, 1974. 50 years ago: Whittaker Chambers, ex-Communist accuser of Alger Hiss, now on trial for perjury in New York, denied reports he is planning to sell his Westminster farm. Chambers, reached at the farm by telephone, said: "You can make it very emphatic.

NOW that The Sun's editorial page has embarked on its "Marylanders of the Century" series, debate will commence over the choices. What constitutes the kind of contribution that entitles one to make the final cut? Here's one compilation of Marylanders from the political arena who, for a variety of reasons, won't be on The Sun's list. Some were flawed figures; others had a substantial negative impact. In a few cases, time has obscured their contributions. Spiro Agnew and Marvin Mandel.

The historic Carroll County farm whose pumpkin patch was at the heart of one of the McCarthy era's most famous spy cases is among nine farms the county will submit to the state as agricultural preservation districts.After a public hearing yesterday, the county commissioners voted to recommend that the state designate the farms, totaling more than 1,000 acres, as preservation districts.This step requires the owners to commit to no development of the land for a minimum of five years.It makes them eligible to sell development rights to the state through an easement, but does not require them to sell the easement.

A historic Carroll County farm that belonged to former Communist Whittaker Chambers -- a player in one of the most sensational spy cases of the McCarthy era -- received preliminary approval for agricultural preservation yesterday.The 202-acre farm now owned by Chambers' son, John Chambers, was among nine properties -- totaling more than 1,000 acres -- the county planning commission recommended be included in the agricultural preservation district.The Chambers' farm drew national attention in 1948, when Chambers dramatically produced microfilm from a hollowed-out pumpkin that purportedly tied former State Department official Alger Hiss to Soviet agents.

A historic Carroll County farm that belonged to former Communist Whittaker Chambers -- a player in one of the most sensational spy cases of the McCarthy era -- received preliminary approval for agricultural preservation yesterday.The 202-acre farm now owned by Chambers' son, John Chambers, was among nine properties -- totaling more than 1,000 acres -- the county planning commission recommended be included in the agricultural preservation district.The Chambers' farm drew national attention in 1948, when Chambers dramatically produced microfilm from a hollowed-out pumpkin that purportedly tied former State Department official Alger Hiss to Soviet agents.

A historic Carroll County farm that belonged to former Communist Whittaker Chambers -- who figured in one of the most sensational spy cases of the McCarthy era -- received preliminary approval for agricultural preservation yesterday.The 202-acre farm, owned by Chambers' son, John Chambers, was among nine properties -- totaling more than 1,000 acres -- that the county planning commission recommended be included in the agricultural preservation district.The Chambers farm drew national attention in 1948, when Chambers produced microfilm from a hollowed-out pumpkin that purportedly tied former State Department official Alger Hiss to Soviet agents.

"WHITTAKER CHAMBERS used to hang out in the cellar of my old family home with a rifle by his side.''''You don't say,'' responded my buddy Bill. His failure to get excited nipped in the bud my plot to one-up his Spooky True Story of a Baltimore Basement, the one that knocked my socks off this past Halloween.''Whittaker Chambers,'' I backtracked, ''was the man who blew the whistle on Alger Hiss. You know, the Baltimore-gentry spy who died last month.'' Chambers' notorious book ''Witness'' detailed how the author hid to write his Red propaganda in the coal-cellar under a pre-Civil War house at 2610 St. Paul Street.

A secret Soviet message released yesterday strengthens the case that Alger Hiss, whose loyalty has been fiercely debated for five decades, was a spy while serving as a top State Department official.The 1945 KGB telegram identifies a high-level State Department official who accompanied President Franklin D. Roosevelt to the Yalta Conference as an agent code-named "Ales."A federal government footnote to the telegram, made public by the National Security Agency, identifies "Ales" as "probably Alger Hiss."

25 years ago:Boasting a 41-percent increase in sales in 1973, Ben Grubbs has gotten an increase in his gasoline allocation over the amount initially set aside for him based on 1972 sales at Eldersburg, before Mr. Grubbs took over as manager. Part of that increase arrived Wednesday morning. Word spread quickly that the station was pumping from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. When Mr. Grubbs closed the pumps at 1 p.m., 12,000 gallons of gas were gone and the "regular" tank was dry. That's the most Mr. Grubbs has ever sold in a day. Sundays, he used to sell 8,000 gallons.

Fifty years ago, microfilm squirreled away in a hollowed-out pumpkin at Pipe Creek Farm in northern Carroll County played a pivotal role in one of the most celebrated espionage cases of the Red Scare.No pumpkins grow there anymore.Like air raid drills, fallout shelters and Khrushchev's shoe, this 390-acre Cold War shrine is a fading memory.But another legacy of this tract of steep pastures and breathtaking views persists -- that of the farm itself and the role it played in the life of a frumpy ex-Communist named Whittaker Chambers after the turbulent years of the espionage case.