Startling Disclosures In U.S. Espionage Inquiry

Wanganui Chronicle, 8 December 1948, Page 5

Startling Disclosures In U.S. Espionage Inquiry

"Pumpkin Case" Likely To Reach To Highest Government Levels

NEW YORK, Dee. 6 (Rec. 7.10 pm).—The Federal Grand Jury espionage hearing—now dubbed “The Pumpkin Case”—reopened today with the jury trying to find how micro-films of secret Government documents found their way into a hollowed pumpkin at the farm of Whittaker Chambers, a confessed former Communist.

The jury interrogated Chambers and Alger Hiss who, Chambers says, was a member of the Communist underground which stole documents for delivery to Russian spies. Micro-films of documents were unearthed last week in connection with the Chambers defence against a libel suit which Hiss has filed. The Grand Juyy hearings are secret and an aura of mystery still surrounds the “pumpkin” microfilms. Speculation on their contents ranges from atomic secrets to international pacts.

Representative John Rankin, a member of the House of Representatives Un-American Activities Committee, which is also investigating the mystery of the stolen documents, stated today that a former high official had told him it was entirely probable that the “pumpkin” documents “contributed to the Pearl Harbour attack.” Rankin said the official also told him the documents “un-

doubtedly contributed to the StalinHitler Pact.” Rankin added that the official "is in a position to know. The documents shown on the microfilms were stolen from the State Department by somebody on the inside and given to an agent of Russia, and probably to agents of other foreign powers.” The New York “Herald Tribune” in a leader on the Chamber’s documents, says the disclosure that the chambers had a considerable file of top secret documents is sensational. "And this is from day to day being embroidered by so many fresh sensations and allegations and personal and political imputations that there is a grave danger the public will overlook the really seriouus aspects of this disclosure,” says the article. "In all the alarm over Soviet espionage this is the. first clear concrete evidence to indicate that the Soviet Union was able to gain access to really important secret material.” The “Tribune" adds: “Even the Canadian espionage investigation never proved so dangerous and treasonable an invasion of highest levels of Governmental confidence."