in a hung jury, the second in conviction. Hiss spent the next 44
months in federal prison. He spent the last 44 years of his life con-
testing the conviction, claiming that it was the product of perjured
testimony by Chambers and the unscrupulous ambition of then Con-
gressman Richard Nixon. Most scholars now believe that Hiss was a
Soviet agent: information from former Soviet intelligence officers, a
deciphered Venonamessage that appears to refer to Hiss, and con-
siderable physical evidence all point to his guilt. Hiss’s supporters be-
lieve that the evidence was doctored and that the trial was unfair.HITLER’S CORPSE.Adolf Hitler committed suicide with his bride
Eva Braun on 29 April 1945. Their bodies were burned and then
buried in ruble. On hearing news of Hitler’s death, Soviet leader
Joseph Stalindemanded that Smershfind out if Hitler was dead,
and if he was dead to produce his corpse. On 5 May, Lieutenant
Colonel Ivan Klimenko, Smersh chief of the 79th Rifle Corps,
found the bodies and brought them to General Aleksandr Vadis,
chief of Smersh for the 1st Byelorussian Front. Vadis ensured strict
secrecy about the events, informing only Stalin and his direct supe-
riors of the find. An autopsy was completed to ensure Stalin that the
body was really that of Hitler.
Stalin chose not to reveal to the world that the Soviet Union had
Hitler’s body. (It was not until 1965 that the Communist Partyin-
formed Marshal Georgi Zhukovabout the fate of Hitler.) Soviet
propaganda hinted rather that Hitler was alive, and that the Western
Allies were hiding him. Stalin and his foreign policy team raised
the issue with senior Anglo-American diplomats, questioning their
sincerity in hunting senior Nazis still at large. Stalin told President
Harry Truman at the Potsdam Conference in July 1945 that he be-
lieved Hitler was alive. Details about the operation the Soviets
called Mif(Myth) were not publicized until the early 1990s, though
some of the story had leaked to the West. According to a Russian
study published after the fall of the Soviet Union, Hitler’s remains
were finally buried under a highway in East Germany. The exact lo-
cation remains in dispute.HOLLIS, ROGER (1902–1977).Hollis, who spent several years in
China as a businessperson, joined the British security service (MI5)116 •HITLER’S CORPSE06-313 G-P.qxd 7/27/06 7:56 AM Page 116