Six Crises Read Online Free PDF

press present. Stripling was directed to subpoena Chambers to a hearing in New York two days later, on August 7.
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    When I arrived back in my office that afternoon, I had a natural sense of achievement over my success in preventing the Committee from dropping the case prematurely. But as I thought of the problems ahead of me I realized for the first time that I was up against a crisis which transcended any I had been through before.
    I had put myself, a freshman Congressman, in the position of defending the reputation of the Un-American Activities Committee. And in so doing, I was opposing the President of the United States and the majority of press corps opinion, which is so important to the career of anyone in elective office. Also, my stand, which was based on my own opinion and judgment, placed me more or less in the corner of a former Communist functionary and against one of the brightest, most respected young men following a public career. Yet I could not go against my own conscience and my conscience told me that, in this case, the rather unsavory-looking Chambers was telling the truth, and the honest-looking Hiss was lying.
    Life for everyone is a series of crises. A doctor performing a critically difficult operation involving life and death, a lawyer trying an important case, an athlete playing in a championship contest, a salesman competing for a big order, a worker applying for a job or a promotion, an actor on the first night of a new play, an author writing a book—all these situations involve crises for the individuals concerned. Crisis, by its nature, is usually primarily personal. Whether an individual fails or succeeds in meeting and handling a crisis usually affects only his own future and possibly that of his family and his immediate circle of friends and associates.
    Up to this time in my own life, I had been through various crises which had seemed critical at the time. In college, each examination was a minor crisis; I had to get high enough grades to qualify for a scholarship if I were to be able to go on to law school. Passing the California Bar Examinations in which for three days, seven hours a day, of written tests I was in effect putting on the line everything I had learned in four years of college and three years of law school—this had been the most difficult experience of my prepolitical career. My first day in court and my first jury trial seemed to me crucial experiences at the time. But these crises had been primarily personal as far as their outcome was concerned.
    Only when I ran for Congress in 1946 did the meaning of crisis take on sharply expanded dimensions. The outcome of the election would naturally have a profound effect on me. If I failed, my family and close friends would share my disappointment. But, in addition, I realized in that campaign that I must not only do the best I could because of my personal stake in the outcome but also that I must call up an even greater effort to meet the responsibility of representing the institution which had nominated me for office, the Republican Party, as well as fulfilling the hopes of literally thousands of people I would never meet, Republicans and Democrats, who were working for my election and would vote for me.
    But on that evening of August 5, as I reviewed Hiss’s testimony, I realized that this case presented a crisis infinitely greater and more complex than anything I had faced running for Congress in 1946.
    The most immediate consequence of whatever action I took would be its effect on the lives of two individuals, Hiss and Chambers. One of them was lying and therefore guilty of perjury. But on the other hand, one of them was an innocent man who would, in my opinion,never be proved innocent unless someone on the Committee diligently pursued the search for the truth.
    Beyond the fate of these two individuals, I recognized that the future of the Committee on Un-American Activities was at