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Witness (autobiography)
''Witness'', first published in May 1952, is a best-selling book of memoirs by American writer Whittaker Chambers (1901-1961), which recounts his life as a dedicated Marxist-communist ideologist in the 1920s, his work in the Soviet underground during the 1930s, and his 1948 testimony before the US Congress, which led to a criminal indictment against Alger Hiss and two trials in 1949. Background What became the "Hiss Case" started on August 3, 1948, when Whittaker Chambers appeared under subpoena before the US House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and testified about his work in the Soviet underground, including service in the mid-1930s as courier between Soviet handlers in New York and members of the Ware group, a network of US federal officials whose primary purpose was to infiltrate government but also to obtain intelligence. On December 15, 1948, US Department of Justice indicted Alger Hiss on two counts of perjury as part of a related grand jury investigation. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Whittaker Chambers
Whittaker Chambers (born Jay Vivian Chambers; April 1, 1901 – July 9, 1961) was an American writer-editor, who, after early years as a Communist Party member (1925) and Soviet spy (1932–1938), defected from the Soviet underground (1938), worked for ''Time'' magazine (1939–1948), and then testified about the Ware Group in what became the Hiss case for perjury (1949–1950), often referred to as the trial of the century, all described in his 1952 memoir ''Witness''. Afterwards, he worked as a senior editor at ''National Review'' (1957–1959). US President Ronald Reagan awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously in 1984. Background Chambers was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and spent his infancy in Brooklyn. His family moved to Lynbrook, Long Island, New York State, in 1904, where he grew up and attended school. His parents were Jay Chambers and Laha Whittaker. He described his childhood as troubled because of his parents' separation and their ne ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Department Of Justice
A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a very few countries) or a secretary of justice. In some countries, the head of the department may be called the attorney general, for example in the United States. Monaco is an example of a country that does not have a ministry of justice, but rather a Directorate of Judicial Services (head: Secretary of Justice) that oversees the administration of justice. Vatican City, a country under the sovereignty of the Holy See, also does not possess a ministry of justice. Instead, the Governorate of Vatican City State (head: President of the Governorate of Vatican City State), the legislative body of the Vatican, includes a legal office. Depending on the country, specific duties may relate to organizing the justice system, overseeing the public pros ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Workers Party Of America
The Workers Party of America (WPA) was the name of the legal party organization used by the Communist Party USA from the last days of 1921 until the middle of 1929. Background As a legal political party, the Workers Party accepted affiliation from independent socialist groups such as the African Blood Brotherhood, the Jewish Socialist Federation and the Workers' Council of the United States. In the meantime, the underground Communist Party, with overlapping membership, conducted political agitation. By 1923, the aboveground party sought to engage the Socialist Party of America (SPA) in united front actions, but it was rebuffed. Both the WPA and the SPA engaged in separate labor party efforts, prior to the presidential election of 1924. The SPA participated in the Conference for Progressive Political Action, which dissolved itself into the Progressive Party. The WPA succeeded in dominating the national Farmer–Labor Party, but that organization quickly returned to its cons ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
In Media Res
A narrative work beginning ''in medias res'' (, "into the middle of things") opens in the midst of the plot (cf. ''ab ovo'', ''ab initio''). Often, exposition is bypassed and filled in gradually, through dialogue, flashbacks or description of past events. For example, ''Hamlet'' begins after the death of Hamlet's father. Characters make reference to King Hamlet's death without the plot's first establishment of said fact. Since the play is about Hamlet and the revenge more so than the motivation, Shakespeare uses ''in medias res'' to bypass superfluous exposition. Works that employ ''in medias res'' often later use flashback and nonlinear narrative for exposition to fill in the backstory. In Homer's ''Odyssey'', the reader first learns about Odysseus's journey when he is held captive on Calypso's island. The reader then finds out, in Books IX through XII, that the greater part of Odysseus's journey precedes that moment in the narrative. In Homer's ''Iliad'' there are fewer flash ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhattan, Columbia is the oldest institution of higher education in New York and the fifth-oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. It is one of nine colonial colleges founded prior to the Declaration of Independence. It is a member of the Ivy League. Columbia is ranked among the top universities in the world. Columbia was established by royal charter under George II of Great Britain. It was renamed Columbia College in 1784 following the American Revolution, and in 1787 was placed under a private board of trustees headed by former students Alexander Hamilton and John Jay. In 1896, the campus was moved to its current location in Morningside Heights and renamed Columbia University. Columbia scientists and scholars have ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bennett Cerf
Bennett Alfred Cerf (May 25, 1898 – August 27, 1971) was an American writer, publisher, and co-founder of the American publishing firm Random House. Cerf was also known for his own compilations of jokes and puns, for regular personal appearances lecturing across the United States, and for his weekly television appearances for over 17 years on the panel game show ''What's My Line?'' Biography Cerf was born on May 25, 1898, in Manhattan, New York, to a Jewish family of Alsatian and German origin. Cerf's father Gustave Cerf was a lithographer; his mother, Frederika Wise, was heiress to a tobacco-distribution fortune. She died when Bennett was 15; shortly afterward, her brother Herbert moved into the Cerf household and became a strong literary and social influence on the teenager. Cerf graduated from Townsend Harris High School in 1916, the same public school as publisher Richard Simon, author Herman Wouk, and playwright Howard Dietz. He spent his teenage years at 790 Riverside ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brandt & Hochman
Brandt may refer to: Places United States * Brandt, Ohio, an unincorporated community * Brandt, South Dakota, a town * Brandt Township, Polk County, Minnesota Elsewhere * Mount Brandt, Queen Maud Land, Antarctica * Brandt Cove, South Georgia Island, Atlantic Ocean * 3503 Brandt, an asteroid Other uses * Brandt (name) * Brandt (company), a German rusk and chocolate manufacturer * Brandt (brand), a French brandname producing various home equipment * Brandt House (other), several houses on the US National Register of Historic Places * Brandt Centre, an arena in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada See also * * * Brand (other) * Brant (other) * Ernie Brandts (born 1956), Dutch former footballer * Brandts Museum of Photographic Art The Danish Museum of Photographic Art (Danish: Museet for Fotokunst) is in Odense, Denmark. It is the only national Danish art museum dedicated specifically to photographic art. It was founded in 1987 as part of the Brandts Intern ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Agee
James Rufus Agee ( ; November 27, 1909 – May 16, 1955) was an American novelist, journalist, poet, screenwriter and film critic. In the 1940s, writing for ''Time Magazine'', he was one of the most influential film critics in the United States. His autobiographical novel, ''A Death in the Family'' (1957), won the author a posthumous 1958 Pulitzer Prize. Agee is also known as a co-writer of the book ''Let Us Now Praise Famous Men'' and as the screenwriter of the film classics ''The African Queen'' and '' The Night of the Hunter''. Early life and education Agee was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, to Hugh James Agee and Laura Whitman Tyler, at Highland Avenue and 15th Street, which was renamed James Agee Street, in what is now the Fort Sanders neighborhood. When Agee was six, his father was killed in an automobile accident. From the age of seven, Agee and his younger sister, Emma, were educated in several boarding schools. The most prominent of these was located near his mother's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Crossman
Richard Howard Stafford Crossman (15 December 1907 – 5 April 1974) was a British Labour Party politician. A university classics lecturer by profession, he was elected a Member of Parliament in 1945 and became a significant figure among the party's advocates of Zionism. He was a Bevanite on the left of the party, and a long-serving member of Labour's National Executive Committee (NEC) from 1952. Crossman was a Cabinet minister in Harold Wilson's governments of 1964–1970, first for Housing, then as Leader of the House of Commons, and then for Social Services. In the early 1970s Crossman was editor of the ''New Statesman''. He is remembered for his highly revealing three-volume ''Diaries of a Cabinet Minister'', published posthumously. Early life Crossman was born in Bayswater, London, the son of Charles Stafford Crossman, a barrister and later a High Court judge, and Helen Elizabeth (''née'' Howard). Helen was of the Howard family of Ilford descended from Luke Howard, a Q ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Member Of Parliament (United Kingdom)
In the United Kingdom, a member of Parliament (MP) is an individual elected to serve in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Electoral system All 650 members of the UK House of Commons are elected using the first-past-the-post voting system in single member constituencies across the whole of the United Kingdom, where each constituency has its own single representative. Elections All MP positions become simultaneously vacant for elections held on a five-year cycle, or when a snap election is called. The Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 set out that ordinary general elections are held on the first Thursday in May, every five years. The Act was repealed in 2022. With approval from Parliament, both the 2017 and 2019 general elections were held earlier than the schedule set by the Act. If a vacancy arises at another time, due to death or resignation, then a constituency vacancy may be filled by a by-election. Under the Representation of the People Act 198 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
