Whittaker Chambers

Whittaker Chambers (born Jay Vivian Chambers; April 1, 1901 – July 9, 1961) was an American writer and intelligence agent. After early years as a Communist Party member (1925) and Soviet spy (1932–1938), he 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. Provided by Wikipedia