John Chabot Smith


John Chabot Smith was an American journalist and author, best known for Alger Hiss: The True Story, an account sympathetic to Hiss.

Background

John Chabot Smith was born on September 1, 1915, in Croydon, UK. He attended the Loomis Institute. He majored in history at Princeton University. He did graduate studies at Cambridge University.

Career

Smith began his career as a journalist with the Washington Post. He joined the New York Herald Tribune as White House correspondent.
Smith covered World War II overseas for the Herald-Trib. Leon Dennen called him a "pro-Tito correspondent."
Smith covered Elizabeth Bentley.
Smith covered the Hiss Case for the Herald Trib and later wrote a book about it, and about Hiss’s life in general. Three other journalists who covered the case also published books about it: Bert Andrews of Hearst, Ralph de Toledano of Newsweek, and Alistair Cooke of the Manchester Guardian.
Hiss appeared with Smith at a press conference to promote the book, held at the Overseas Press Club.

Personal life and death

In 1940, Smith married Betty McCarthy; they had two children. She predeceased him.
Smith died age 86 on May 16, 2002, in Brooklyn, New York.

Works

Of his book on Alger Hiss, Kirkus noted: "Don't expect bombshells. The hard evidence is slow in coming and can be bewilderingly technical when it come." According to Allen Weinstein, "Smith adopted elements from a least six previous theories. The Western Journal of Speech Communications assessed the book as "thoroughly sympathetic" Hiss.

Books include