Friendship and Fratricide, an Analysis of Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss is a 1967 book by psychoanalyst Meyer A. Zeligs.[1][2][3] In his work, Zeligs argued that Whittaker Chambers was a psychopathic personality who had framed Alger Hiss.[4]
 Title page for Friendship and Fratricide, an Analysis of Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss (1967) | |
| Author | Meyer A. Zeligs |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Viking |
Publication date | 1967 |
| Pages | 476 |
Background
editZeligs was a 1928 graduate of the University of Cincinnati and a 1932 graduate of its Medical School, before serving as medical officer in the US Navy during World War II.[5][6]
On August 3, 1948, Whittaker Chambers, a former U.S. Communist Party member, testified under subpoena before the House Un-American Activities Committee that Alger Hiss, an American government official, had secretly been a Communist while in federal service.[7]
Although Chambers refused to see Zeligs, the author did correspond with Hiss.[5][8]
Reaction
editFriendship and Fratricide was widely reviewed.[9][10][11] In 1978, The New York Times reflected that the work "stirred controversy when it was published in 1967 with the conclusion that Whittaker Chambers was a psychopathic personality".[5][12]
Writing in the Archive of General Psychiatry, one contemporary reviewer described the book as "almost impossible to put down".[13] Another reviewer characterized the work as a novel genre in an article entitled "The Potential of Psychoanalytic Biography".[14] The Harvard Crimson opined that work "only further complicates the already hopelessly complicated questions surrounding Alger Hiss's alleged crime"[15] Time reviewed the book under the title "Slander of a Dead Man"[16] In the 1999 work "The Strange Case of Alger Hiss and Whittaker Chambers", the author argues that "Zeligs was addressing himself to a genuine psychological riddle in writing Friendship and Fratricide."
References
edit- ^ Schapiro, Meyer (23 February 1967). "Dangerous Acquaintances". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved 19 March 2019.
- ^ Dilliard, Irving (1967). "The Strange Case of the Erstwhile Friends". The Virginia Quarterly Review. 43 (4): 664–672. JSTOR 26443026.
- ^ Bob Ewegen (31 August 2007). "Shame on outers, not on the outed". Denverpost.com. Retrieved 19 March 2019.
- ^ Goodman, Walter. "Friendship and Fratricide: An Analysis of Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss, by Meyer A. Zeligs". Retrieved 19 March 2019.
- ^ a b c "Dr. Meyer Zeligs, Psychoanalyst, Wrote Book Defending Alger Hiss". Nytimes.com. 22 March 1978. Retrieved 19 March 2019.
- ^ Liebling, A. J. (23 March 1963). "Comment". Newyorker.com. Retrieved 19 March 2019.
- ^ "The Alger Hiss Case — Central Intelligence Agency". Cia.gov. Archived from the original on 20 May 2019. Retrieved 19 March 2019.
- ^ Sherrill, Robert (25 April 1976). "Alger Hiss". Nytimes.com. Retrieved 19 March 2019.
- ^ Meyer, B. C. (19 March 1968). "Friendship and Fratricide. An Analysis of Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss: By Meyer A. Zeligs, M. D. New York: The Viking Press, Inc. 476 pp". Psychoanal. Q. 37: 448–452. Retrieved 19 March 2019.
- ^ Roazen, Paul (1987). "Psychoanalytic Biography". Contemporary Psychoanalysis. 23 (4): 577–592. doi:10.1080/00107530.1987.10746205.
- ^ Story, R. (1 April 1968). "The psychobiography Trap". PsycCRITIQUES. 13 (4). doi:10.1037/0010137.
- ^ "The Ongoing Campaign of Alger Hiss: The Sins of the Father". Intercollegiate Studies Institute: Educating for Liberty. 8 October 2014. Retrieved 19 March 2019.
- ^ Grinker, Roy R. (1 April 1967). "Friendship and Fratricide: An Analysis of Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss". Archives of General Psychiatry. 16 (4): 512–514. doi:10.1001/archpsyc.1967.01730220124017. Retrieved 19 March 2019.
- ^ Bychowski, Gustav (1969). "The Potential of Psychoanalytic Biography: Zeligs on Chambers and Hiss". American Imago. 26 (3): 233–241. JSTOR 26302596. PMID 4907588.
- ^ "The Strange Case Grows Stranger". www.thecrimson.com. The Harvard Crimson. Retrieved 19 March 2019.
- ^ "Books: Slander of a Dead Man". Time. 10 February 1967. Retrieved 19 March 2019.