Friendship and Fratricide

Friendship and Fratricide, an Analysis of Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss
Title page for Friendship and Fratricide, an Analysis of Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss (1967)
AuthorMeyer A. Zeligs
LanguageEnglish
PublisherViking
Publication date
1967
Pages476

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]

Background

Zeligs 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

Friendship 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

  1. ^ Schapiro, Meyer (23 February 1967). "Dangerous Acquaintances". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved 19 March 2019.
  2. ^ Dilliard, Irving (1967). "The Strange Case of the Erstwhile Friends". The Virginia Quarterly Review. 43 (4): 664–672. JSTOR 26443026.
  3. ^ Bob Ewegen (31 August 2007). "Shame on outers, not on the outed". Denverpost.com. Retrieved 19 March 2019.
  4. ^ Goodman, Walter. "Friendship and Fratricide: An Analysis of Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss, by Meyer A. Zeligs". Retrieved 19 March 2019.
  5. ^ a b c "Dr. Meyer Zeligs, Psychoanalyst, Wrote Book Defending Alger Hiss". Nytimes.com. 22 March 1978. Retrieved 19 March 2019.
  6. ^ Liebling, A. J. (23 March 1963). "Comment". Newyorker.com. Retrieved 19 March 2019.
  7. ^ "The Alger Hiss Case — Central Intelligence Agency". Cia.gov. Archived from the original on 20 May 2019. Retrieved 19 March 2019.
  8. ^ Sherrill, Robert (25 April 1976). "Alger Hiss". Nytimes.com. Retrieved 19 March 2019.
  9. ^ 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.
  10. ^ Roazen, Paul (1987). "Psychoanalytic Biography". Contemporary Psychoanalysis. 23 (4): 577–592. doi:10.1080/00107530.1987.10746205.
  11. ^ Story, R. (1 April 1968). "The psychobiography Trap". PsycCRITIQUES. 13 (4). doi:10.1037/0010137.
  12. ^ "The Ongoing Campaign of Alger Hiss: The Sins of the Father". Intercollegiate Studies Institute: Educating for Liberty. 8 October 2014. Retrieved 19 March 2019.
  13. ^ 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.
  14. ^ Bychowski, Gustav (1969). "The Potential of Psychoanalytic Biography: Zeligs on Chambers and Hiss". American Imago. 26 (3): 233–241. JSTOR 26302596. PMID 4907588.
  15. ^ "The Strange Case Grows Stranger". www.thecrimson.com. The Harvard Crimson. Retrieved 19 March 2019.
  16. ^ "Books: Slander of a Dead Man". Time. 10 February 1967. Retrieved 19 March 2019.