Whittaker Chambers

Whittaker Chambers 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.

1 April 1901

Born on the same birth day (1 April): Asa Butterfield • Bengt Holbek • Bob Van Osdel • Clementine Churchill • Daniel Murphy (baseball) • Grace Lee Whitney • Hillary Scott • James Fisk (financier) • Kevin Duckworth • Mark Shulman (author) • Sergio Scariolo • Stanislaus Zbyszko

Born in the same month (April 1901): Ajoy Mukherjee • Al Lewis (lyricist) • Alan Watt (diplomat) • Chester B. Bowles • Curt Bois • Dhananjay Ramchandra Gadgil • E. B. Ford • H. B. Stallard • Jean Bruchési • Joe Davis • Lowell Stockman • László Németh • Paul Willis (actor) • Pier Giorgio Frassati • René Pleven • Simon Kuznets