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 in 1938. He then worked for Time magazine (1939–1948) before his testimony about the Ware Group and the participation of Alger Hiss saw Chambers sued for libel in 1948 (which led to charges of perjury for Hiss) in a case 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). U.S. President Ronald Reagan awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously in 1984.
