Video: 'Alger Hiss case 1948-1950' (Jan. 21, 1950, at 2:39)

(Saturday, January 21, 1950, 2:50 p.m. EST; during the Second Red Scare and the Cold War) — Former U.S. State Department official and accused communist spy Alger Hiss was found guilty today on two counts of perjury by a federal jury in New York, based primarily on the testimony of former communist and Time magazine editor Whittaker Chambers.

Hiss was sentenced Jan. 25, 1950, to two concurrent five-year sentences, of which he eventually served three and a half years.

Arguments about the case and the validity of the verdict took center stage in broader debates about the Cold War, McCarthyism and the extent of Soviet espionage in the United States.