- Articles
- Commonweal
- TIME – Reviews
- TIME – Articles
- TIME – Cover Stories
- TIME – Foreign News
- Life Magazine
- Harper’s: A Chain is as Strong as its Most Confused Link
- TIME – Religion
- New York Tribune
- TIME
- National Review
- Soviet Strategy in the Middle East
- The Coming Struggle for Outer Space
- The Left Understands the Left
- To Temporize Is Death
- Big Sister Is Watching You
- Springhead to Springhead
- Some Untimely Jottings
- RIP: Virginia Freedom
- A Reminder
- A Republican Looks At His Vote
- Some Westminster Notes
- Missiles, Brains and Mind
- The Hissiad: A Correction
- Foot in the Door
- Books
- Poetry
- Video
- About
- Disclaimer
- Case
- Articles on the Case
- Hiss Case Coverage: TIME 1948
- Hiss Case Coverage: TIME 1949
- Hiss Case Coverage: TIME 1950
- Hiss Case Coverage: TIME 1951
- Hiss Case Coverage: TIME 1952
- Trial by Typewriter
- I Was the Witness
- The Time News Quiz
- Another Witness
- Question of Security
- Fusilier
- Publican & Pharisee
- Recent & Readable
- Recent & Readable
- Kudos
- Letters – June 16, 1952
- Readable
- Letters – June 23, 1952
- Recent & Readable
- Recent & Readable
- Recent & Readable
- Nominee for Veep
- Recent and Readable
- Recent and Readable
- Democratic Nominee for President
- Recent & Readable
- Recent & Readable
- Fighting Quaker
- Recent & Readable
- Recent & Readable
- Recent & Readable
- Timely Saints
- Nixon on Communism
- People
- Who’s for Whom
- 1952 Bestsellers
- Letters – December 15, 1952
- Year in Books
- Man of Bretton Woods
- Hiss Case Coverage: TIME 1953
- Hiss Case Coverage: TIME 1954
- Hiss Case Coverage: TIME 1955
- Hiss Case Coverage: TIME 1956-1957
- Private
Some family members have published the following statement with regard to a possible monument or statue or other public remembrance of Whittaker Chambers:
Family says no thanks to Whittaker Chambers monument
Maryland State Senators Justin Ready (R-District 5) and Michael Hough (R-District 4) recently announced their intent to submit the name of Whittaker Chambers (our grandfather) for a proposed National Garden of American Heroes in South Dakota.
Thank you, Senators, for your high esteem for Whittaker Chambers, but we request that you withdraw his name.
Whittaker Chambers sought a simple life of farming the Pipe Creek Farm. He was a Quaker. His beliefs ran toward austerity and self-effacement. Quaker meeting houses stand unadorned, without monuments or statues. He would not have liked such fanfare.
The best way to remember our grandfather is to read his books. They are his memoir Witness (1952) and his later writings in Cold Friday (1964). Rather than a monument, he left testimony to read.
As President Ronald Reagan said, when posthumously presenting the Medal of Freedom to him in 1984, “The witness is gone; the testimony will stand.”
Joseph Chambers and David Chambers
This Opinion piece in 27 September 2020 issue of the Carroll County Times.
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!
I read “Witness” several years ago. I am rereading it now. This book has changed my life. I initially read it when sorting out the history of the Communist Party in America. I am certain there is no better analysis of that time than what I found in this book. The spiritual journey moved me and gave me extraordinary insights into my own spiritual condition. The mutually exclusive nature of Christianity and Communism laid out with such clarity and eloquence was brilliant in its simplicity. I could write and write and never begin to do justice to the gift Whitaker Chambers gave the world at such a terrible cost to himself and his family. I am deeply grateful for that gift. My life has taken on new meaning as a Christian. Thank you.