One might wonder why a biography first published ten years ago, that tells the story of a Cold War espionage case from the 1940s, is so searingly relevant today. But it is. A British edition of Sam Tanenhaus’s masterful biography of Whittaker Chambers is published next week with a new introduction that shows why the story is still so important.

Chambers was a Communist spy in the US who, realising the true nature of the Soviet Union, became a key witness in the House UnAmerican Activities Committee’s investigation into Communist infiltration. Chambers named a senior State Department official, Alger Hiss, as a member of the Communist Party. Hiss then sued Chambers for libel, forcing him to reveal evidence that Hiss had been a spy and leading to Hiss’s conviction for perjury.

The relevance of the case today lies in what happened afterwards. For decades, Hiss’s innocence became an idée fixe among left-liberals. The notion that Hiss was innocent and the victim of a witch-hunt was almost impossible to shift. Even when the Soviet intelligence archives were opened up and proved that Hiss had indeed been a spy, there were — are — still those who maintained that he was the victim, not the culprit.

The Hiss case is a classic example of the psychology that leads to people holding to an idea so firmly in their mind that, even when it is destroyed by the evidence of reality, they refuse to accept it.

Take those who argue that the threat of Islamist terrorism is somehow exaggerated. The evidence of such terror, and the real threats of the terrorists, are simply ignored as if they did not exist because they do not fit in with the worldview of “US bad, antiUS good”. The denial of the threat posed by an Iranian nuclear bomb is in a similar vein. Existing Iranian terror, and the words of President Ahmadinejad, are simply brushed aside. If the West is always the guilty party then his words and deeds do not fit.

George Santayana famously said: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” The lesson from the Hiss case is that evidence only persuades those who are willing to be persuaded by evidence.

— Tomasz Schafernaker, a BBC weatherman, has had to apologise after referring, in a broadcast, to the Western Isles as “Nowheresville”. For goodness’ sake, it is Nowheresville. Its population (22,000) is a third smaller than an average gate at Bramall Lane. It is at the far end of the country. Why should its residents be offended by a perfectly accurate description?

— I got engaged a fortnight ago. Everything my married friends told me about being engaged has proved accurate. But no one told me the most immediate impact: almost every day has involved at least one celebratory meal or drink and it is impossible not to put on weight.

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