environment. The sum total of all surroundings of a living organism, including natural forces and other living things, which provide conditions for development and growth as well as of danger and damage.
Under subpoena in 1948, he testified in what became Alger Hiss's perjury (espionage) trials (1949â1950) and he became an outspoken anti-communist (all described in his 1952 memoir Witness). Afterwards, he worked briefly as a senior editor at National Review (1957â1959). President Ronald Reagan awarded him the Medal of Freedom posthumously in 1984.
The trials were the public aspect of the widespread purge that sent millions of alleged âenemies of the peopleâ to prison camps in the 1930s. The first trial opened in August 1936, while Genrikh G. Yagoda was head of the secret police.