Thanks in part to his coverage, the defendants received a new trial, in which four were acquitted and the other two given life imprisonment (later six to ten years in prison).
Thereafter, he spent his time re-examining evidence in the Hiss Case, "a task that would occupy him for the rest of his life.
"[2] In 1974, in pursuit thereof, under the Freedom of Information Act Reuben asked that the FBI release all Hiss Case documents.
A lawsuit followed, filed by the New York City firm of Rabinowitz, Boudin and Standard and sponsored by the National Emergency Civil Liberties Foundation.
These documents helped a lawsuit by Hiss which tried but failed to overturn his conviction, based on his allegation of misconduct by the FBI and Justice prosecutor, Thomas Francis Murphy.
He also considered himself a lifelong friend of Alger Hiss: To still others, many of them on the left, Mr. Hiss was what William Reuben, a friend and the author of one of the dozens of books on the case, called an American saint: an idealistic New Dealer and rising star in the foreign policy establishment whose career was ruined when he was framed, in part to discredit the New Deal.