Lowenthal, John

John Lowenthal (1925-2003) was an attorney and filmmaker. He was born in Manhattan on May 14, 1925. He served in the Navy and attended Columbia College and Columbia University School of Law (class of 1950). While in law school, Lowenthal spent some time as a volunteer assistant to the defense during Alger Hiss's two perjury trials in 1949 and 1950.

In the 1970s, after the release of suppressed FBI documents about the case, Lowenthal, by then a Rutgers University law professor, published an analysis of what this new evidence revealed. Several years later, Lowenthal took a leave from Rutgers to make "The Trials of Alger Hiss," a feature-length documentary film about the case, released in 1980. Lowenthal worked closely with Hiss on the film, which used a series of new interviews and presented evidence that had been withheld from the jury that found Hiss guilty of perjury.

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