Harry Dexter White
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Harry Dexter White (October 29, 1892 – August 16, 1948) was a senior
U.S. Treasury department The Department of the Treasury (USDT) is the national treasury and finance department of the federal government of the United States, where it serves as an executive department. The department oversees the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and ...
official. Working closely with the Secretary of the Treasury
Henry Morgenthau Jr. Henry Morgenthau Jr. (; May 11, 1891February 6, 1967) was the United States Secretary of the Treasury during most of the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt. He played a major role in designing and financing the New Deal. After 1937, while ...
, he helped set American financial policy toward the
Allies of World War II The Allies, formally referred to as the United Nations from 1942, were an international military coalition formed during the Second World War (1939–1945) to oppose the Axis powers, led by Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and Fascist Italy. ...
. He was later accused of espionage by passing information to the Soviet Union. He was a senior American official at the 1944
Bretton Woods conference The Bretton Woods Conference, formally known as the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference, was the gathering of 730 delegates from all 44 Allied nations at the Mount Washington Hotel, situated in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, Unite ...
that established the postwar economic order. He dominated the conference, and his vision of post-war financial institutions mostly prevailed over those of
John Maynard Keynes John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes, ( ; 5 June 1883 – 21 April 1946), was an English economist whose ideas fundamentally changed the theory and practice of macroeconomics and the economic policies of governments. Originally trained in ...
, the British representative who was the other main founder. Through Bretton Woods, White was a major architect of the
International Monetary Fund The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a major financial agency of the United Nations, and an international financial institution, headquartered in Washington, D.C., consisting of 190 countries. Its stated mission is "working to foster globa ...
and
World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Interna ...
. White was accused in 1948 of spying for the Soviet Union, which he adamantly denied. He was never a Communist party member, but he had frequent contacts with Soviet officials as part of his duties at the Treasury. Revelations about those contacts and about dubious activities of a few of his friends and colleagues, including through decoded and now declassified Soviet cables intercepted in the
Venona Project The Venona project was a United States counterintelligence program initiated during World War II by the United States Army's Signal Intelligence Service (later absorbed by the National Security Agency), which ran from February 1, 1943, until Octob ...
, added to the suspicions surrounding him.


Background

Harry Dexter White was born on October 29, 1892, in Boston, Massachusetts, the seventh and youngest child of Jewish Lithuanian immigrants, Jacob Weissnovitz (or Weit) and Sarah Magilewski, who had settled in the US in the 1880s. In 1917, he enlisted in the
U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...
, and was commissioned as a First Lieutenant and served in France as head of Company H of the 302nd Infantry until the end of World War I. Aside from one term at Massachusetts Agricultural College (1911-12), he did not begin his university studies until age 29, first at Columbia University; then at Stanford University, where he earned Bachelors and Masters degrees in economics; and finally at
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
, where he taught for four years while studying for his Ph.D., which he competed in 1932 at 40 years of age. White then taught for two years at
Lawrence College Lawrence University is a private liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Appleton, Wisconsin. Founded in 1847, its first classes were held on November 12, 1849. Lawrence was the second college in the U.S. to be founded as a coeducation ...
in Appleton, Wisconsin. His PhD dissertation won the David A. Wells Prize granted annually by the Harvard University Department of Economics.
Harvard University Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. After the retirem ...
published his Ph.D. thesis in 1933, as ''The French International Accounts, 1880–1913''.


Treasury Department

In 1934,
Jacob Viner Jacob Viner (3 May 1892 – 12 September 1970) was a Canadian economist and is considered with Frank Knight and Henry Simons to be one of the "inspiring" mentors of the early Chicago school of economics in the 1930s: he was one of the leading fig ...
, an economist working at the Treasury Department, offered White a position at the Treasury, which he accepted. Viner would receive an honorary degree from Lawrence University, where White taught before joining the Treasury, in 1941. White became increasingly important in monetary matters, and was a top advisor to Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr., especially on international financial affairs dealing with China, France, Great Britain, Japan, Latin America, and the Soviet Union. In 1938, Morgenthau created a new division--the Division of Monetary Research--and promoted White to be its director. When the United States entered World War II in 1941, Morgenthau promoted White again, naming him Assistant to the Secretary. The post of Assistant Secretary, the most senior economist position in the Treasury, finally opened up in 1945, and Morgenthau promptly nominated White to Fill it. White left the Treasury in 1946 to become the U.S. Executive Director at the newly established International Monetary Fund.


Japan policy

In November 1941, White sent a memorandum to Morgenthau that was widely circulated and influenced State Department planning. White called for a comprehensive peaceful solution of rapidly escalating tensions between the United States and Japan, calling for major concessions on both sides. Langer and Gleason report that White's proposals were totally rewritten by the State Department and that the American key demand had been formulated long before White. It was an insistence on Japanese withdrawal from China, which Japan totally refused to consider. The complex negotiations at the top ranks of the US government, and its key allies of Britain and China, took place in late November 1941 with no further input from White or Morgenthau. White's proposals were never presented to Japan. Some historians have argued, however, that White manipulated Morgenthau and Roosevelt to provoke war with Japan in order to protect Stalin's Far Eastern front. After the U.S. entered the war in December 1941, Secretary Morgenthau appointed White to act as liaison between the Treasury and the
State Department The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government responsible for the country's fore ...
on all matters bearing on foreign relations. He was also made responsible for the
Exchange Stabilization Fund The Exchange Stabilization Fund (ESF) is an emergency reserve fund of the United States Treasury Department, normally used for foreign exchange intervention. This arrangement (as opposed to having the central bank intervene directly) allows the US ...
. White eventually came to be in charge of wartime international matters for the Treasury, with access to extensive confidential information about the economic situation of the US and its wartime allies. He passed numerous secret documents to men he knew were Soviet spies. White was a dedicated internationalist, and his energies were directed at continuing the Grand Alliance with the USSR and maintaining peace through trade. He believed that powerful, multilateral institutions could avoid the mistakes of the
Treaty of Versailles The Treaty of Versailles (french: Traité de Versailles; german: Versailler Vertrag, ) was the most important of the peace treaties of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June ...
and prevent another worldwide depression. As head of the independently-funded
Office of Monetary Research An office is a space where an organization's employees perform administrative work in order to support and realize objects and goals of the organization. The word "office" may also denote a position within an organization with specific dut ...
, White was able to hire staff without the normal civil service regulations or background enquiries. He probably was unaware that several of his hires were spies for the USSR.


Morgenthau Plan

According to Henry Morgenthau's son, White was the principal architect behind the
Morgenthau Plan The Morgenthau Plan was a proposal to eliminate Germany following World War II and eliminating its arms industry and removing or destroying other key industries basic to military strength. This included the removal or destruction of all industri ...
, designed to permanently weaken Germany's military capabilities. The Morgenthau postwar plan, as authored by White, was to take all industry out of Germany, eliminate its armed forces, and convert the country into an agricultural community, in the process eliminating most of Germany's economy and its ability to start another war. A version of the plan, limited to turning Germany into "a country primarily agricultural and pastoral in its character", was signed by President
Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...
and the British Prime Minister
Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 Winston Churchill in the Second World War, dur ...
at the
Second Quebec Conference Princess Alice, and Clementine Churchill">Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone">Princess Alice, and Clementine Churchill during the conference. The Second Quebec Conference (codenamed "OCTAGON") was a high-level military conference held during ...
in September 1944. However, someone in White's department with access to details of the plan leaked it to the press, and White himself provided an advance copy to Soviet intelligence. Public protests forced Roosevelt to publicly and partially pull back. The Nazis and
Joseph Goebbels Paul Joseph Goebbels (; 29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German Nazi politician who was the ''Gauleiter'' (district leader) of Berlin, chief propagandist for the Nazi Party, and then Reich Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to 19 ...
used the Morgenthau Plan as a propaganda coup to encourage their troops and citizens to fight on. General Omar Bradley, among others, noticed "a near-miraculous revitalization of the German army." In the end Morgenthau still did manage to influence the resulting occupation policy.


Bretton Woods conference

White was the senior American official at the 1944
Bretton Woods conference The Bretton Woods Conference, formally known as the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference, was the gathering of 730 delegates from all 44 Allied nations at the Mount Washington Hotel, situated in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, Unite ...
, and reportedly dominated the conference and imposed his vision over the objections of
John Maynard Keynes John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes, ( ; 5 June 1883 – 21 April 1946), was an English economist whose ideas fundamentally changed the theory and practice of macroeconomics and the economic policies of governments. Originally trained in ...
, the British representative. Numerous economic historians have concluded that White and the powerful U.S. delegation were wrong in dismissing Keynes's innovative proposal for a new international unit of currency (the "
Bancor The bancor was a supranational currency that John Maynard Keynes and E. F. Schumacher conceptualised in the years 1940–1942 and which the United Kingdom proposed to introduce after World War II. The name was inspired by the French ''banque ...
") made up of foreign exchange reserves held by central banks.
Benn Steil Benn Steil is an American economist and writer. He was educated at Nuffield College, Oxford and at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Steil is the senior fellow and director of international economics at the Council on Foreign ...
, in 2013, argued that since 1971, experts have been disillusioned with the 1944 framework. Eric Helleiner, in 2014, argued that the main goal of the United States was to promote international development as an investment in peace, to open the world for cheap imports, and to create new markets for American exports. He argues that policy-makers and analysts from the Southern hemisphere increasingly denounced the Bretton Woods system as "a Northern-dominated arrangement that was ill-suited to their state-led development strategies." After the war, White was closely involved with setting up what were called the
Bretton Woods Bretton Woods can refer to: *Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, a village in the United States **Bretton Woods Mountain Resort, a ski resort located in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire *The 1944 Bretton Woods Conference, also known as the "United Nations Mo ...
institutions—the
International Monetary Fund The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a major financial agency of the United Nations, and an international financial institution, headquartered in Washington, D.C., consisting of 190 countries. Its stated mission is "working to foster globa ...
(IMF) and the
World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Interna ...
. These institutions were intended to prevent some of the economic problems that had occurred after World War I. As late as November 1945, White continued to argue for improved relations with the Soviet Union. White later became a director and U.S. representative of the IMF. On June 19, 1947, White abruptly resigned from the International Monetary Fund, vacating his office the same day.


Accusations of espionage


Chambers accusations 1939, 1945, 1948

On September 2, 1939, Assistant Secretary of State and Roosevelt's adviser on internal security
Adolf Berle Adolf Augustus Berle Jr. (; January 29, 1895 – February 17, 1971) was an American lawyer, educator, writer, and diplomat. He was the author of ''The Modern Corporation and Private Property'', a groundbreaking work on corporate governance, a prof ...
had a meeting, arranged by journalist
Isaac Don Levine Isaac Don Levine (January 19, 1892 – February 15, 1981) was a 20th-century Russian-born American journalist and anticommunist writer, who is known as a specialist on the Soviet Union. He worked with Soviet ex-spy Walter Krivitsky in a 1939 exp ...
, with defecting
Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
agent Agent may refer to: Espionage, investigation, and law *, spies or intelligence officers * Law of agency, laws involving a person authorized to act on behalf of another ** Agent of record, a person with a contractual agreement with an insuranc ...
Whittaker Chambers Whittaker Chambers (born Jay Vivian Chambers; April 1, 1901 – July 9, 1961) was an American writer-editor, who, after early years as a Communist Party member (1925) and Soviet spy (1932–1938), defected from the Soviet underground (1938), ...
. In his notes of that meeting, written later that night, Levine listed a series of names, including a "Mr. White". Berle's notes of the meeting contain no mention of White. Berle drafted a 4-page memorandum on the information which he then passed to the President, who dismissed the idea of espionage rings in his administration as 'absurd'. The director of the FBI,
J. Edgar Hoover John Edgar Hoover (January 1, 1895 – May 2, 1972) was an American law enforcement administrator who served as the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). He was appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation  ...
, as late as 1942, also dismissed Chambers' revelations as 'history, hypothesis, or deduction.' On March 20, 1945,
State Department The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government responsible for the country's fore ...
security officer Raymond Murphy interviewed Chambers. His notes record that Chambers identified White as "a member at large but rather timid", who had brought various members of the American communist underground into the
Treasury A treasury is either *A government department related to finance and taxation, a finance ministry. *A place or location where treasure, such as currency or precious items are kept. These can be state or royal property, church treasure or in p ...
. In Spring 1948, Truman aide
Stephen J. Spingarn Stephen J. Spingarn (September 1, 1908 – August 6, 1984) was a mid-20th-century American lawyer and civil servant in the Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, and (briefly) Dwight D. Eisenhower administrations, including Special Counsel ...
questioned
Whittaker Chambers Whittaker Chambers (born Jay Vivian Chambers; April 1, 1901 – July 9, 1961) was an American writer-editor, who, after early years as a Communist Party member (1925) and Soviet spy (1932–1938), defected from the Soviet underground (1938), ...
, an admitted former Soviet espionage agent, about Harry Dexter White: "Chambers ... told me that he didn't believe Harry White was a Communist; he believed that he was a man who thought he was smarter than the Communists, and he could use them, but really they used him." Chambers subsequently testified on August 3, 1948, to his association with White in the
Communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
underground secret apparatus up to 1938. Chambers produced documents he had saved from his days as a courier for the Soviets' American spy-ring. Among these was a handwritten memorandum that he testified White had given him. The Treasury Department identified this document as containing highly confidential material from the State Department, while the
FBI Laboratory The FBI Laboratory (also called the Laboratory Division) is a division within the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation that provides forensic analysis support services to the FBI, as well as to state and local law enforcement agencies ...
established that it was written in White's handwriting. Chambers stated, however, that White was the least productive of his contacts. Chambers said of White, "His motives always baffled me" (a point later underscored by grandson David Chambers).


Bentley accusations 1945, 1948, 1953

On November 7, 1945, defecting Soviet espionage courier
Elizabeth Bentley Elizabeth Terrill Bentley (January 1, 1908 – December 3, 1963) was an American spy and member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). She served the Soviet Union from 1938 to 1945 until she defected from the Communist Party and Soviet intelligenc ...
told investigators of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, ...
(FBI) that in late 1942 or early 1943 she learned from Soviet spies
Nathan Gregory Silvermaster Nathan Gregory Silvermaster (November 27, 1898 – October 7, 1964), an economist with the United States War Production Board (WPB) during World War II, was the head of a large ring of Communist spies in the U.S. government. It is from him that th ...
and Ludwig Ullmann that one source of the government documents they were photographing and passing on to her and
NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. ...
spymaster
Jacob Golos Jacob Golos (born Yakov Naumovich Reizen, Russian: Яков Наумович Рейзен; April 24, 1889 - November 27, 1943) was a Ukrainian-born Bolshevik revolutionary who became an intelligence operative in the United States on behalf of the U ...
was Harry Dexter White. The next day, FBI Director
J. Edgar Hoover John Edgar Hoover (January 1, 1895 – May 2, 1972) was an American law enforcement administrator who served as the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). He was appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation  ...
sent a hand-delivered letter to Truman's Military Aide, Gen. Harry Vaughan, at the
White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. ...
, reporting information that "a number of persons employed by the government of the United States have been furnishing data and information to persons outside the Federal Government, who are in turn transmitting this information to espionage agents of the Soviet government." The letter listed a dozen Bentley suspects, the second of whom was Harry Dexter White. The FBI summarized the Bentley information and in its follow-up investigation on the suspects she named, again including White, in a report entitled 'Soviet Espionage in the United States', which was sent to the White House, the Attorney General and the State Department on December 4, 1945. Six weeks later, on January 23, 1946, Truman nominated White as U.S. Director of the
International Monetary Fund The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a major financial agency of the United Nations, and an international financial institution, headquartered in Washington, D.C., consisting of 190 countries. Its stated mission is "working to foster globa ...
. The FBI responded with a 28-page memo specifically on White and his contacts, received by the White House on February 4, 1946. White's nomination was approved by the Senate, acting in ignorance of the allegations against White, on February 6, 1946. (Six years later, Truman would testify that White had been "separated from the Government service promptly" upon receipt of this information—first from the Treasury, and then from the IMF. In fact, White was still at the IMF on June 19, 1947—more than two years after the FBI had alerted the White House about him—when he abruptly resigned (vacating his office the same day), after
Attorney General In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general or attorney-general (sometimes abbreviated AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. The plural is attorneys general. In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have exec ...
Tom Clark ordered a Federal
grand jury A grand jury is a jury—a group of citizens—empowered by law to conduct legal proceedings, investigate potential criminal conduct, and determine whether criminal charges should be brought. A grand jury may subpoena physical evidence or a pe ...
investigation of the Bentley charges.) On July 31, 1948, Bentley told the
House Committee on Un-American Activities The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly dubbed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives, created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloy ...
that White had been involved in
espionage Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence) from non-disclosed sources or divulging of the same without the permission of the holder of the information for a tangibl ...
activities on behalf of
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
during World War II, and had passed sensitive Treasury documents to Soviet agents. Bentley said White's colleagues passed information to her from him. In her 1953 testimony Bentley said that White was responsible for passing Treasury plates for printing Allied military
marks Marks may refer to: Business * Mark's, a Canadian retail chain * Marks & Spencer, a British retail chain * Collective trade marks, trademarks owned by an organisation for the benefit of its members * Marks & Co, the inspiration for the novel '' ...
in occupied Germany to the Soviets, who thereupon printed currency with abandon,James C. Van Hook,
Treasonable Doubt: The Harry Dexter White Spy Case
," ''Studies in Intelligence," Vol. 49, No. 1, 2005
sparking a black market and serious inflation throughout the occupied country, costing the U.S. a quarter of a billion dollars. However the alternative explanation is that Treasury officials feared that denying Soviet use of the plates in their occupation sector would endanger postwar cooperation. Bentley wrote in her 1951 autobiography that she had been "able through Harry Dexter White to arrange that the United States Treasury Department turn the actual printing plates over to the Russians". Bentley had not previously mentioned this to the FBI or to any of the committees,
grand juries A grand jury is a jury—a group of citizens—empowered by law to conduct legal proceedings, investigate potential crime, criminal conduct, and determine whether criminal charges should be brought. A grand jury may subpoena physical evidence or ...
or prosecutors before whom she had testified earlier, and there was no evidence at the time that Bentley had any role in this transfer. Some questioned Harry Dexter White's role in it. In her 1953 testimony before
Joseph McCarthy Joseph Raymond McCarthy (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visi ...
's Senate subcommittee, she elaborated, testifying that she was following instructions from
NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. ...
New York ''rezident'' Iskhak Abdulovich Akhmerov (who operated under the cover name "Bill") to pass word through Ludwig Ullmann and
Nathan Gregory Silvermaster Nathan Gregory Silvermaster (November 27, 1898 – October 7, 1964), an economist with the United States War Production Board (WPB) during World War II, was the head of a large ring of Communist spies in the U.S. government. It is from him that th ...
for White to "put the pressure on for the delivery of the plates to Russia". This is the only case in which Bentley biographer Kathryn Olmstead concluded that Bentley was lying about her role, citing historian Bruce Craig's conclusion that "the whole 'scheme' was a complete fabrication". However, Bentley's testimony would later be corroborated in dramatic fashion by a memorandum found in Soviet archives after half a century. In it,
Gaik Ovakimian Haik Badalovich Ovakimian (Hayk Hovakimyan), Major General, USSR (11 August 1898, in Nakhchivan – 13 March 1967, in Moscow), better known as "the puppetmaster" in intelligence circles, was a leading Soviet NKVD spy in the United States. Of Arm ...
, head of the American desk of the NKVD (for which Bentley worked), cites a report from New York (where Bentley was based) from April 14, 1944 (when Bentley was running the Silvermaster group) reporting that, "following our instructions" via Silvermaster, White had obtained "the positive decision of the Treasury Department to provide the Soviet side with the plates for engraving German occupation marks".


Personal life

In 1918, White married Anne Terry White. They had two daughters, Ruth (May 11, 1926 - December 28, 2009) and Joan (March 12, 1929 - September 9, 2012). On August 13, 1948, White testified before HUAC and denied being a communist. After he finished testifying, he had a
heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops to the coronary artery of the heart, causing damage to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is chest pain or discomfort which may tr ...
. He left Washington for a rest on his
Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire Fitzwilliam is a town in Cheshire County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 2,351 at the 2020 census. Fitzwilliam is home to Rhododendron State Park, a grove of native rhododendrons that bloom in mid-July. History First granted ...
farm. He had just arrived when he had another heart attack. Two days later, on August 16, 1948, he died, age 55. Spurious allegations later made it look as if an overdose of
digoxin Digoxin (better known as Digitalis), sold under the brand name Lanoxin among others, is a medication used to treat various heart conditions. Most frequently it is used for atrial fibrillation, atrial flutter, and heart failure. Digoxin is on ...
was the cause of death.


Legacy


Accusations by Jenner and McCarthy 1953

Senator William Jenner's Interlocking Subversion in Government Departments Investigation by the
Senate Internal Security Subcommittee The United States Senate's Special Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws, 1951–77, known more commonly as the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (SISS) and sometimes the M ...
(SISS) looked extensively into the problem of unauthorized and uncontrolled powers exercised by non-elected officials, specifically White. Part of its report looked into the implementation of Roosevelt administration policy in
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
and was published as the ''Morgenthau Diary (China).'' The report stated:
The concentration of Communist sympathizers in the Treasury Department, and particularly the Division of Monetary Research, is now a matter of record. White was the first director of that division; those who succeeded him in the directorship were Frank Coe and
Harold Glasser Harold Glasser (November 24, 1905 – November 16, 1992) was an economist in the United States Department of the Treasury and spokesman on the affairs of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) 'throughout its whole ...
. Also attached to the Division of Monetary Research were William Ludwig Ullman, Irving Kaplan, and
Victor Perlo Victor Perlo (May 15, 1912December 1, 1999) was an American Marxist economist, government functionary, and a longtime member of the governing National Committee of the Communist Party USA. Biography Early years Victor Perlo was born May 15, 19 ...
. White, Coe, Glasser, Kaplan, and Perlo were all identified as participants in the Communist
conspiracy A conspiracy, also known as a plot, is a secret plan or agreement between persons (called conspirers or conspirators) for an unlawful or harmful purpose, such as murder or treason, especially with political motivation, while keeping their agree ...
...
The committee also heard testimony by Henry Morgenthau's speechwriter, Jonathan Mitchell, that White had tried to persuade him that the Soviets had developed a system that would supplant
capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for Profit (economics), profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, pric ...
and
Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
. In 1953, Senator
Joseph McCarthy Joseph Raymond McCarthy (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visi ...
and
Eisenhower Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, ...
administration Attorney General
Herbert Brownell Jr. Herbert Brownell Jr. (February 20, 1904 – May 1, 1996) was an American lawyer and Republican politician. From 1953 to 1957, he served as United States Attorney General in the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Early life Brow ...
revealed that the FBI had warned the Truman administration about White before the President appointed him to the IMF. Brownell made public the FBI's November 8, 1945, letter to the White House warning about White and others, and revealed that the White House had received the FBI report on "Soviet Espionage in the United States," including the White case, six weeks before Truman nominated White to the IMF. Although he does not dispute that the FBI sent these and other warnings to Truman, Sen.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan Daniel Patrick Moynihan (March 16, 1927 – March 26, 2003) was an American politician, diplomat and sociologist. A member of the Democratic Party, he represented New York in the United States Senate from 1977 until 2001 and served as an ...
wrote in his introduction to the 1997 Moynihan Commission report on government secrecy that Truman was never informed of
Venona The Venona project was a United States counterintelligence program initiated during World War II by the United States Army's Signal Intelligence Service (later absorbed by the National Security Agency), which ran from February 1, 1943, until Octob ...
. In support of this, he cited a statement from the official
NSA The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collecti ...
/
CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...
history of Venona that "no definitive evidence has emerged to show" that Truman was informed of Venona.


Venona project

NSA cryptographers identified Harry Dexter White as the source denoted in the
Venona The Venona project was a United States counterintelligence program initiated during World War II by the United States Army's Signal Intelligence Service (later absorbed by the National Security Agency), which ran from February 1, 1943, until Octob ...
decrypts at various times under the code names "Lawyer", "Richard", and "Jurist". Two years after his death, in a memorandum dated October 15, 1950, White was positively identified by the
FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and its principal Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement age ...
, through evidence gathered by the
Venona project The Venona project was a United States counterintelligence program initiated during World War II by the United States Army's Signal Intelligence Service (later absorbed by the National Security Agency), which ran from February 1, 1943, until Octob ...
, as a Soviet source, code named "Jurist". Years later, the
Justice Department A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a ...
publicly disclosed the existence of the Venona project which deciphered Soviet cable traffic naming White as "Jurist", a Soviet intelligence source. As reported in the FBI Memorandum on White:
You have previously been advised of information obtained from enonaregarding Jurist, who was active during 1944. According to the previous information received from enonaregarding Jurist, during April, 1944, he had reported on conversations between the then Secretary of State Hull and
Vice President A vice president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vice president is on t ...
Wallace Wallace may refer to: People * Clan Wallace in Scotland * Wallace (given name) * Wallace (surname) * Wallace (footballer, born 1986), full name Wallace Fernando Pereira, Brazilian football left-back * Wallace (footballer, born 1987), full name ...
. He also reported on Wallace's proposed trip to China. On August 5, 1944, he reported to the Soviets that he was confident of President Roosevelt's victory in the coming elections unless there was a huge military failure. He also reported that Truman's nomination as Vice President was calculated to secure the vote of the conservative wing of the Democratic Party. It was also reported that Jurist was willing for any self-sacrifice in behalf of the KGB but was afraid that his activities, if exposed, might lead to a political scandal and have an effect on the elections.
This codename was confirmed by the notes of KGB archivist
Vasili Nikitich Mitrokhin Vasili Nikitich Mitrokhin (russian: link=no, Васи́лий Ники́тич Митро́хин; March 3, 1922 – January 23, 2004) was a major and senior archivist for the Soviet Union's foreign intelligence service, the First Chief Dir ...
, in which six key Soviet agents are named. Harry Dexter White is listed as being first "KASSIR" and later "JURIST". Another example of White acting as an agent of influence for the Soviet Union was his obstruction of a proposed $200 million loan to Nationalist China in 1943, which he had been officially instructed to execute, at a time when inflation was spiraling out of control. Other Venona decrypts revealed further damaging evidence against White, including White's suggestions on how to meet and pass information on to his Soviet handler. Venona Document #71 contains decryptions of White's discussions on being paid for his work for the Soviet Union. In 1997, the
bipartisan Bipartisanship, sometimes referred to as nonpartisanship, is a political situation, usually in the context of a two-party system (especially those of the United States and some other western countries), in which opposing political parties find co ...
Moynihan Commission on Government Secrecy The Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy, also called the Moynihan Commission, after its chairman, U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, was a bipartisan statutory commission in the United States. It was created under Title IX o ...
, chaired by Democratic Senator
Daniel Patrick Moynihan Daniel Patrick Moynihan (March 16, 1927 – March 26, 2003) was an American politician, diplomat and sociologist. A member of the Democratic Party, he represented New York in the United States Senate from 1977 until 2001 and served as an ...
, stated in its findings, "The complicity of
Alger Hiss Alger Hiss (November 11, 1904 – November 15, 1996) was an American government official accused in 1948 of having spied for the Soviet Union in the 1930s. Statutes of limitations had expired for espionage, but he was convicted of perjury in con ...
of the
State Department The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government responsible for the country's fore ...
seems settled. As does that of Harry Dexter White of the Treasury Department." Further evidence of White's complicity as a Soviet agent was gleaned from Soviet archives and KGB operative
Alexander Vassiliev Alexander Vassiliev (russian: Александр Васильев; born 1962) is a Russian-British journalist, writer and espionage historian living in London who is a subject matter expert in the Soviet KGB and Russian SVR. A former officer in ...
. In a book by Allen Weinstein and Alexander Vassiliev, ''The Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America — the Stalin Era'', Vassiliev, a former Soviet journalist and KGB operative, reviewed Soviet archives dealing with White's actions on behalf of the Soviet Union. White assisted
Harold Glasser Harold Glasser (November 24, 1905 – November 16, 1992) was an economist in the United States Department of the Treasury and spokesman on the affairs of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) 'throughout its whole ...
, a Treasury executive and NKVD spy, "in obtaining posts and promotions at Treasury while aware of his Communist ties". Because of White's backing, Glasser survived an FBI background check. In December 1941 the Secret Service forwarded a report to Harry White indicating that it had evidence Glasser was involved in Communist activities. White never acted on the report. Glasser continued to serve in the Treasury Department, and soon began recruiting other agents and preparing briefing reports on Treasury personnel and other potential espionage agents for the NKVD. After America became involved in World War II, Glasser received appointments to several higher-level positions in the government on White's approval. According to Soviet archives, White's other KGB code names were "Richard", and "Reed". In order to protect their source, Soviet intelligence repeatedly changed White's code name.


Assessments of Soviet involvement

In 2000,
Robert Skidelsky Robert Jacob Alexander, Baron Skidelsky, (born 25 April 1939) is a British economic historian. He is the author of a three-volume award-winning biography of British economist John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946). Skidelsky read history at Jesus C ...
, in reviewing the evidence, concludes:
A combination of naivety, superficiality and supreme confidence in his own judgment — together with his background — explains the course of action White took. There is no question of treachery, in the accepted sense of betraying one's country's secrets to an enemy. But there can be no doubt that, in passing classified information to the Soviets, White knew he was betraying his trust, even if he did not thereby think he was betraying his country.
In 2004,
Stephen Schlesinger Stephen C. Schlesinger is an American historian, political commentator, and international affairs specialist. He is a Fellow at the Century Foundation in New York City. He served as director of the World Policy Institute at the New School University ...
wrote, "Among historians, the verdict about White is still unresolved, but many incline toward the view that he wanted to help the Russians but did not regard the actions he took as constituting espionage." In 2012, Bruce Craig wrote:
Taken individually, one could argue that some of the documents indicate that White may have not always have been aware that his information was being passed on to Moscow, but taken collectively, ndrewVassiliev's documentation leaves little wiggle room for White's defenders to continue to assert that he was not involved in an activity that, at least by present day legal standards, constitute espionage.
In 2012, David Chambers wrote, "Perhaps White had ends of his own, too... Perhaps he used his position to foster the Soviet Union — then a new, budding American ally, recognized only in 1933 — beyond New Deal policy." In 2013,
Benn Steil Benn Steil is an American economist and writer. He was educated at Nuffield College, Oxford and at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Steil is the senior fellow and director of international economics at the Council on Foreign ...
wrote:
White almost certainly, and over many years, gave confidential and classified U.S. government information–in original, transcribed, and oral form–to individuals whom he knew would ultimately transmit it to the Soviet government ... Yet the economics White advocated were hardly Marxist. They were by this time what would be described as thoroughly
Keynesian Keynesian economics ( ; sometimes Keynesianism, named after British economist John Maynard Keynes) are the various macroeconomic theories and models of how aggregate demand (total spending in the economy) strongly influences economic output and ...
... As for White's domestic politics, these were mainstream New Deal progressive, and there is no evidence that he admired communism as a political ideology. It is this chasm between what is known publicly of White's economic and political views, on the one hand, and his clandestine behavior on behalf of the Soviets, on the other, that accounts for the plethora of unpersuasive profiles of the man that have emerged.
White's daughters steadfastly maintained his innocence. In 1990, they stated, "Despite years of close surveillance by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which included shadowing and wiretaps, the evidence produced against White never consisted of anything more than the unsubstantiated allegations of two F.B.I. informers unknown to the accused (including Time magazine's own Whittaker Chambers)." In 1998, daughter Joan White Pinkham wrote on behalf of her sister Ruth White Levitan and herself, "Nevertheless, as the daughters of a brilliant economist who served his country loyally and with distinction, my sister and I remain confident that, in the words of Coventry Patmore, 'The truth is great, and shall prevail, / When none cares whether it prevail or not'." In 2012, Joan White Pinkam wrote, "I write to protest that in Benn Steil’s April 9 Op-Ed article, "Banker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy," old allegations of espionage against my father, Harry Dexter White, are once again repeated as fact. In response to the 2012 statement, Whittaker Chambers' grandson, David Chambers, wrote:
Ms. Pinkham does well to stand by her father. Full proof of White's doings may never surface. Even if they should, one cannot deny that he helped better the financial system, towards a better world. His achievements remain standing at the U.S. Treasury, Bretton Woods, and the IMF. So does his American creed before HUAC. In contrast, Whittaker Chambers tried at best to neutralize dupes of Stalin-ized communism—long after Stalin had started liquidating every conceivable enemy. (But that does not cancel out Chambers's insight into White.)


See also

*
Svetlana Chervonnaya Svetlana Alexandrovna Chervonnaya (Russian: Светлана Aлександровна Червонная, born October 14, 1948) is a Russian historian specializing in the politics, political history of the Cold War period and Soviet Union, Sovie ...
*
List of American spies This is a list of spies who engaged in direct espionage. It includes Americans spying against their own country and people spying on behalf of the United States. American Revolution era spies Spied for the Patriots * Hercules Mulligan * Abra ...
*
John Abt John Jacob Abt (May 1, 1904 – August 10, 1991) was an American lawyer and politician, who spent most of his career as chief counsel to the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and was a member of the Communist Party and the Soviet spy network "Ware Gro ...
*
Noel Field Noel Haviland Field (January 23, 1904 – September 12, 1970) was an American communist activist, diplomat and spy for the NKVD, whose activities before and after World War II allowed the Eastern Bloc to use his name as a prosecuting rationale du ...
*
John Herrmann John Theodore Herrmann (November 9, 1900 – April 9, 1959) was a writer in the 1920s and 1930s and is alleged to have introduced Whittaker Chambers to Alger Hiss. Biography Herrmann was born in Lansing, Michigan in 1900. He lived in Paris in ...
*
Donald Hiss Donald Hiss (December 15, 1906 – May 18, 1989), also known as "Donie" and "Donnie", was the younger brother of Alger Hiss. Donald Hiss's name was mentioned during the 1948 hearings wherein his more famous and older brother, Alger, was ac ...
*
J. Peters J. Peters (born Sándor Goldberger; 11 August 1894 – 1990) was the most commonly known pseudonym of a man who last went by the name "Alexander Stevens" in 1949. Peters was a journalist, political activist, and accused Soviet spy who was a leadin ...
*
Ward Pigman William Ward Pigman (March 5, 1910 – September 30, 1977) was a chairman of the Department of Biochemistry at New York Medical College, and a suspected Soviet Union spy as part of the "Karl group" for Soviet Military Intelligence (GRU). Biograp ...
*
Lee Pressman Lee Pressman (July 1, 1906 – November 20, 1969) was a labor attorney and earlier a US government functionary, publicly alleged in 1948 to have been a spy for Soviet intelligence during the mid-1930s (as a member of the Ware Group), following hi ...
*
Vincent Reno Franklin Vincent Reno was a mathematician and civilian employee at the United States Army Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland in the 1930s. Reno was a member of the "Karl group" of Soviet spies which was being handled by Whittaker Chambers until 19 ...
*
Julian Wadleigh Julian Wadleigh (1904–1994) was an American economist and a Department of State official in the 1930s and 1940s. He was a key witness in the Alger Hiss trials. Background Henry Julian Wadleigh was born in 1904. He went to an English "public" s ...
*
Harold Ware Harold or "Hal" Ware (August 19, 1889 – August 14, 1935) was an American Marxist, regarded as one of the Communist Party's top experts on agriculture. He was employed by a federal New Deal agency in the 1930s. He is alleged to have been a S ...
*
Nathaniel Weyl Nathaniel Weyl (July 20, 1910 – April 13, 2005) was an American economist and author who wrote on a variety of social issues. A member of the Communist Party of the United States from 1933 until 1939, after leaving the party he became a co ...
*
Nathan Witt Nathan Witt (February 11, 1903 – February 16, 1982), born Nathan Wittowsky, was an American lawyer who is best known as being the Secretary of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) from 1937 to 1940. He resigned from the NLRB after his commun ...


References


Further reading

* * * *
Steil, Benn Benn Steil is an American economist and writer. He was educated at Nuffield College, Oxford and at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Steil is the senior fellow and director of international economics at the Council on Foreign R ...
(March/April 2013). "Red White." ''
Foreign Affairs ''Foreign Affairs'' is an American magazine of international relations and U.S. foreign policy published by the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonprofit, nonpartisan, membership organization and think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy and ...
'', Vol. 92, No. 2. * *


Primary sources

* * *


External links


"The Archival Evidence on Harry Dexter White", a summary of references to Harry White found in the Venona decryptions


'' Washington Decoded'', 11 August 2013 * * * s:FBI Memorandum identifying Harry Dexter White as agent Jurist * {{DEFAULTSORT:White, Harry Dexter 1892 births 1948 deaths Espionage in the United States Stanford University alumni Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Columbia University alumni Jewish American scientists Silvermaster spy ring McCarthyism Lawrence University faculty Bretton Woods Conference delegates American people in the Venona papers American spies for the Soviet Union American people of Lithuanian-Jewish descent People from Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire United States Department of the Treasury officials International Monetary Fund people