Difference between revisions of "Harry Dexter White"

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Harry Dexter White

Harry Dexter White (October 1892–August 16, 1948) was an American economist and senior U.S. Department of Treasury official. He was the first head of the International Monetary Fund, played an important role in formation of the World Bank and was a Soviet secret agent. Unlike other Comintern operatives such as Alger Hiss or the Julius Rosenberg, White died before he could be brought to trial. Consequently, Harry Dexter White's case has not been publicly scrutinized as closely as the Hiss and Rosenberg cases, yet in some respects, White's subversion of US foreign policy may have been even more damaging.

Early life

The son of Lithuanian immigrants, White was born in Boston, Massachusetts. As a young man, he served in the U.S. Army, fighting in France during World War I. After leaving the military, he began his education at Columbia University, then transferred to Stanford where he earned a degree in economics. He received a doctorate degree in economics from Harvard University at age 30.

New Dealer

White took up a teaching post at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin. In 1934, Jacob Viner, a professor at the University of Chicago working at the Treasury Department, wrote to White offering him a job there. White accepted, and in the latter half of the thirties met with John Maynard Keynes and other leading economists. When the United States entered World War II, White was put in charge of international matters for the Treasury. He had extensive dealings with America's allies, including the Soviet Union.

Philosophically, White was a Keynesian New Dealer. As a dedicated Rooseveltian internationalist his energies were directed at continuing the Grand Alliance and maintaining peace through a liberal trade regime. He believed that powerful multilateral institutions could avoid the mistakes of Versailles and prevent another worldwide depression.

After the war, White was closely involved with setting up what were called the Bretton Woods institutions - the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. These institutions were intended to prevent some of the economic problems that occurred after the First World War.

In December 1941, after the Pearl Harbor, White was appointed assistant to Henry Morgenthau, the Treasury secretary, to act as liaison between the Treasury and the State Department on all matters having a bearing on foreign relations and "responsibility for the management and operation of the Exchange Stabilization Fund without a change in its procedures."

One of his most valuable assets was his ability to place in the Treasury Department individuals the Silvermaster ring wanted to have assigned in the department. Among them were Lud Ullman, William Henry Taylor, and Sonia Gold.

Policy subversion

The accusations against White revolve around four incidents with which White was involved.

• White was the real architect of the Morgenthau plan to pastorialize Germany to punish her for starting two World Wars in thirty years.
• White used his position in the Treasury Department to develop a hostile U.S. policy toward prewar Japan. The reason was to distract Japan from their plans to attack the Soviet Union and draw the U.S. into the war as an ally with the Soviet Union.
• White delayed financial support to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist Chinese government causing the triumph of Mao Tse-Tung's Communist Chinese government.
• White was instrumental in handing over the Allied Military mark printing plates to the Soviets. This caused a $250,000,000 deficit in the occupational government budget paid out by the U.S. Treasury. His accusers claim all this was done at the behest of the Russians to the detriment of U.S. policy and national security.

Post war

Washington Evening Star May 4, 1946 announcement of White's appointment to head the IMF. President Truman said, "I am confident that in your new position you will add distinction to your already distinguished career with Treasury." The appointment came after the White House had been alerted to White's espionage activity.

On December 4, 1945, the FBI transmitted to President Truman to a report entitled "Soviet Espionage in the United States." The report summarized White's espionage activities. Copies of the report were sent to Attorney General Thomas Clark too. The evidence indicated a substantial spy ring operating within the Government and involving White. Six weeks later President Truman, on Jan. 23, 1946, publicly announced his nomination of Harry Dexter White for appointment to the International Monetary Fund.

On July 31st 1948, Elizabeth Bentley told the House Committee on Un-American Activities that White had been involved in espionage activities on behalf of the Russia during World War II.⁽¹⁾ Bentley said White's colleagues passed information to her from him.

Whittaker Chambers subsequently testified on August 3rd of his association with White in the Communist underground secret apparatus up to 1938.⁽²⁾ FBI laboratories established a highly confidential handwritten memorandum provided to Chambers in 1938 was White's handwriting. Bentley said his colleagues had passed information to her from him and accused White of providing stolen U.S. currency plates to the Soviet Union. The plates were used to print unlimited amounts of occupation currency in the eastern zone of postwar Germany precipitating the Berlin Crisis.

On August 14th 1948, Harry Dexter White appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee to defend his reputation. White, though recovering from a series of heart attacks, stoutly proclaimed his lifelong commitment to the principles of democracy and the ideals of Roosevelt's New Deal. He died of a heart attack three days later.

In a memorandum dated 15 October 1950 White was conclusively identified in the Venona papers as a Soviet agent code named "Jurist". Venona cyphers quote him as saying he was willing for any self-sacrifice on behalf of the MGB, but was afraid that his activities, if exposed, might lead to a political scandal and have an effect on the 1944 Presidential election. In 1953 J. Edgar Hoover convinced Attorney General Brownell that White was a spy. White's bronze bust was ignominiously removed to the IMF's basement.

Morganthau Diary

Senator William Jenner's Interlocking Subversion in Government Departments Investigation by the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee looked extensively into the problem of unauthorized, uncontrolled and often dangerous power exercised by nonelected officials, specifically Harry Dexter White. Part of its report looked into the implementation of Roosevelt administration policy in China and was published as the Morgenthau Diary.⁽⁴⁾ 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. Also attached to the Division of Monetary Research were William Ludwig Ullman, Irving Kaplan, and Victor Perlo. White, Coe, Glasser, Kaplan, and Perlo were all identified as participants in the Communist conspiracy…". ⁽⁵⁾

In 1953, Senator Joseph McCarthy and Attorney General Herbert Brownell, Jr. alleged that Truman had known White was a Soviet spy when he appointed him to the IMF.⁽⁶⁾However, this has now been refuted by declassified documents through the Freedom of Information Act which attest President Truman and the White House had not known of the existence of the Venona project.⁽⁷⁾ Long after his death, the Justice Department publicly disclosed the existence of conclusive evidence confirming White had indeed been involved in espionage activities. White's family however, still protests his innocence.

The 1997 bipartisan Moynihan Commission on Government Secrecy, chaired by Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, states in its findings,

The complicity of Alger Hiss of the State Department seems settled. As does that of Harry Dexter White of the Treasury Department.⁽⁸⁾

Notes

• Note (1): Elizabeth Bentely Deposition, FBI Silvermaster file, p.27
• Note (2): Testimony of Whittaker Chambers before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (August 3, 1948)
• Note (3): Posthumous FBI Memorandum conclusively identifies Harry Dexter White as KGB Agent Jurist (1950)
• Note (4): Guide to the Records of the U.S. Senate at the National Archives, Records of the Morgenthau Diary Study, 1953-65
• Note (5): United States Government Printing Office, Report on the Morgenthau Diaries prepared by the Subcommittee of the Senate Committee of the Judiciary appointed to investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and other Internal Security Laws, Introduction, by Dr. Anthony Kubek, Professor of History at Dallas University, November 1967, two volumes, v.i., pg. 80.
• Note (6): Time Magazine, The White Case Record, Nov. 30, 1953
• Note (7): Chairman's Forward, Moynihan Commission on Government Secrecy (1997)
• Note (8):Moynihan Commssion on Government Secrecy, Appendix A, 7. The Cold War (1997)

External links

• Biography of White by the IMF
• FBI Venona file pg.17
• FBI Silvermaster file, p.27
• “Underground Espionage Organization (NKVD) in Agencies of the United States Government.”, FBI Silvermaster file, Vol. 23, pgs. 55 - 239 pdf, February 21, 1946. Soviet representatives’ pgs. 240 - 251 pdf. Comphrehensive index pgs. 252 -272 pdf.
• FBI Silvermaster file, Vol. 54, pgs. 124 - 127 pdf. Conversations between Harry Dexter White and Charles Kramer, White and Lee Pressman, White and Henry Morgenthau.
• Time Magazine, The White Case Record, Nov. 30, 1953