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Harry Dexter White

Harry Dexter White (October 29, 1892 – August 16, 1948) was a senior U.S. Treasury department official. Working closely with the Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr., he helped set American financial policy toward the Allies of World War II. He was later accused of espionage by passing information to the Soviet Union.[1]

Harry Dexter White
Harry Dexter White (left) with John Maynard Keynes at the Bretton Woods Conference
Born(1892-10-29)October 29, 1892
DiedAugust 16, 1948(1948-08-16) (aged 55)
EducationColumbia University
Stanford University
Harvard University
OccupationEconomist
Employer(s)Lawrence University
U.S. Treasury department
International Monetary Fund
Known forBretton Woods agreement
First U.S. Director of IMF (1946-47)
SpouseAnne Terry White
ChildrenJoan White Pinkham, Ruth White Levitan
Parent(s)Jacob Weissnovitz
Sarah Magilewski

He was a senior American official at the 1944 Bretton Woods conference 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, the British representative who was the other main founder. Through Bretton Woods, White was a major architect of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.[2]

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,[3] 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, 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, where he taught for four years while studying for his Ph.D., which he completed in 1932 at 40 years of age. White then taught for two years at Lawrence College in Appleton, Wisconsin. His PhD dissertation won the David A. Wells Prize granted annually by the Harvard University Department of Economics. Harvard University Press published his Ph.D. thesis in 1933, as The French International Accounts, 1880–1913.[4]

Treasury Department

 
White in 1939 while working for the U.S. Treasury.

In 1934, Jacob Viner, 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.[5] 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.[2]

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.[6] 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.[7] 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.[8][9][10]

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 on all matters bearing on foreign relations. He was also made responsible for the Exchange Stabilization Fund. 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.[11]

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 and prevent another worldwide depression. As head of the independently-funded Office of Monetary Research, 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.[12]

Morgenthau Plan

According to Henry Morgenthau's son, White was the principal architect behind the Morgenthau Plan, designed to permanently weaken Germany's military capabilities.[13] 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 and the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill at the Second Quebec Conference 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.[14] Public protests forced Roosevelt to publicly and partially pull back. The Nazis and Joseph Goebbels 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.[15]

Bretton Woods conference

White was the senior American official at the 1944 Bretton Woods conference, and reportedly dominated the conference and imposed his vision over the objections of John Maynard Keynes, the British representative.[12][16] 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") made up of foreign exchange reserves held by central banks. Benn Steil, in 2013, argued that since 1971, experts have been disillusioned with the 1944 framework.[17] 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."[18][19][20] After the war, White was closely involved with setting up what were called the Bretton Woods institutions—the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. 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.[21] 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.[citation needed]

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 had a meeting, arranged by journalist Isaac Don Levine, with defecting Soviet agent Whittaker Chambers. In his notes of that meeting, written later that night, Levine listed a series of names, including a "Mr. White".[22] Berle's notes of the meeting contain no mention of White.[23] 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, as late as 1942,[24] also dismissed Chambers' revelations as 'history, hypothesis, or deduction.'

On March 20, 1945, State Department 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.[25]

In Spring 1948, Truman aide Stephen J. Spingarn questioned Whittaker Chambers, 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."[26] Chambers subsequently testified on August 3, 1948, to his association with White in the Communist underground secret apparatus up to 1938.[27] 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 established that it was written in White's handwriting.[28] Chambers stated, however, that White was the least productive of his contacts.[29] Chambers said of White, "His motives always baffled me" (a point later underscored by grandson David Chambers).[30]

Bentley accusations 1945, 1948, 1953

On November 7, 1945, defecting Soviet espionage courier Elizabeth Bentley told investigators of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that in late 1942 or early 1943 she learned from Soviet spies Nathan Gregory Silvermaster and Ludwig Ullmann that one source of the government documents they were photographing and passing on to her and NKVD spymaster Jacob Golos was Harry Dexter White.[31]

The next day, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover sent a hand-delivered letter to Truman's Military Aide, Gen. Harry Vaughan, at the White House, 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.[32]

The FBI summarized the Bentley information and in its follow-up investigation on the suspects she named, again including White,[33] in a report entitled 'Soviet Espionage in the United States',[34] which was sent to the White House, the Attorney General and the State Department on December 4, 1945.[35] Six weeks later, on January 23, 1946, Truman nominated White as U.S. Director of the International Monetary Fund. The FBI responded with a 28-page memo specifically on White and his contacts, received by the White House on February 4, 1946.[36] 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.[37] 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 Tom Clark ordered a Federal grand jury investigation of the Bentley charges.[38])

On July 31, 1948, Bentley told the House Committee on Un-American Activities that White had been involved in espionage activities on behalf of Soviet Union during World War II,[39] 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 in occupied Germany to the Soviets, who thereupon printed currency with abandon,[40] sparking a black market and serious inflation throughout the occupied country,[41] costing the U.S. a quarter of a billion dollars.[42] However the alternative explanation is that Treasury officials feared that denying Soviet use of the plates in their occupation sector would endanger postwar cooperation.[40]

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".[43] Bentley had not previously mentioned this to the FBI or to any of the committees, grand juries 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.[44] In her 1953 testimony before Joseph McCarthy's Senate subcommittee, she elaborated, testifying that she was following instructions from NKVD New York rezident Iskhak Abdulovich Akhmerov (who operated under the cover name "Bill") to pass word through Ludwig Ullmann and Nathan Gregory Silvermaster for White to "put the pressure on for the delivery of the plates to Russia".[45] This is the only case in which Bentley biographer Kathryn Olmstead concluded that Bentley was lying about her role,[41] citing historian Bruce Craig's conclusion that "the whole 'scheme' was a complete fabrication".[46] 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, head of the American desk of the NKVD (for which Bentley worked),[47] cites a report from New York (where Bentley was based)[48] from April 14, 1944 (when Bentley was running the Silvermaster group)[49][50] 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".[51]

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).[52][53]

On August 13, 1948, White testified before HUAC and denied being a communist. After he finished testifying, he had a heart attack. He left Washington for a rest on his Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire farm. He had just arrived when he had another heart attack.[54] Two days later, on August 16, 1948, he died, age 55.[55][56] Spurious allegations later made it look as if an overdose of digoxin was the cause of death.[57]

Legacy

Accusations by Jenner and McCarthy 1953

Senator William Jenner's Interlocking Subversion in Government Departments Investigation by the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (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 and was published as the Morgenthau Diary (China).[58] 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...[58][failed verification]

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 and Christianity.

In 1953, Senator Joseph McCarthy and Eisenhower administration Attorney General Herbert Brownell Jr. 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.[59]

Although he does not dispute that the FBI sent these and other warnings to Truman, Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote in his introduction to the 1997 Moynihan Commission report on government secrecy that Truman was never informed of Venona.[60] In support of this, he cited a statement from the official NSA/CIA history of Venona that "no definitive evidence has emerged to show" that Truman was informed of Venona.[61]

Venona project

NSA cryptographers identified Harry Dexter White as the source denoted in the Venona decrypts at various times under the code names "Lawyer",[62] "Richard",[63] and "Jurist".[64] Two years after his death, in a memorandum dated October 15, 1950, White was positively identified by the FBI, through evidence gathered by the Venona project, as a Soviet source, code named "Jurist".[3]

Years later, the Justice Department 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 [Venona] regarding Jurist, who was active during 1944. According to the previous information received from [Venona] regarding Jurist, during April, 1944, he had reported on conversations between the then Secretary of State Hull and Vice President Wallace. 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.[citation needed]

This codename was confirmed by the notes of KGB archivist Vasili Nikitich Mitrokhin, in which six key Soviet agents are named. Harry Dexter White is listed as being first "KASSIR" and later "JURIST".[65]

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,[66] at a time when inflation was spiraling out of control.[67]

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.[67][68]

In 1997, the bipartisan Moynihan Commission on Government Secrecy, chaired by Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, stated 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."[69]

Further evidence of White's complicity as a Soviet agent was gleaned from Soviet archives and KGB operative Alexander Vassiliev. 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, 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.[70]

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.[citation needed]

Assessments of Soviet involvement

In 2000, Robert Skidelsky, 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.[71]

In 2004, Stephen Schlesinger 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."[72] 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, [Andrew] Vassiliev'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.[73]

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."[30]

In 2013, Benn Steil 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 ... 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.[74]

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)."[75] 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'."[76] In 2012, Joan White Pinkam wrote, "I write to protest that in Benn Steil’s April 9 Op-Ed article, "Banker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy,"[77] old allegations of espionage against my father, Harry Dexter White, are once again repeated as fact.[78] 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.)[30]

See also

References

  1. ^ Sam Tanenhaus (2011). Whittaker Chambers: A Biography. Random House. p. 153. ISBN 9780307789266.
  2. ^ a b Boughton, James M. (2021). Harry White and the American Creed: How a Federal Bureaucrat Created the Modern Global Economy (and Failed to Get the Credit). Yale University Press. doi:10.2307/j.ctv1zvcd08. ISBN 978-0-300-25379-5. JSTOR j.ctv1zvcd08. S2CID 244191116.
  3. ^ a b FBI Memorandum identifying Harry Dexter White as agent Jurist, 1950-10-16, retrieved 2006-10-03
  4. ^ James M. Boughton, "Harry Dexter White and the International Monetary Fund." Finance and Development 35.3 (1998): 39.
  5. ^ "University Dates & Milestones | Lawrence University". www.lawrence.edu. Retrieved Oct 20, 2022.
  6. ^ William Langer and Everett Gleason, The Undeclared War (1953) pp 875-901.
  7. ^ Blum, The Morgenthau diaries: years of Urgency: 1938-1941 (1965) pp 384-86
  8. ^ John Koster, Operation Snow: How a Soviet Mole in FDR's White House Triggered Pearl Harbor (Regnery Publishing 2012), esp Ch. 5, "The May Memorandum."
  9. ^ Steil, Benn (2013), The Battle of Bretton Woods: John Maynard Keynes, Harry Dexter White, and the Making of a New World Order, Princeton University Press, p. 55-56
  10. ^ Sean McMeekin (2021), Stalin’s War, Basic Books, p. 379-380
  11. ^ John Earl Haynes; Harvey Klehr (2005). In Denial: Historians, Communism & Espionage. Encounter Books. p. 212. ISBN 9781594030888.
  12. ^ a b , Time, 1953-11-23, archived from the original on February 6, 2008, retrieved 2006-10-03
  13. ^ Dietrich, John (2002), The Morgenthau Plan: Soviet Influence on American Postwar Policy, New York: Algora Publishing, p. 17, ISBN 1-892941-90-2, OCLC 49355870
  14. ^ Schecter, Jerrold; Leona Schecter (2002), Sacred Secrets: How Soviet Intelligence Operations Changed American History, Washington, DC: Brassey's, ISBN 1-57488-327-5, OCLC 48375744
  15. ^ Frederick H. Gareau "Morgenthau's Plan for Industrial Disarmament in Germany" The Western Political Quarterly, Vol. 14, No. 2 (Jun., 1961)
  16. ^ Donald Markwell, John Maynard Keynes and International Relations: Economic Paths to War and Peace, Oxford University Press, 2006
  17. ^ Benn Steil, The Battle of Bretton Woods: John Maynard Keynes, Harry Dexter White, and the Making of a New World Order (2013) p 2
  18. ^ Eric Helleiner, Forgotten Foundations of Bretton Woods: International Development and the Making of the Postwar Order (2014) p 3
  19. ^ See also Brad DeLong, "Review" (2002) 2009-10-14 at the Wayback Machine
  20. ^ Robert Skidelsky, John Maynard Keynes: Fighting for Britain, 1937–46 (2001) pp 337-74.
  21. ^ White, Harry Dexter (1945-11-30). "Untitled paper advocating "continued Peace and friendly relations with Russia"". Princeton University collection.
  22. ^ "Adolf Berle's Notes on his Meeting with Whittaker Chambers". www.johnearlhaynes.org. Retrieved Oct 20, 2022.
  23. ^ John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), p.90-91
  24. ^ Robert Skidelsky, John Maynard Keynes:Fighting for Britain, 1937-1946, Macmillan, London 2000 p.256
  25. ^ Weinstein, Allen (1978). Perjury: The Hiss–Chambers Case. Alfred A. Knopf. p. 346. ISBN 0-394-49546-2.
  26. ^ Spingarn, Stephen J.; Hess, Jerry N. (28 March 1967). "Oral History Interview with Stephen J. Spingarn (7)". Harry S. Truman Library & Museum. Retrieved 19 August 2017.
  27. ^ , 1948-08-03, archived from the original on 2010-07-21, retrieved 2006-10-03
  28. ^ FBI Memorandum identifying Harry Dexter White as agent Jurist
  29. ^ Chambers, Whittaker (May 1952). Witness. New York: Random House. pp. 29, 40, 67–68, 69, 70, 334, 370, 383–384, 405, 414–416, 470, 492, 500, 510–512, 544, 554, 600–601, 604, 723, 737, 738, 745. ISBN 9780895269157. LCCN 52005149.
  30. ^ a b c Chambers, David (21 May 2012). "The Baffling Harry White". History News Network (HNN). Retrieved 11 December 2019.
  31. ^ FBI file: Underground Soviet Espionage Organization (NKVD) in Agencies of the United States Government Archived 2012-07-18 at archive.today, October 21, 1946, p. 78-79 (PDF pp. 86-87)
  32. ^ Hoover to Vaughan, November 8, 1945, FBI Silvermaster file, Vol. 16 2011-07-26 at the Wayback Machine, PDF pp. 98 2011-07-26 at the Wayback Machine, 99 2011-07-26 at the Wayback Machine, 100 2011-07-26 at the Wayback Machine. Cf. Robert Louis Benson and Michael Warner, eds., Venona: Soviet Espionage and the American Response, 1939-1957 (Washington, D.C.: National Security Agency/Central Intelligence Agency, 1996), Document 15, pp. 69 2010-03-27 at the Wayback Machine, 70 2010-03-27 at the Wayback Machine, 71 2010-03-27 at the Wayback Machine
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  36. ^ Harry Dexter White 2011-07-26 at the Wayback Machine, PDF pp. 24-52
  37. ^ Robert Skidelsky, John Maynard Keynes: Fighting for Britain, 1937-1946, Macmillan, London 2000 p. 257
  38. ^ Robert G. Whalen (December 12, 1948). "Hiss and Chambers: Strange Story of Two Men". The New York Times.
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  40. ^ a b James C. Van Hook, "Treasonable Doubt: The Harry Dexter White Spy Case" 2020-08-23 at the Wayback Machine, Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 49, No. 1, 2005
  41. ^ a b Radosh, Ronald (February 24, 2003), "The Truth-Spiller", National Review, retrieved 2008-07-30, ... Bentley accused of providing stolen U.S. currency plates to the Soviets. (The plates were used to print unlimited amounts of occupation currency in the eastern zone of postwar Germany, sparking a black market and serious inflation throughout the occupied country.)
  42. ^ Henry Morgenthau, The Morgenthau Diaries, Book 732, pp. 97-99.
  43. ^ Bentley 1951, p. 141
  44. ^ Craig, Bruce (2004). Treasonable Doubt: The Harry Dexter White Spy Case. University Press of Kansas. pp. 17, 245. ISBN 978-0-7006-1311-3.
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  46. ^ Olmsted 2002, p. 186
  47. ^ Michael Warner, Red Spy Queen: A Biography of Elizabeth Bentley 2020-08-01 at the Wayback Machine, Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 47, No. 2, 2003
  48. ^ John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), p.96
  49. ^ Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB (London: Basic Books, 1999) ISBN 978-0-465-00310-5, p. 129
  50. ^ (Olmstead 2002, p. 45)
  51. ^ Schecter, Jerrold L. (2003), Sacred Secrets: How Soviet Intelligence Operations Changed American History, Potomac Books, p. 122, ISBN 1-57488-522-7
  52. ^ "Anne Terry White papers". de Grummond collection. University of Southern Mississippi.
  53. ^ Steil, Benn (2011). The Battle of Bretton Woods: John Maynard Keynes, Harry Dexter White, and the Making of a New World Order. p. 369. ISBN 978-1400846573.
  54. ^ , Time, August 30, 1948, archived from the original on July 7, 2009, retrieved 2008-07-30, Shortly after he had finished testifying before Congress, suffering from a bad heart, Harry White left Washington for a rest on his New Hampshire farm. He had just arrived there when he was stricken by another heart attack. Two days later, death came to Harry Dexter White, 56.
  55. ^ Victor Nevasky, Letters From Readers[permanent dead link]: "Harry Dexter White," Commentary, April 1988, p. 10 (Cf. David Rees, Harry Dexter White: A Study in Paradox (Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1973), ISBN 978-0-698-10524-9)
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  76. ^ Pinkham, Joan White (22 November 1998). "Defending Their Father". The New York Times. Retrieved 25 February 2013.
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Further reading

Primary sources

External links

  Media related to Harry Dexter White at Wikimedia Commons

  • "The Archival Evidence on Harry Dexter White", a summary of references to Harry White found in the Venona decryptions
  • John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, "Washing White: The Nation Persists in Espionage Denial", Washington Decoded, 11 August 2013
  • A film clip "Longines Chronoscope with Homer Ferguson" is available at the Internet Archive
  • Boughton, James M (September 1998), "Harry Dexter White and the International Monetary Fund", Finance & Development, International Monetary Fund
  • s:FBI Memorandum identifying Harry Dexter White as agent Jurist
  • Boughton, James M. (2001), The Case Against Harry Dexter White: Still Not Proven (PDF), International Monetary Fund, retrieved 2006-10-03

harry, dexter, white, october, 1892, august, 1948, senior, treasury, department, official, working, closely, with, secretary, treasury, henry, morgenthau, helped, american, financial, policy, toward, allies, world, later, accused, espionage, passing, informati. Harry Dexter White October 29 1892 August 16 1948 was a senior U S Treasury department official Working closely with the Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr he helped set American financial policy toward the Allies of World War II He was later accused of espionage by passing information to the Soviet Union 1 Harry Dexter WhiteHarry Dexter White left with John Maynard Keynes at the Bretton Woods ConferenceBorn 1892 10 29 October 29 1892Boston MassachusettsDiedAugust 16 1948 1948 08 16 aged 55 Fitzwilliam New HampshireEducationColumbia UniversityStanford UniversityHarvard UniversityOccupationEconomistEmployer s Lawrence UniversityU S Treasury departmentInternational Monetary FundKnown forBretton Woods agreement First U S Director of IMF 1946 47 SpouseAnne Terry WhiteChildrenJoan White Pinkham Ruth White LevitanParent s Jacob Weissnovitz Sarah MagilewskiHe was a senior American official at the 1944 Bretton Woods conference 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 the British representative who was the other main founder Through Bretton Woods White was a major architect of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank 2 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 3 added to the suspicions surrounding him Contents 1 Background 2 Treasury Department 2 1 Japan policy 2 2 Morgenthau Plan 2 3 Bretton Woods conference 3 Accusations of espionage 3 1 Chambers accusations 1939 1945 1948 3 2 Bentley accusations 1945 1948 1953 4 Personal life 5 Legacy 5 1 Accusations by Jenner and McCarthy 1953 5 2 Venona project 5 3 Assessments of Soviet involvement 6 See also 7 References 8 Further reading 8 1 Primary sources 9 External linksBackground EditHarry 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 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 where he taught for four years while studying for his Ph D which he completed in 1932 at 40 years of age White then taught for two years at Lawrence College in Appleton Wisconsin His PhD dissertation won the David A Wells Prize granted annually by the Harvard University Department of Economics Harvard University Press published his Ph D thesis in 1933 as The French International Accounts 1880 1913 4 Treasury Department Edit White in 1939 while working for the U S Treasury In 1934 Jacob Viner 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 5 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 2 Japan policy Edit 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 6 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 7 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 8 9 10 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 on all matters bearing on foreign relations He was also made responsible for the Exchange Stabilization Fund 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 11 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 and prevent another worldwide depression As head of the independently funded Office of Monetary Research 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 12 Morgenthau Plan Edit According to Henry Morgenthau s son White was the principal architect behind the Morgenthau Plan designed to permanently weaken Germany s military capabilities 13 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 and the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill at the Second Quebec Conference 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 14 Public protests forced Roosevelt to publicly and partially pull back The Nazis and Joseph Goebbels 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 15 Bretton Woods conference Edit White was the senior American official at the 1944 Bretton Woods conference and reportedly dominated the conference and imposed his vision over the objections of John Maynard Keynes the British representative 12 16 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 made up of foreign exchange reserves held by central banks Benn Steil in 2013 argued that since 1971 experts have been disillusioned with the 1944 framework 17 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 18 19 20 After the war White was closely involved with setting up what were called the Bretton Woods institutions the International Monetary Fund IMF and the World Bank 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 21 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 citation needed Accusations of espionage EditChambers accusations 1939 1945 1948 Edit On September 2 1939 Assistant Secretary of State and Roosevelt s adviser on internal security Adolf Berle had a meeting arranged by journalist Isaac Don Levine with defecting Soviet agent Whittaker Chambers In his notes of that meeting written later that night Levine listed a series of names including a Mr White 22 Berle s notes of the meeting contain no mention of White 23 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 as late as 1942 24 also dismissed Chambers revelations as history hypothesis or deduction On March 20 1945 State Department 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 25 In Spring 1948 Truman aide Stephen J Spingarn questioned Whittaker Chambers 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 26 Chambers subsequently testified on August 3 1948 to his association with White in the Communist underground secret apparatus up to 1938 27 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 established that it was written in White s handwriting 28 Chambers stated however that White was the least productive of his contacts 29 Chambers said of White His motives always baffled me a point later underscored by grandson David Chambers 30 Bentley accusations 1945 1948 1953 Edit On November 7 1945 defecting Soviet espionage courier Elizabeth Bentley told investigators of the Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI that in late 1942 or early 1943 she learned from Soviet spies Nathan Gregory Silvermaster and Ludwig Ullmann that one source of the government documents they were photographing and passing on to her and NKVD spymaster Jacob Golos was Harry Dexter White 31 The next day FBI Director J Edgar Hoover sent a hand delivered letter to Truman s Military Aide Gen Harry Vaughan at the White House 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 32 The FBI summarized the Bentley information and in its follow up investigation on the suspects she named again including White 33 in a report entitled Soviet Espionage in the United States 34 which was sent to the White House the Attorney General and the State Department on December 4 1945 35 Six weeks later on January 23 1946 Truman nominated White as U S Director of the International Monetary Fund The FBI responded with a 28 page memo specifically on White and his contacts received by the White House on February 4 1946 36 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 37 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 Tom Clark ordered a Federal grand jury investigation of the Bentley charges 38 On July 31 1948 Bentley told the House Committee on Un American Activities that White had been involved in espionage activities on behalf of Soviet Union during World War II 39 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 in occupied Germany to the Soviets who thereupon printed currency with abandon 40 sparking a black market and serious inflation throughout the occupied country 41 costing the U S a quarter of a billion dollars 42 However the alternative explanation is that Treasury officials feared that denying Soviet use of the plates in their occupation sector would endanger postwar cooperation 40 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 43 Bentley had not previously mentioned this to the FBI or to any of the committees grand juries 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 44 In her 1953 testimony before Joseph McCarthy s Senate subcommittee she elaborated testifying that she was following instructions from NKVD New York rezident Iskhak Abdulovich Akhmerov who operated under the cover name Bill to pass word through Ludwig Ullmann and Nathan Gregory Silvermaster for White to put the pressure on for the delivery of the plates to Russia 45 This is the only case in which Bentley biographer Kathryn Olmstead concluded that Bentley was lying about her role 41 citing historian Bruce Craig s conclusion that the whole scheme was a complete fabrication 46 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 head of the American desk of the NKVD for which Bentley worked 47 cites a report from New York where Bentley was based 48 from April 14 1944 when Bentley was running the Silvermaster group 49 50 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 51 Personal life EditIn 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 52 53 On August 13 1948 White testified before HUAC and denied being a communist After he finished testifying he had a heart attack He left Washington for a rest on his Fitzwilliam New Hampshire farm He had just arrived when he had another heart attack 54 Two days later on August 16 1948 he died age 55 55 56 Spurious allegations later made it look as if an overdose of digoxin was the cause of death 57 Legacy EditAccusations by Jenner and McCarthy 1953 EditSenator William Jenner s Interlocking Subversion in Government Departments Investigation by the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee 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 and was published as the Morgenthau Diary China 58 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 58 failed verification 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 and Christianity In 1953 Senator Joseph McCarthy and Eisenhower administration Attorney General Herbert Brownell Jr 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 59 Although he does not dispute that the FBI sent these and other warnings to Truman Sen Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote in his introduction to the 1997 Moynihan Commission report on government secrecy that Truman was never informed of Venona 60 In support of this he cited a statement from the official NSA CIA history of Venona that no definitive evidence has emerged to show that Truman was informed of Venona 61 Venona project Edit NSA cryptographers identified Harry Dexter White as the source denoted in the Venona decrypts at various times under the code names Lawyer 62 Richard 63 and Jurist 64 Two years after his death in a memorandum dated October 15 1950 White was positively identified by the FBI through evidence gathered by the Venona project as a Soviet source code named Jurist 3 Years later the Justice Department 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 Venona regarding Jurist who was active during 1944 According to the previous information received from Venona regarding Jurist during April 1944 he had reported on conversations between the then Secretary of State Hull and Vice President Wallace 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 citation needed This codename was confirmed by the notes of KGB archivist Vasili Nikitich Mitrokhin in which six key Soviet agents are named Harry Dexter White is listed as being first KASSIR and later JURIST 65 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 66 at a time when inflation was spiraling out of control 67 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 67 68 In 1997 the bipartisan Moynihan Commission on Government Secrecy chaired by Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan stated 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 69 Further evidence of White s complicity as a Soviet agent was gleaned from Soviet archives and KGB operative Alexander Vassiliev 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 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 70 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 citation needed Assessments of Soviet involvement EditIn 2000 Robert Skidelsky 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 71 In 2004 Stephen Schlesinger 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 72 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 Andrew Vassiliev 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 73 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 30 In 2013 Benn Steil 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 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 74 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 75 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 76 In 2012 Joan White Pinkam wrote I write to protest that in Benn Steil s April 9 Op Ed article Banker Tailor Soldier Spy 77 old allegations of espionage against my father Harry Dexter White are once again repeated as fact 78 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 30 See also EditSvetlana Chervonnaya List of American spies John Abt Noel Field John Herrmann Donald Hiss J Peters Ward Pigman Lee Pressman Vincent Reno Julian Wadleigh Harold Ware Nathaniel Weyl Nathan WittReferences Edit Sam Tanenhaus 2011 Whittaker Chambers A Biography Random House p 153 ISBN 9780307789266 a b Boughton James M 2021 Harry White and the American Creed How a Federal Bureaucrat Created the Modern Global Economy and Failed to Get the Credit Yale University Press doi 10 2307 j ctv1zvcd08 ISBN 978 0 300 25379 5 JSTOR j ctv1zvcd08 S2CID 244191116 a b FBI Memorandum identifying Harry Dexter White as agent Jurist 1950 10 16 retrieved 2006 10 03 James M Boughton Harry Dexter White and the International Monetary Fund Finance and Development 35 3 1998 39 University Dates amp Milestones Lawrence University www lawrence edu Retrieved Oct 20 2022 William Langer and Everett Gleason The Undeclared War 1953 pp 875 901 Blum The Morgenthau diaries years of Urgency 1938 1941 1965 pp 384 86 John Koster Operation Snow How a Soviet Mole in FDR s White House Triggered Pearl Harbor Regnery Publishing 2012 esp Ch 5 The May Memorandum Steil Benn 2013 The Battle of Bretton Woods John Maynard Keynes Harry Dexter White and the Making of a New World Order Princeton University Press p 55 56 Sean McMeekin 2021 Stalin s War Basic Books p 379 380 John Earl Haynes Harvey Klehr 2005 In Denial Historians Communism amp Espionage Encounter Books p 212 ISBN 9781594030888 a b One Man s Greed Time 1953 11 23 archived from the original on February 6 2008 retrieved 2006 10 03 Dietrich John 2002 The Morgenthau Plan Soviet Influence on American Postwar Policy New York Algora Publishing p 17 ISBN 1 892941 90 2 OCLC 49355870 Schecter Jerrold Leona Schecter 2002 Sacred Secrets How Soviet Intelligence Operations Changed American History Washington DC Brassey s ISBN 1 57488 327 5 OCLC 48375744 Frederick H Gareau Morgenthau s Plan for Industrial Disarmament in Germany The Western Political Quarterly Vol 14 No 2 Jun 1961 Donald Markwell John Maynard Keynes and International Relations Economic Paths to War and Peace Oxford University Press 2006 Benn Steil The Battle of Bretton Woods John Maynard Keynes Harry Dexter White and the Making of a New World Order 2013 p 2 Eric Helleiner Forgotten Foundations of Bretton Woods International Development and the Making of the Postwar Order 2014 p 3 See also Brad DeLong Review 2002 Archived 2009 10 14 at the Wayback Machine Robert Skidelsky John Maynard Keynes Fighting for Britain 1937 46 2001 pp 337 74 White Harry Dexter 1945 11 30 Untitled paper advocating continued Peace and friendly relations with Russia Princeton University collection Adolf Berle s Notes on his Meeting with Whittaker Chambers www johnearlhaynes org Retrieved Oct 20 2022 John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr Venona Decoding Soviet Espionage in America New Haven Yale University Press 1999 p 90 91 Robert Skidelsky John Maynard Keynes Fighting for Britain 1937 1946 Macmillan London 2000 p 256 Weinstein Allen 1978 Perjury The Hiss Chambers Case Alfred A Knopf p 346 ISBN 0 394 49546 2 Spingarn Stephen J Hess Jerry N 28 March 1967 Oral History Interview with Stephen J Spingarn 7 Harry S Truman Library amp Museum Retrieved 19 August 2017 Testimony of Whittaker Chambers before the House Committee on Un American Activities 1948 08 03 archived from the original on 2010 07 21 retrieved 2006 10 03 FBI Memorandum identifying Harry Dexter White as agent Jurist Chambers Whittaker May 1952 Witness New York Random House pp 29 40 67 68 69 70 334 370 383 384 405 414 416 470 492 500 510 512 544 554 600 601 604 723 737 738 745 ISBN 9780895269157 LCCN 52005149 a b c Chambers David 21 May 2012 The Baffling Harry White History News Network HNN Retrieved 11 December 2019 FBI file Underground Soviet Espionage Organization NKVD in Agencies of the United States Government Archived 2012 07 18 at archive today October 21 1946 p 78 79 PDF pp 86 87 Hoover to Vaughan November 8 1945 FBI Silvermaster file Vol 16 Archived 2011 07 26 at the Wayback Machine PDF pp 98 Archived 2011 07 26 at the Wayback Machine 99 Archived 2011 07 26 at the Wayback Machine 100 Archived 2011 07 26 at the Wayback Machine Cf Robert Louis Benson and Michael Warner eds Venona Soviet Espionage and the American Response 1939 1957 Washington D C National Security Agency Central Intelligence Agency 1996 Document 15 pp 69 Archived 2010 03 27 at the Wayback Machine 70 Archived 2010 03 27 at the Wayback Machine 71 Archived 2010 03 27 at the Wayback Machine Archived copy PDF Archived from the original PDF on 2011 07 26 Retrieved 2010 07 25 a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a CS1 maint archived copy as title link p 47 PDF p 45 Archived copy PDF Archived from the original PDF on 2011 07 26 Retrieved 2010 07 25 a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a CS1 maint archived copy as title link FBI memo Harry Dexter White Archived 2011 07 26 at the Wayback Machine PDF p 54 Harry Dexter White Archived 2011 07 26 at the Wayback Machine PDF pp 24 52 Robert Skidelsky John Maynard Keynes Fighting for Britain 1937 1946 Macmillan London 2000 p 257 Robert G Whalen December 12 1948 Hiss and Chambers Strange Story of Two Men The New York Times Elizabeth Bentley Deposition FBI Silvermaster file PDF FBI s FOIA Website 1948 07 31 archived from the original PDF on 2007 03 06 retrieved 2006 10 03 a b James C Van Hook Treasonable Doubt The Harry Dexter White Spy Case Archived 2020 08 23 at the Wayback Machine Studies in Intelligence Vol 49 No 1 2005 a b Radosh Ronald February 24 2003 The Truth Spiller National Review retrieved 2008 07 30 Bentley accused of providing stolen U S currency plates to the Soviets The plates were used to print unlimited amounts of occupation currency in the eastern zone of postwar Germany sparking a black market and serious inflation throughout the occupied country Henry Morgenthau The Morgenthau Diaries Book 732 pp 97 99 Bentley 1951 p 141harvnb error no target CITEREFBentley1951 help Craig Bruce 2004 Treasonable Doubt The Harry Dexter White Spy Case University Press of Kansas pp 17 245 ISBN 978 0 7006 1311 3 Testimony of Elizabeth Bentley S Prt 107 84 Executive Sessions of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Government Operations McCarthy Hearings 1953 54 Vol 4 p 3427 Olmsted 2002 p 186harvnb error no target CITEREFOlmsted2002 help Michael Warner Red Spy Queen A Biography of Elizabeth Bentley Archived 2020 08 01 at the Wayback Machine Studies in Intelligence Vol 47 No 2 2003 John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr Venona Decoding Soviet Espionage in America New Haven Yale University Press 1999 p 96 Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin The Sword and the Shield The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB London Basic Books 1999 ISBN 978 0 465 00310 5 p 129 Olmstead 2002 p 45 harv error no target CITEREFOlmstead2002 help Schecter Jerrold L 2003 Sacred Secrets How Soviet Intelligence Operations Changed American History Potomac Books p 122 ISBN 1 57488 522 7 Anne Terry White papers de Grummond collection University of Southern Mississippi Steil Benn 2011 The Battle of Bretton Woods John Maynard Keynes Harry Dexter White and the Making of a New World Order p 369 ISBN 978 1400846573 Categorical Denial Time August 30 1948 archived from the original on July 7 2009 retrieved 2008 07 30 Shortly after he had finished testifying before Congress suffering from a bad heart Harry White left Washington for a rest on his New Hampshire farm He had just arrived there when he was stricken by another heart attack Two days later death came to Harry Dexter White 56 Victor Nevasky Letters From Readers permanent dead link Harry Dexter White Commentary April 1988 p 10 Cf David Rees Harry Dexter White A Study in Paradox Coward McCann amp Geoghegan 1973 ISBN 978 0 698 10524 9 Harry Dexter White Accused In Spy Inquiry Dies at 56 The Washington Post August 18 1948 retrieved 2008 04 04 Harry Dexter White former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury accused of Soviet espionage activity during the current spy hearings at Washington died unexpectedly at his Fitzwilliam New Hampshire summer home late yesterday it was disclosed today Edwards Willard November 29 1949 Hiss spy paper linked to late treasury aid Chicago Daily Tribune p 1 Retrieved April 6 2019 via Newspapers com a b Records of the Morgenthau Diary Study 1953 65 Guide to the Records of the U S Senate at the National Archives Record Group 46 The Center for Legislative Archives retrieved 2006 10 03 The White Case Record Time 1953 11 30 archived from the original on September 30 2007 retrieved 2006 10 03 Moynihan Daniel Patrick 1997 Chairman s Forward PDF Moynihan Commission on Government Secrecy retrieved August 21 2012 Robert Louis Benson and Michael Warner eds VENONA Soviet Espionage and the American Response 1939 1957 Washington D C National Security Agency Central Intelligence Agency 1996 xxiv 1251 KGB New York to Moscow 2 September 1944 p 2 Archived from the original on Sep 9 2010 Retrieved Oct 20 2022 83 KGB New York to Moscow 18 January 1945 p 1 Archived from the original on 2007 11 29 Retrieved 2007 10 16 Robert J Hanyok Eavesdropping on Hell Historical Guide to Western Communications Intelligence and the Holocaust 1939 1945 Washington DC Center for Cryptologic History National Security Agency 2005 2nd Ed p 119 PDF page 124 Andrew Christoper Vasili Mitrokhin 1999 The Sword and the Shield The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB New York Basic Books pp 106 ISBN 0 465 00310 9 Robert Skidelsky John Maynard Keynes Fighting for Britain 1937 1946 Macmillan London 2000 p 261 a b Haynes John Earl Harvey Klehr 2000 Venona Decoding Soviet Espionage in America New Haven Yale University Press pp 142 145 ISBN 0 300 08462 5 OCLC 44694569 FBI Documents of Historic Interest re Venona That Are Referenced in Daniel Moynihan s Book Secrecy PDF FBI s FOIA Website p 17 retrieved 2006 10 03 Appendix A SECRECY A Brief Account of the American Experience PDF Report Of The Commission On Protecting And Reducing Government Secrecy United States Government Printing Office pp A 37 1997 archived from the original PDF on 2007 06 29 retrieved 2006 10 03 Weinstein Allen Alexander Vassiliev 1999 The Haunted Wood Soviet Espionage in America The Stalin Era New York Modern Library ISBN 0 375 75536 5 OCLC 43680047 Robert Skidelsky John Maynard Keynes Fighting for Britain 1937 1946 Macmillan London 2000 p 265 Schlesinger Stephen E 2004 Act of Creation the Founding of the United Nations A story of Superpowers Secret Agents Wartime Allies and Enemies and Their Quest for a Peaceful World Cambridge Massachusetts Westview Perseus Books Group p 108 ISBN 0 8133 3275 3 Craig Bruce 12 April 2012 Setting the Record Straight Harry Dexter White and Soviet Espionage History News Network HNN Archived from the original on 2013 07 09 Retrieved 25 February 2013 Steil Benn 2013 The Battle of Bretton Woods John Maynard Keynes Harry Dexter White and the Making of a New World Order Princeton University Press pp 4 23 ISBN 9780691149097 Retrieved 25 February 2013 Pinkham Joan White Levitan Ruth 11 November 1990 In McCarthy Era TV Networks Cowered The White Case The New York Times Retrieved 25 February 2013 Pinkham Joan White 22 November 1998 Defending Their Father The New York Times Retrieved 25 February 2013 Steil Benn 22 April 2012 Banker Tailor Soldier Spy The New York Times Retrieved 11 December 2019 Pinkham Joan White 22 April 2012 A Case From the Cold War The New York Times Retrieved 25 February 2013 Further reading EditCraig Bruce 2004 Treasonable Doubt The Harry Dexter White Spy Case University Press of Kansas pp 17 245 ISBN 978 0700613113 Haynes John Earl Harvey Klehr 2003 In Denial Historians Communism amp Espionage San Francisco Encounter Books ISBN 1893554724 OCLC 52258223 Steil Benn 2013 The Battle of Bretton Woods John Maynard Keynes Harry Dexter White and the Making of a New World Order Princeton University Press ISBN 978 0691149097 Steil Benn March April 2013 Red White Foreign Affairs Vol 92 No 2 Weinstein Allen 1978 Perjury The Hiss Chambers Case Alfred A Knopf ISBN 0394495462 Weinstein Allen Alexander Vassiliev 1999 The Haunted Wood Soviet Espionage in America The Stalin Era New York Modern Library ISBN 0375755365 OCLC 43680047 Primary sources Edit Chambers Whittaker 1952 Witness New York Random House p 799 LCCN 52005149 Andrew Christoper Vasili Mitrokhin 1999 The Sword and the Shield The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB New York Basic Books pp 106 ISBN 0465003109 Vassiliev Alexander 2009 Alexander Vassiliev s Notes on Anatoly Gorsky s December 1948 Memo on Compromised American Sources and Networks retrieved 2012 04 21External links Edit Media related to Harry Dexter White at Wikimedia Commons The Archival Evidence on Harry Dexter White a summary of references to Harry White found in the Venona decryptions John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr Washing White The Nation Persists in Espionage Denial Washington Decoded 11 August 2013 A film clip Longines Chronoscope with Homer Ferguson is available at the Internet Archive Boughton James M September 1998 Harry Dexter White and the International Monetary Fund Finance amp Development International Monetary Fund s FBI Memorandum identifying Harry Dexter White as agent Jurist Boughton James M 2001 The Case Against Harry Dexter White Still Not Proven PDF International Monetary Fund retrieved 2006 10 03 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Harry Dexter White amp oldid 1144737167, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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