Harry Dexter White

Who was Harry Dexter White?

Harry Dexter White was an American economist, senior U.S. Treasury department official, and an active agent of Soviet espionage. He was the senior American official at the 1944 Bretton Woods conference. He dominated the conference and imposed his vision of post-war financial institutions over the objections of John Maynard Keynes, the British representative. After the war, White was a major architect of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

White was accused in 1948 of being a spy for the Soviet Union. In August 1948, White testified and defended his record to the House Un-American Activities Committee. Three days after testifying he died of a heart attack. Historians state that newly opened Soviet records show he passed secret state information to the Soviets during World War II. Benn Steil, director of international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations, says White acted out of idealism, not as a member of the Communist Party, "not simply because he believed that the Soviet Union was a vital U.S. ally but because he also believed passionately in the success of the bold Soviet experiment with socialism." Steil says White was not a Communist party member, because, "White would not take orders from Moscow. He worked on his own terms. He joined no underground movements."