Harry Dexter White

Harry Dexter White
Harry Dexter White (left) with John Maynard Keynes at the Bretton Woods Conference
Born	(1892-10-09)October 9, 1892 Boston, Massachusetts
Died	August 16, 1948(1948-08-16) (aged 55) Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire
Education	Columbia University Stanford University Harvard University
Occupation	Economist
Employer	Lawrence University U.S. Treasury department International Monetary Fund
Known for	Bretton Woods agreement First U.S. Director of IMF (1946-47)
Spouse(s)	Anne Terry White
Children	Joan White Pinkham, Ruth White Levitan
Parent(s)	Joseph Weit Sarah Magilewski

Harry Dexter White (October 9, 1892 – August 16, 1948) was an American economist and 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 while at the same time he passed numerous secrets to the Soviet Union. He was the senior American official at the 1944 Bretton Woods conference, that established the postwar economic order. He dominated the conference and imposed his vision of post-war financial institutions over the objections of John Maynard Keynes, the British representative. At Bretton Woods, White was a major architect of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

White was accused in 1948 of spying for the Soviet Union, which he adamantly denied, and then suddenly died of a heart attack. His guilt was later confirmed by declassified FBI documents related to the interception and decoding of Soviet communications, known as the Venona Project.

Harry Dexter White was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the seventh and youngest child of Jewish Lithuanian immigrants, Joseph Weit and Sarah Magilewski, who had settled in America in 1885. In 1917 he enlisted in the U.S. Army, and was commissioned as lieutenant and served in France in a non-combat capacity in World War I. He did not begin his university studies until age 30, first at Columbia University, then at Stanford, where he earned a first degree in economics. After completing a Ph.D. in economics at Harvard University at 38 years of age, White taught four years at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin. Harvard University Press published his Ph.D. thesis in 1933, as The French International Accounts, 1880–1913. His PhD dissertation won the David A. Wells Prize granted annually by the Department of Economics, Harvard University.