Harry Dexter White

Harry Dexter White (October 29, 1892 – August 16, 1948) was an American government official in the United States Department of the Treasury. 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, an allegation which was confirmed after his death, which was a suicide shortly after testifying before Congress.

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.

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, passed sensitive and classified documents to people he knew were agents of the Soviet Union, and influenced policy which benefitted the Soviet Union, including maneuvering to enable the Pearl Harbor attacks. This evidence came to light prior to his death via decoded Soviet cables in the Venona Project, and later with the opening of Soviet archives in the 1990s.