Book Review - Harry Dexter White

David Rees’ biography of Harry Dexter White, published in 1973, understandably does not include information that has come to light in the succeeding decades.  To his credit Rees comes to the conclusion that White was at least a “fellow traveler.”  Whether White was a “fellow traveler” or a card carrying Communist or simply extremely incompetent is irrelevant.  The important thing is what resulted from the policies he so successfully advocated.

Rees comes to the opposite conclusion of John Haynes and Harvey Klehr about Communist agents influencing U.S. policy.  Klehr has stated, "In our more than twenty years of archivally based research on Soviet espionage in America, we have uncovered ample documentation of Soviet intelligence obtaining American technical, military, and diplomatic information but very little indicating successful policy manipulation."  In an interview  Haynes stated, “Soviet manipulation of American policy—which by the way Soviet intelligence agencies didn’t do that. They were into intelligence, not policy manipulation. And there are sensible reasons for that—but that’s another question.”  Rees make several references to Communist efforts to manipulate policy.  As an example: “During 1936 an “elite group,” composed of promising officials who were expected to rise in the government service, was detached from this parent group (the Ware group.)  Its paramount objectives at that time were “power and influence” rather than active espionage.”  He quotes Whitticar Chambers, “The power to influence policy has always been the ultimate purpose of the Communist Party’s infiltration.  It was much more dangerous, and, as events have proved, much more difficult to detect, than espionage, which beside it was trivial, though the two go hand in hand.”  Haynes and Klehr are two of the leading scholars in this field.  It is curious that they were willing to damage their reputations by making such a claim.

Rees contends that White was not it a position to guide U.S. policy: “So far from being able to work on a high level to propel the United States into a war with Japan, so diminishing the possibility of a Japanese attack on the Soviet Union, White was certainly not part of the policy-making process at this time, as has been noted.”  Yet he wrote, “Some of White’s suggestions were incorporated in the final ‘ultimatum,’ as it was regarded in Tokyo, which was given by Secretary of State Cordell Hull to the Japanese envoys on November 26, 1941.”  It would later be discovered that these suggestions originated in Moscow.

Rees covers White’s role in the formulation of the Morgenthau Plan.  He appears to accept the fact that JCS 1067, the policy for occupation of Germany, was based on the Morgenthau Plan.  He quotes Walter Dorn, “Treasury representatives declared that the original White Memorandum had been approved by the President.  Thus it happened that the original version of JCS 1067 became largely a Treasury document.  It literally decreed, as a State Department official put it, economic chaos.”  White was a outstanding economist.  He knew exactly what the results of chaos would be.  Philip Mosely commented, “Such a policy outlined by White would drive the Germans into dependence on the Soviet Union.”  This would result in the rest of Europe falling under Soviet control.  White was almost successful.  By 1947 both France and Italy were on the verge of electing Communist governments.  This led to the Marshall Plan and the recovery of the European economy.