WHITE, HARRY D.

WHITE, HARRY D. (1892–1948), U.S. economist. Born in Boston, Mass., White spent his early years in his father's hardware business, and for several years taught on Sunday mornings at the Home for Jewish Children in Dorchester. After serving overseas during World War i, White became head of Corner House, a settlement house in New York City, and worked as director of a summer camp for boys. While studying for his doctorate at Harvard, he was an instructor in economics; from 1932 to 1934 he taught at Lawrence College in Wisconsin.

White moved to Washington in 1934 to serve as a financial expert at the U.S. Treasury. He became the chief economic analyst for the U.S. Tariff Commission, but soon returned to the Treasury Department to serve as the principal economic analyst in the division of research and statistics, and in 1936 as assistant director of research. In 1938 White was made director of monetary research. His monetary proposals were accepted as the basis for the Bretton Woods Conference, attended by representatives of 44 nations. The "White Plan," which was accepted over the "Keynes Plan," called for the establishment of international trade based on the gold monetary unit. White became assistant secretary of the Treasury in charge of monetary research and foreign funds control in 1945 and the following year was made U.S. executive director of the International Monetary Fund. While in the Treasury Department, he managed the currency stabilization fund, represented the Treasury at committee meetings of the Economic Defense Board, and was a trustee of the Export-Import Bank. He is considered the author of the "Morgenthau Plan" for dealing with postwar Germany, and of other postwar economic plans. White was accused of giving information to a wartime Soviet spy ring and of pushing certain employees toward positions in government in which they would have access to information. He endured a congressional investigation while suffering from heart trouble, which was greatly aggravated by the strain of the sessions, and he died before the investigations had been concluded. White wrote The French International Accounts: 1880 – 1913 (1933) and he updated F.W. Taussig's Some Aspects of the Tariff Question (1934³).

bibliography:

N.I. White, Harry Dexter White; Loyal American (1956); New York Times (Aug. 18, 1948).