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Re Melvin Reder's discussion in his HOPE article of Keynes's alleged 
anti-semitism, J Barclay Rosser writes: 
 
>     The evidence on Keynes has long and quite 
>publicly been known.  I am unaware of anybody 
>seriously attempting to defend Keynes on this issue, 
>other than to note his actions to help out certain Jewish 
>scholars.  He was indeed capable not merely of making 
>lots of nasty and public anti-Semitic remarks, which he 
>did, but it even affected his interactions at the policy 
>level on occasion, most famously in the negotiations at 
>Bretton Woods, where by all reports his abreaction to 
>the (Jewish) US delegates, White (who was also ironically 
>by most reports a secret Soviet agent) and Bernstein 
>actually complicated the rather difficult negotiations, 
>although one might argue that what had Keynes really 
>bothered was the fact that at this conference it was really 
>clear that the US was in charge rather than the UK, and 
>that White and Bernstein as the bearers of this unpleasant 
>for Keynes message thus received his wrath in all its forms. 
 
I should like to endorse the rather different view of Keynes's relations 
with Harry Dexter White in the following extract from Brad DeLong's 
insightful review (cf. his website: www.j-bradford-delong.net) of Robert 
Skidelsky's third volume on Keynes. Inter alia he writes: 
 
      What about American malevolence seeking to 
      cripple Britain? It is only fair to 
      counterbalance Skidelsky's view of Harry 
      Dexter White--a complex man, Russian agent of 
      influence, New Dealer, ruthless bureaucratic 
      infighter, accomplished technocrat, and 
      co-architect of the post-World War II 
      international monetary system that played a 
      key role in giving the world economy its 
      fastest generation of growth ever--with John 
      Maynard Keynes's view (p. 323): "With Harry 
      White, as you may suppose, we have been 
      spending a vast amount of time... 
      over-bearing, a bad colleague, always trying 
      to bounce you, aesthetically oppressive... 
      not the faintest conception of how to 
      behave.... At the same time, I have a very 
      great respect and even liking for him. A very 
      able and devoted public servant, carrying an 
      immense burden of responsibility and 
      initiative, of high integrity and of 
      clear-sighted idealistic international 
      purpose, genuinely intending to do his best 
      for the world. Moreover, his over-powering 
      will combined with the fact that he has 
      constructive ideas mean that he does get 
      things done, which few here do. The way to 
      reach him is to respect his purpose, arouse 
      his intellectual interest (it is a great 
      softener to intercourse that it is easy to 
      arouse his genuine interest in the merits of 
      any issue), and to tell him very frankly and 
      firmly without finesse when he has gone off 
      the rails..." 
 
      Keynes's true adversary wasn't Harry Dexter 
      White. His true adversaries were those who 
      feared any form of international financial 
      management, or those who wanted tight 
      controls over all international economic 
      transactions. But Skidelsky does not see 
      this... 
 
Note too that Keynes had similarly abrasive relations with non-Jews such as 
White House aide Lauchlin Currie - a close friend of Harry White's and who, 
incidentally, has hotly disputed Keynes's portrayal of White as someone who 
was "aesthetically oppressive", etc - at Bretton Woods and in the 
Anglo-American loan negotiations. This (reciprocal) abrasiveness is 
understandable not in terms of race and religion but because Keynes was 
such a doughty defender of British interests, while Currie (and the others) 
were equally properly defending US interests (and, by keeping Congress 
sweet, also incidentally doing more for Britain than Keynes appreciated). 
 
I also want to correct the widespread, much publicised impression (alluded 
to in Barclay's post) that Harry White was a Soviet spy who, in Skidelsky's 
words, "wanted to cripple Britain in order to clear the ground for a 
post-war Anglo-Soviet alliance" (p.xx). There is on this a comprehensive 
defence of White by James Boughton of the IMF in the current (June) issue 
of HOPE. I have a similar piece in HOPE Fall 2000 that shows that the 
allegations of disloyalty against Lauchlin Currie (an Angophile, but who 
supported FDR's administration line on British imperialism) are equally 
specious. 
    
Roger Sandilands 
 
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