The fullest discussion of the allegation that Harry White was acting as a Soviet agent in regard to the Adminstration's decision in 1944 to give German occupation-currency plates to the Russians is by Bruce Craig, _Treasonable Doubt: The Harry Dexter White Spy Case_ (University Press of Kansas, 2004, ch.5). Craig concludes that "there was nothing surreptitious or duplicitous in White's statements or actions" (p.132).
Craig also cites John Morton Blum (_From the Morgenthau Diaries: Years of War_, 1967): "The decision about the duplicate plates subordinated technical to military and political judgments. It was not primarily White's decision... All of them [Treasury, State and War Departments; the Combined Chiefs of Staff; and the British government] were dedicated to the advancement of their common hope for successful cooperation among the Russians, the British and the Americans throughout the postwar world, not least in Germany" (p.134).
However, soon the Grand Alliance segued into Cold War, and even today many view the Grand Alliance inordinately through the latter lenses.
Regarding White's 1930s advice on Chinese silver stocks (and lessons for today) see James Boughton, "New Light on Harry Dexter White," Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 26:2 (2004) and Benn Steil (2010) at http://www.cfr.org/publication/22498/lessons_from_the_1930s_for_a_rising_renminbi.html 
Roger Sandilands
University of Strathclyde, Glasgow
________________________________
From: Societies for the History of Economics [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of M June Flanders [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, December 08, 2010 5:54 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [SHOE] Was Pigou a Bolshevik spy?
A small addendum to the discussion regarding Harry  Dexter  White:  I was told by a reliable source that what he was accused of was not spying but giving the Russians the plates for the currency the US Army was issuing in Germany.   Less reliable rumors have it that he was somehow meddling with the Chinese silver stocks.
Professor M June Flanders
The Eitan Berglas School of Economics
Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv  Israel 69978
Tel:   +972.3.549.5625
Fax   +972.3.547.7316
[log in to unmask]
-----Original Message-----
From: Societies for the History of Economics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Matias Vernengo
Sent: Wednesday, December 08, 2010 6:55 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [SHOE] Was Pigou a Bolshevik spy?
Roger:
I'm glad that you remind some in this debate that there is strong indication that both Currie and White were not Soviet agents, and that the evidence from Soviet files should be taken with a certain dose of skepticism.  In the case of White some people seem invested in affirming his culpability, and selectively use the evidence that fits their prejudices.  Regarding Marie's comments I would agree that in the Roosevelt administration a wide spectrum of views were welcomed.  However, one should not make it sound as if it was a period devoid of conflict, and pro-bussiness groups, led by the Du Pont family for example, were heavily antagonistic. In that sense, I would say that today the problem is not that the spectrum of political views in the administration is narrow  (and it is to some extent), but that progressive/liberal views are now and have been underrepresented since the 1960s.  I tend to believe that the sort of red scare about the New Deal economists played a role in the reduced role of liberal economists in democratic administrations.
Best,
Matías
Matías Vernengo
Associate Professor
University of Utah
260 Central Campus Drive, Room 371
Salt Lake City, UT 84112
(801) 349-9462
________________________________________

From: Societies for the History of Economics [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Roger Sandilands [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, December 08, 2010 12:29 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [SHOE] Was Pigou a Bolshevik spy?
A propos Samuel Bostaph's tendentious post suggesting that Churchill and Roosevelt should be put in the dock alongside Lauchlin Currie (presumably for helping our Russian allies), list members may wish to look at my entry on Currie in the New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics for its brief discussion of the Currie case, and for the references there to my papers (one with Jim Boughton, historian of the IMF) on the Currie and White cases.
Inter alia, my Palgrave article includes the passage below. No doubt some will dismiss the testimony of an ex-KGB official as worthless. But if so, they should be equally sceptical of Oleg Gordievsky.
   The related cases of Currie and White are discussed in Sandilands (2000) and Boughton and Sandilands (2003), where it is shown that the evidence against them is far from conclusive. After reading the latter paper, Major-General Julius Kobyakov, deputy director of the KGB's American desk in the late 1980s, wrote to the present writer on 22 December 2003 to confirm our conclusions. After extensive archival research on Soviet intelligence in the 1930s and 1940s he found that
    ...there was nothing in [Currie's] file to suggest that he had ever wittingly collaborated with the Soviet intelligence. However, in the spirit of machismo, many people claimed that we had an 'agent' in the White House. Among the members of my profession there is a sacramental question: 'Does he know that he is our agent?' There is very strong indication that neither Currie nor White knew that.
Roger Sandilands
________________________________
From: Societies for the History of Economics [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Samuel Bostaph [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 2010 9:45 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [SHOE] Was Pigou a Bolshevik spy?
Rather different situations indeed. The latter criterion puts Churchill and Roosevelt in the dock with Currie. Not that they shouldn't have been.
Samuel Bostaph, Ph.D.
Professor of Economics and
Chairman
Department of Economics
University of Dallas
(972)721-5159
"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened."--Winston Churchill
--- On Tue, 12/7/10, Rosser, John Barkley - rosserjb <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
From: Rosser, John Barkley - rosserjb <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: [SHOE] Was Pigou a Bolshevik spy?
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Tuesday, December 7, 2010, 2:36 PM
For what it is worth, Gordievsky puts White and Currie in different categories, the former definitely a full-blown spy, the latter simply someone who talked to people who were Soviet agents from time to time and apparently leaked important information on one or more occasions during a period when the US and USSR were allies.  Rather different situations.