THE WHITE CASE RECORD
JUST what information about Harry Dexter White had been given to President Truman by Feb. 6, 1946, when Truman allowed White's appointment to the International Monetary Fund to go through? Did Truman keep White so that the FBI would catch fellow conspirators? On these points there is a public record, and last week Attorney General Herbert Brownell and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover read it before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee. Salient passages:
ON Nov. 6 in Chicago, I made a speech which was one of a number of speeches and magazine articles in which I publicly discussed the problem of Communist infiltration in Government and the steps taken by the Eisenhower Administration to meet that problem.
In that speech I referred to the case of Harry Dexter White and the manner in which it was treated by the prior Administration to illustrate how successful espionage agents had been in penetrating our Government at that time and how lax our Government was at that time in meeting such a grave problem.
This afternoon I want to discuss the case of Harry Dexter White, and the manner in which it was handled by the Truman Administration . . . Before I do that, however, I want to make certain preliminary remarks. An inference has been drawn in some quarters from my speech which I think is unwarranted. By lifting certain sentences out of context, it has been said that I implied the possibility that the former President of the United States was disloyal. I intended no such inference to be drawn.
In order to point out that I intended no such inference to be drawn, I specifically said that I believed that the disregard of the evidence in the White case was "because of the unwillingness of the non-Communists in responsible positions to face the facts and a persistent delusion that Communism in the Government of the United States was only a red herring."
In another part of the speech, I also stated:
"The manner in which the established facts concerning White's disloyalty were disregarded is typical of the blindness which inflicted the former Administration on this matter . . ."
"A Persistent Delusion"
When this subcommittee completes its investigation, I believe that you will conclude, as I did, that there was an unwillingness on the part of Mr. Truman and others around him to face the facts and a persistent delusion that Communist espionage in high places in our Government was a Red herring. And I believe you will conclude that this attitude, this delusion, may have resulted in great harm to our nation . . .
The only disclosure which I made from our records, and I believe it is the type of thing that the public is entitled to know about, is that the Truman Administration was put on notice at least as early as December 1945 that there were two spy rings operating within our Government . . .
In considering the facts in this case, it is well to keep in mind that the matter to be decided in January and February of 1946 did not relate to criminal proceedings in court. It was not a question whether White could at that time have been formally charged before a grand jury with espionage.
The matter to be determined by Mr. Truman and his associates was whether Harry Dexter White should be advanced to a post of high honor, great trust and responsibility