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No economist, Ullmann rose rapidly in White's division, partly by using White's technique of flattery on White. At one time Ullmann used to pick White up in the morning and drive him home at night, going three or four miles out of his way to do so. Ullmann's hobby was photography. He once advised an associate to buy an Exakta camera because it had an attachment that was most useful in photographing documents. Ullmann shared a house with Nathan Gregory Silvermaster. named by Elizabeth Bentley as the head of a Communist spy ring. Silvermaster and Ullmann have both refused to affirm or deny that they were Communists, or that they were spies.
Whittaker Chambers, former Communist courier, outlined his dealings with White in great detail. The Treasury official, he said, was probably not a member of the Communist Party, but he was its willing and witting tool. He handed secret documents over to the spy ring for copying, and when he was dealing with Whittaker Chambers, he wrote a fortnightly summary of the secret documents that passed over his desk. One of these summaries, in White's own handwriting, was among Chambers' famed pumpkin papers.
During the war, White could supply information far beyond his own field because he had pushed through a policy making the Treasury Department a nerve center for secret war information.
To show the Communists' "gratitude," Chambers once gave Oriental rugs to White and three other participants in his espionage ring. Some years later, a member of a different spy apparatus, with whom White was working, saw the rug and said: "Why that looks like one of those Soviet rugs." While White shifted nervously, there was an embarrassed silence. The next time the associate visited White, the rug had disappeared.
Analyzing White's motives, Chambers found that the Treasury man "enjoyed the feeling that he was in direct touch with 'big, important people.' " In his book, Witness, Chambers recalled White in this passage: "There is Harry Dexter White. I see him sauntering down Connecticut Avenue at night, a slight, furtive figure. I am loitering near the Ordway Theater, where he has insisted (probably out of laziness) that I meet him for the third time in a row. Yet he is nervous at the contact, and idles along, constantly peeping behind him, too conspicuously watchful . . ."
There is corroboration of Chambers' word on White. Ex-Communist Agent Elizabeth Bentley told congressional committees that White was a key man in the Red spy ring; that he not only delivered information to her associates, but also pushed Communists into strategic jobs. At a hearing of the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee on May 29, 1952, there was this exchange between Michigan's Republican Senator Homer Ferguson and Miss Bentley:
Ferguson: What were your avenues for placing people in strategic positions?
Miss Bentley: I would say that two of our best ones were Harry Dexter White and Lauchlin Currie [who was a presidential assistant]. They had an immense amount of influence, and knew people and their word would be accepted when they recommended someone.