Word: dexterous
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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After Stanford, White went to Harvard, where he worked toward his philosophy doctorate. Not until he got it, apparently, did Harry Dexter White become proud of his record. The listing he prepared for Who's Who starts with the Harvard degree, ignoring all of his life before that. He is remembered as a brilliant, bumptious student and instructor at Harvard, assertive and quick to argue. After he got his doctorate in 1930, he continued teaching economics at Harvard and also taught at Boston's Simmons College. But he felt he was not going any place at Harvard...
...Waterbug." Harry Dexter White was plucked out of Appleton and taken to Washington in June 1934 by Professor Jacob Viner, the internationally known economist, then a Treasury official. White went to the capital only for a summer assignment: to study the gold standard and international trade. By fall he had settled down to a long career in the Treasury-and an interesting career it was. He was not a great economist. His specialty was international payments, which does not require much theoretical ability but does pose intricate problems, as chess does. In the 1930s, White wrote some rather original memoranda...
Within four years after he started at Treasury, a new division, Monetary Research, was created at his suggestion. The logical choice to head the department: Harry Dexter White. To push himself ahead, he flattered his superiors shamelessly. He used to tell his staff members that he learned the trick of flattery as a salesman. He could always sell a man after a compliment, he said. His advice: "You can't pile it on too thick...
...White could be flattered. Their technique was revealed when a baffled Washington carpenter named Harry White received a container of caviar, then a case of vodka, and then an engraved invitation to a social occasion at the Soviet embassy. Through a mistake in addresses, Carpenter White had received Harry Dexter White's flattering mail from the Soviet embassy...
Willing & Witting. As head of Monetary Research, Harry Dexter White had one of the most remarkable personnel gimmicks in Washington. His funds did not come from Congress, but from profits of the $2 billion revolving stabilization fund. This enabled him to hire his staff without the usual civil service red tape. As a result, he surrounded himself with many employees who might not have passed even the loose scrutiny of the day. Some of them took refuge in his agency after having security-clearance trouble in other jobs; at least five of them later ducked behind the Fifth Amendment, refusing...