The Right Mr. White

A black sedan from the Soviet Embassy stopped one day last week before a modest bungalow on Washington's 21st Street Northeast. A chauffeur delivered a package, with these instructions to the housewife who opened the door: "Handle carefully. For the Honorable Harry D. White."

That night, Harry D. White, a carpenter by trade, opened the package, found inside four bottles of liquor, five boxes of Russian cigarets, and a crested, engraved card. It read: "The Government Purchasing Commission of the Soviet Union in the U.S.A. extends season's greetings. . . ."

"Again," said Harry to his wife.

The Whites had received strange packages before, during almost four of the eight years they had lived in Washington: little notes from the White House, fancy engravings from foreign embassies. Regularly every year there had been an invitation to a Jackson Day dinner, and a request with it for a $100 check for the Democratic National Committee. Last summer, there was an invitation to a party for General de Gaulle. Always before, he had ignored the invitations, but this time the liquor and cigarets and the Soviet footman stirred him to action. He soon discovered the obvious explanation: there were two Harry D. Whites in Washington.

So Harry D. (for DeNeal) White, the carpenter, telephoned to Harry D. (for Dexter) White. He learned that Harry Dexter White is the Treasury's Director of Monetary Research, chief U.S. sparkplug at the Bretton Woods Monetary Conference where the United Nations planned a $9.1-billion world reconstruction bank. The Treasury's White, who did not mind having missed the $100 Jackson Day dinner, told Carpenter White to keep half the whiskey and the cigarets.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.