17 November 1953: Message from the Canadian Ambassador to the United States

In November of 1953, the Canadian Ambassador to the United States alerts the Secretary of State for External Affairs, Lester B. Pearson, to a recently released letter dated 1 February 1946 written by J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The letter concerns Harry Dexter White, then Assistant Secretary of the United States, who was at the time about to be appointed as one of the US delegates to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The letter accuses White of being involved with Soviet espionage and alleges that additional information came from “sources high-placed in the Canadian Government.”