Harry Dexter White was the least productive of the four original sources. Through George Silverman, he turned over material regularly, but not in great quantity. Bykov fumed, but there was little that he could do about it. As a fellow traveler, White was not subject to discipline. Bykov suspected, of course, that White was holding back material. "Du musst ihn kontrollieren," said Bykov, "you must control him "- in the sense in which police "control" passports, by inspecting them.

I went to J. Peters, who was in Washington constantly in 1937, and whom I also saw regularly in New York. I explained the problem to him and asked for a Communist in the Treasury Department who could "control" White. Peters suggested Dr. Harold Glasser, who certainly seemed an ideal man for the purpose, since he was White's assistant, one of several Communists whom White himself had guided into the Treasury Department.

Peters released Dr. Glasser from the American Communist underground and lent him to the Soviet underground. Glasser soon convinced me that White was turning over everything of importance that came into his hands. Having established that fact, I simply broke off relations with Dr. Glasser. Later on, he was to establish a curious link between the underground apparatuses, current and past. Testifying before the McCarran Committee in 1952, Elizabeth Bentley told this story. In 1944, she was working with what she identified as "the Perlo Group" (after Victor Perlo of the former Ware Group). In the Perlo Group was Dr. Harold Glasser. At one point, Miss Bentley had made a routine check of the past activities of all the Group members. The check showed that Dr. Glasser had once worked with a man whom both Victor Perlo and Charles Kramer (also a member of the Group) at first refused to identify beyond saying that the unknown man was working with the Russians. When Miss Bentley insisted, Perlo and Kramer at last said that the unknown man was named Hiss. She had never heard the name before and checked with her Soviet superiors. "It is all right," they told her. "Lay off the Hiss thing. He is one of ours, but don't bother about it any more."

Early in our acquaintanceship, I had told White that I knew nothing whatever about monetary theory, finance or economics. Nevertheless, in our rambles, when he was not complaining that the Secretary was in a bad humor, or rejoicing that he was in a good humor, White engaged in long monologues on abstruse monetary problems.

One project that he kept urging was a plan of his own authorship for the reform of the Soviet monetary structure or currency. He offered it as a contribution to the Soviet Government. I sensed that the project was extremely important to White. I took the proposal to Bykov. He was lukewarm. But he informed Moscow, which reacted with enthusiasm to the idea of having its monetary affairs "controlled" gratis by an expert of the United States Treasury Department.
Bykov suddenly instructed me to get White's plan from him at once. Haste had now become all important. But by then, White had gone on his summer vacation at a country place near Peterborough, N. H. I saw that I would have to go after him....

White turned in his plan for monetary retorm, though I recall no particular excitement about it. I had assumed that his eagerness was the evidence of a disinterested love for monetary theory and concern for the Soviet Union. But I sometimes found myself wondering curiously why he worked for the apparatus at all. His motives always baffled me, possibly, I now think, because I kept looking for them in the wrong place.

In August 1944 prior to establishing a direct link to Gorsky, Glasser had handled over government materials to Silvermaster. That fall, he also used Perlo and Bentley to convey information to the NKGB. After talking to Glasser, Gorsky concluded that the Treasury official understood that he worked for Soviet intelligence; in Glasser's words, "I am not a child and realize exactly where and to whom my materials have been going for several years."

Although his friendship with White became strained, according to Glasser because of a quarrel between their wives, nevertheless White remained a strong backer. He assisted Glasser in obtaining posts and promotions at Treasury while aware of his Communist ties.

BIn addition, three individuals Bentley identified as working with her networks during World War II are listed by Gorsky as working in the mid-1930s for "Karl's Group" (in other words, Whittaker Chambers). These were Harry Dexter White, George Silverman, and Harold Glasser. She told the FBI that one member of her network, Glasser, had for a time worked for a network she knew little about except that it was run by a man named "Hiss" at the State Department. Glasser, as described by himself in a December 1944 handwritten autobiography for Moscow, was born in Chicago in 1905, the son of Lithuanian immigrants, and studied economics at the University of Chicago. He joined the Communist Party in 1933 and the Treasury Department in 1936. With the assistance of Harry Dexter White, he rose to be assistant to the director of monetary research in January 1942. Both Alger and Donald Hiss, working for the State Department, were also listed under Karl's Group...

General Fitin sent a memo in April 1945 to Vsevolod Merkulov, KGB chief, to review the work Glasser ("Ruble") had done for the KGB. The memo stated that according to information from Gorsky, a group of agents of the GRU, to which Glasser had previously belonged, had recently received awards for their work. "Ruble" learned this from his friend and leader of the group, "Ales." Fitin wrote that since "Ruble" missed out on an award, and given his productive work over the past eight years, he recommended "Ruble" receive the Order of the Red Star. As Haynes and Klehr observed, this passage confirms the March 30 cable that "Ales" and his group were awarded Soviet medals, but adds that Glasser had been working with the "Ales" group, further confirmation that "Ales" was Hiss.''

By 1948, various Soviet defectors-Massing, Bentley, Chambers, Gouzenko-had compromised many Soviet intelligence officers and their U.S. agents and assets. The GRU and KGB went into damage control mode and operations stood down. In an effort to minimize the damage, especially from the notorious Hiss case, Moscow suggested an active measures campaign. In December 27, 1948, a cipher telegram indicated that a KGB disinformation campaign against "Karl" (Whittaker Chambers) be advanced.

Our agent RUBLE (Harold Glasser) drawn to work for the Soviet Union in May 1937, passed initially through the military "neighbors" and then through our station valuable information on political and economic issues.... To our work RUBLE gives much attention and energy is devoted and disciplined agent. According to data from VADIM (Anatoly Gorsky) the group of agents of the "military" neighbors whose part RUBLE was earlier, recently was decorated with orders of the USSR. RUBLE learned about this fact from his friend ALES (Alger Hiss), who is the head of the mentioned group. Taking into account RUBLE's devoted work for the USSR for eight years and the fact that, as a result of transfer to our station, RUBLE was not decorated together with other members of the ALES group, consider expedient to put him forward for a decoration of the Order of the Red Star. Ask for your consent."