The Venona cables are available for viewing on the NSA website---take a look and make your own judgement. For a few laughs, look at gif 2 under the heading of unidentified KGB agents, what appears to be the name Cordell Hull with an arrow pointing to a matrix of numbers is in this gif. Cordell Hull a Soviet agent? That sort of substantiates allegations that Cordell Hull was the real target of the witch-hunt. Not HD White. Not Alger Hiss.
Getting back to the personality of HD White, the only anecdotal description of White that I can recall portrayed him as a prankster, joker, a shriner(is this a fact anyone).
Take a look at the Venona stuff yourself, are you looking at partially decoded" barbershop bullshit" or maliciously and purposely planted disinformation on some real American heroes.
Honi soit qui mal y ponce, Thomas Lehman
Rosser Jr, John Barkley wrote:
> I find it amusing that my ironic aside on HD White has
> engendered such responses. Well:
> 1) There was a Cold War between the US (with UK) and
> the USSR. Both had high-level spies and agents working for
> them in the others' hierarchies. Some got caught, some
> didn't (HD White didn't).
> 2) Some were idealistic and noble (some of the
> Cambridge spies), some were venal scum (Aldrich Ames). (A
> venal scum on the US side, although praised when he first
> surfaced and made money on his memoirs was Arkady
> Shevchenko, at least as obnoxious as HD White).
> 3) I think what is bothering people here is a
> leftover reaction from the Cold War days and the unpleasant
> memory of McCarthyism and its successful attacks on the US
> left. I see at least three elements here, not all
> necessary consistent with each other: a) fear that
> "innocents" were being attacked, 2) fear that an effective
> strong left was being destroyed because real agents and
> communists were being exposed and disabled, 3) fear that a
> broader liberal/left was being deeply weakened. All these
> were true. But with the Cold War over, I think we should
> recognize that there were agents on all sides, some acting
> nobly, some not so; some nice people, some jerks. I don't
> think that this should be a big deal at this point, even if
> one might debate just who was or was not an agent.
> 4) As for HD White, it is in "KGB: The Inside
> Story," and confirmed to me by other very knowledgeable
> sources (no, Tom L., I have not been abducted by aliens,
> but my wife did once work with Donald McLean in Moscow), HD
> White was a conscious agent and also obnoxious and rude,
> hated by his subordinates. He had a controller and took
> orders. His major function was to report on inside
> policy-making and high-level viewpoints, which he did very
> effectively, and as noted above, was never caught, unlike
> some very unfortunate others on both sides.
> Barkley Rosser
>
> --
> Rosser Jr, John Barkley
> rosserjb at jmu.edu