Peter Henle, 88, Nixon target in 1971

Peter Henle, 88, a retired economist with the U.S. Department of Labor who became a target of the Nixon White House in 1971, died Tuesday of cancer at Collington Episcopal Life Care Community in Mitchellville, Md.

Mr. Henle, who dedicated his career to exploring economic issues from the perspective of the average worker, found himself in the news when President Richard M. Nixon charged that a "Jewish cabal" at the Bureau of Labor Statistics was out to get him. The so-called cabal comprised two people: Mr. Henle and Harold Goldstein, director of employment analysis at the bureau.

Nixon believed the two bureau officials were distorting unemployment data to cast his administration in an unfavorable light. He ordered Frederic Malek, his White House personnel chief, to compile figures on the number of Jews among top labor officials. Two months after Malek compiled the data, Mr. Henle and Goldstein were assigned to less visible positions in the Labor Department.

Malek told the Washington Post in 1988, when he had been selected as deputy chairman of the Republican National Committee, that he had compiled the data Nixon requested, but he disputed the assertion that the two employees were reassigned as a result of his memorandum.

Mr. Henle's son, Michael Henle, said his father did not talk much about the episode.

"He was certainly irritated and angry with Nixon," Henle said, "but he and Harold Goldstein both downplayed any notion of Malek's anti-Semitism."

Michael Henle said his father's civil-service status prevented him from being fired, but he was shunted aside and given nothing to do. He left the bureau and spent a year at the Brookings Institution.

Mr. Henle was born in New York City and grew up in Westchester County, N.Y. He graduated with honors from Swarthmore College in 1940, and was drafted into the Army the next year. From 1942 to 1945, he was a staff officer for the 33d Statistical Control Unit of the Army Air Force, first in Colorado Springs and then in Guam. He was a major at the time of his discharge in 1945.

The next year, while working on a graduate degree in statistics, he joined the research staff of the American Federation of Labor. He received a master's degree from American University in 1947, and stayed with the AFL until 1961, eventually becoming assistant director of research.

He joined the Department of Labor as chief economist for the Bureau of Labor Statistics. He moved to the Library of Congress as a senior specialist at the Congressional Research Service before returning to Labor in 1977 as a deputy assistant secretary. After his retirement from Labor in 1979, he pursued a second career as a labor arbitrator. He retired again in 1992.

A lifelong researcher and writer, he published more than 70 articles, book chapters and opinion pieces.

His wife, Theda Ostrander Henle, died in 2005.

Survivors include three sons, Michael Henle of Oberlin, Ohio, James Henle of Northampton, Mass., and Paul Henle of Concord, N.H.; four grandchildren; and two great-grandsons.