In 1965 he joined Bord Fáilte – the Irish Tourist Board – as Senior Public Relations Officer. He moved to their New York office the following year as Publicity Director for North America. He returned to Ireland in 1970 to serve as Head of Information for CIÉ the Irish national transport body. In the same year he was appointed to the Taoiseach's Steering Committee, established by Jack Lynch in response to the Northern Ireland conflict and tasked with "the presentation of the Irish Government's point of view in Great Britain and elsewhere." It was in this capacity that – in the immediate aftermath of Bloody Sunday – he was asked to accompany Father Edward Daly to the United States to counter the British Government's version of the event which had gained primacy there. White's experience of and contacts in the U.S. media proved vital in securing interviews for Father Daly on prominent news programmes and allowing his eye-witness testimony to turn the tide of American opinion on the atrocity.