A graduate of Haverford, he was a Navy midshipman from 1944 to 1945 before entering Princeton, where his father was in the Class of 1923. He majored in economics and belonged to Colonial.
After brief employment as a laborer at an oil terminal and as an industrial oil salesman, he was called to active duty in Germany with the Philadelphia City Cavalry, which he had joined in 1950. He was discharged in 1952 as a first lieutenant.
In 1957, he founded an export business. In 1972, he was called upon to head up the ailing Hahnemann Hospital and Medical College in Philadelphia, and he was credited with saving it from financial ruin. He then spent a decade in Saudi Arabia as co-founder and CEO of its largest hospital management firm, and two decades in England, where he had business and consulting interests.
Whartie was awarded an honorary doctorate of science from Wilkes College in 1975. In 2000, he wrote his first of three spy novels. He retired to Palm Beach, Fla., in 2008.
He is survived by his fiancée, three children, a stepson, and seven grandchildren.