William Averell Harriman

William Averell Harriman , 1891-1986, American public official; son of E. H. Harriman . Expanding his railroad inheritance, W. Averell Harriman became a banker and shipbuilder and later (1932) board chairman of the Union Pacific. He was administrative officer (1934-35) of the NRA and an official (1937-40) in the Dept. of Commerce, then became (1941) chief overseas administrator of lend-lease. He was ambassador to the USSR (1943-46) and to Great Britain (1946). After serving (1946-48) as Secretary of Commerce, he was appointed (Apr., 1948) U.S. representative abroad for the European Recovery Program and later (1951-53), director of the Mutual Security Agency. He was elected governor of New York (1955-59) and was an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1956. Defeated for reelection in 1958 by Nelson A. Rockefeller, he became in 1961 President John F. Kennedy's special roving ambassador. He was Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs (1963-65) and ambassador-at-large (1965-68) for President Lyndon B. Johnson. In 1968, when the Paris peace talks on Vietnam opened, he was chief U.S. negotiator. He is the author of Peace with Russia (1959) and America and Russia in a Changing World (1971).

Harriman, (William) Averell (1891–1986),US diplomat who served as Roosevelt's special envoy to the UK and the USSR. The son of a multimillionaire, Harriman began his public career in 1934 and altogether it spanned four Democratic presidents and 35 years. A first-class administrator and an excellent negotiator, he served briefly in the US Defense Department in 1940 before being sent to the UK as the administrator of that country's share of Lend-Lease. ‘I want you to go to London,’ Roosevelt instructed him, ‘and recommend everything that we can do, short of war, to keep the British Isles afloat.’

He took part in the Placentia Bay conference in August 1941 and that autumn accompanied Beaverbrook to the Three-Power conference in Moscow to arrange Lend-Lease for the USSR. Harriman's position in the UK was even more important than that of the US ambassador, John Winant, for he appealed to Churchill more than Winant did and the prime minister knew he was close to Roosevelt, whom Harriman had known since childhood.

He was appointed US ambassador to Moscow in October 1943 and held the post until 1946.

Bibliography

Harriman, W. A., and and Abel, E. , Special Envoy to Churchill and Stalin, 1941–46 (New York, 1975).