Harriman, William Averell (1891-1986)

An American Democratic Party politician, businessman and diplomat who served as the U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1943 to 1946 and was a leading American diplomat in relations with the Soviet Union during World War II and immediately afterwards.

Harriman was born in New York City on November 15, 1891 to the family of railroad magnate Edward Henry Harriman. He was educated at the famous Groton School in Groton, MA and graduated from Yale University in 1913. In 1909, he and his brother inherited their father’s estate. In 1915, Averell Harriman joined the Union Pacific Company as its vice-president and later served as its board chairman. During the same period, he was building his own business empire. In 1911, the Harriman brothers founded the banking house, Harriman Brothers & Co., which in 1931 became Brown Brothers Harriman & Co.

Averell Harriman was one of the first American businessmen who tried to establish business relations with the Russian Bolshevik government. In June 1925, he signed a 20-year concession agreement for the extraction of manganese ore in Chiatury, Georgia and its export via the Black Sea port of Poti. In July 1927, he concluded an additional concession agreement, which facilitated his business. But in August 1927, the Soviets suddenly cancelled their contract with Harriman during a general rollback of their concession policy. ¹

Harriman began his public service career as a close friend and confidant of Franklin D. Roosevelt, at whose invitation he became a member of the Business Advisory Council of the Department of Commerce in 1934. He also served as Roosevelt’s advisor on business and financial issues. He was an officer of the National Recovery Administration (NRA) and during 1940 and 1941 served with the National Defense Advisory Commission and its successor agency, the Office of Production Management (OPM).

In 1941, President Roosevelt sent Harriman to Great Britain as his personal envoy, with the rank of minister, to expedite the U.S. lend-lease aid program in order to strengthen British resistance to the Nazi attack. This was the beginning of Harriman’s long career in international diplomacy. In August 1941, Harriman was sent on an important mission to Moscow, as a special envoy with the rank of ambassador, after the Soviet Union was invaded by Nazi Germany on June 22, 1941. Harriman headed the U.S. delegation at the Moscow Conference of the USSR, United States and Great Britain on mutual military supplies, which took place in Moscow from September 29 to October 1, 1941, as the Nazis were closing in on Moscow. From 1943 to January 1946, Harriman was the U.S. Ambassador to the USSR. He took part in the work of the Casablanca Conference (January 1943) to plan the European strategy of the Allies in World War II, and in the Tehran (1943), Yalta (February 1945) and Berlin (July 17-August 2, 1945) Great Powers conferences. He also participated in the United Nations Conference held in San Francisco from April to May 1945, after which he returned to Moscow.

From April to October 1946, Harriman briefly served as the U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain. From October 1946 to April 1948, he was the U.S. Secretary of Commerce. From 1948 to 1950, he was the U.S. representative in Europe supervising the administration of the European Recovery Program, with the rank of Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary. In 1950 and 1951, he was a special assistant to President Harry Truman, and in 1951, he served briefly as the U.S. representative on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Committee to study Western defense plans. That same year he became director of the Mutual Security Agency, serving in that capacity until 1953. He made two unsuccessful attempts to win the Democratic nomination for the presidency, in 1952 and 1956, and served as governor of New York from 1954 to 1958.

In 1961, Harriman returned to public service as ambassador at large. From 1961 to 1963, he was President John F. Kennedy’s Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs and helped to negotiate the Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty which was signed in Moscow on August 5, 1963. Under President Lyndon B. Johnson he served as ambassador at large (1965) and headed the U.S. delegation at the Paris peace talks between the United States and North Vietnam in 1968 and 1969. When Richard Nixon became President in 1969, Harriman retired and assumed the role of elder statesman of the Democratic Party. He also remained active in foreign affairs in various capacities, including chairman of the foreign policy group at the National Committee of the Democratic Party, beginning in 1974. He died in 1986. ²

Watch for alerts on this website to read some fascinating documents on Harriman’s role as U.S. envoy and Ambassador to the Soviet Union.