Athletes - W. Averell Harriman

Home > Listing Index > Athletes > W. Averell Harriman

	Athletes - W. Averell Harriman

William Averell Harriman (November 15, 1891 – July 26, 1986) was a US Democratic politician, businessman and diplomat.

Averell Harriman was born in New York City, the son of railroad baron Edward Henry Harriman and Mary Williamson Averell, and brother to E. Roland Harriman. He attended Groton School in Massachusetts before going on to Yale where he joined the Skull and Bones society. His first marriage was to Kitty Lanier Lawrence, who died in 1936. He subsequently married Marie Norton Whitney, who left her husband Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney to marry Harriman. His third and final marriage was to Pamela Beryl Digby, the former wife of Winston Churchill's son Randolph, and of Broadway producer Leland Hayward.

Poltical Career

Harriman served President Franklin Roosevelt as special envoy to Europe, and was present at the meeting between Winston Churchill and the US president at Placentia Bay in August of 1941. The outcome of this five-day meeting became known as the Atlantic Charter, a common declaration of principles of the US and the UK. He served as the US Ambassador to Soviet Union between 1943 and 1946 and the Ambassador to Britain in 1946. He was later appointed the United States Secretary of Commerce under President Harry Truman to replace Henry A. Wallace, a critic of Truman's foreign policies. Harriman served between 1946 and 1948. He was sent to Tehran in July 1951 to mediate between Persia and Britain in the wake of the Persian nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company .

In the 1954 race to succeed Republican Thomas Dewey as Governor of New York, Harriman defeated Dewey's protege, Irving M. Ives. He served as governor for one term until Republican Nelson Rockefeller defeated him in 1958. Harriman was a candidate for the Democratic Presidential Nomination in 1952, and again in 1956 when he was endorsed by Harry S. Truman but lost to Adlai Stevenson.

Harriman was appointed Ambassador at Large in the Kennedy administration, a position he held until November 1961. He was then appointed Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs. He remained in that position until April 1963, when he became Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. He continued in that position in the Lyndon Johnson administration, until March 1965 when he again became Ambassador at Large, a position he would hold for the remainder of Johnson's presidency. Harriman was the chief US negotiator at the Paris peace talks on Vietnam.

Harriman is noted for supporting, on behalf of the state department, the coup against Vietnam president Ngo Dinh Diem in 1963. LBJ's confession in the assassination of Diem could indicate some complicity on Harriman's part (, ).

Harriman received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969. He graduated from Yale University in 1913. Harriman was initiated into the Skull and Bones Society, along with his friend Prescott Bush. He also served as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Business Affairs

Using money from his father, in 1922 he established W.A. Harriman & Co, a banking business. In 1927 his brother E. Roland Harriman joined the business and the name was changed to Harriman Brothers & Company. In 1931 they merged with Brown Bros. & Co. to create the highly successful Brown Brothers Harriman & Co.. Notable employees include George Herbert Walker, and Prescott Bush, who were likewise employed alongside E.R. Harriman at Union Banking Corporation (UBC), a company which was closed in 1943 by the US Government for Trading with the Enemy.

Harriman's main properties included: Brown Brothers & Harriman & Co; Union Pacific Railroad; Merchant Shipping Corporation; and various venture capital investments including Polaroid.

Harriman's associated properties included: Southern Pacific Railroad (including the Central Pacific Railroad), Illinois Central Railroad; Wells Fargo & Co; Pacific Mail Steamship Co.; American Shipping & Commerce (HAPAG), American Hawaiian Steamship Co., United American Lines Co; Guarantee Trust Company and the Union Banking Corporation.

Summary of Career

Vice President, Union Pacific Railroad Co., 1915-1917
Director, Illinois Central Railroad Co., 1915-1946
Member, Palisades Interstate Park Commission, 1915-1954
Chairman, Merchant Shipbuilding Corp.,1917-1925
Chairman, W. A. Harriman & Company, 1920-1931
Partner, Soviet Georgian Manganese Concessions, 1925-1928
Chairman, executive committee, Illinois Central Railroad, 1931-1942
Senior partner, Brown Brothers Harriman & Co., 1931-1946
Chairman, Union Pacific Railroad, 1932-1946
Co-founded Toda magazine with Vincent Astor, 1935-1937 (merged with Newsweek in 1937)
Administrator and Special Assistant, National Recovery Administration, 1934-1935
Founded, Sun Valley Ski Resort, Idaho, 1935-1936
Chairman, Business Advisory Council, 1937-1939
Chief, Materials Branch & Production Division, Office of Production Management, 1941
US Ambassador & Special Representative to the Prime Minister of Great Britain, 1941-1943
Chairman, Ambassador & Special Representative of the US President's Special Mission to the USSR, 1941-1943
US Ambassador to the USSR, 1943-1946
US Ambassador, Great Britain, 1946
US Secretary of Commerce, 1946-1948
United States Coordinator, European Recovery Program (Marshall Plan), 1948-1950
Special Assistant to the US President, 1950-1952
US Representative and Chairman, North Atlantic Commission on Defense Plans, 1951-1952
Director, Mutual Security Agency, 1951-1953
Candidate, Democratic nomination for US President, 1952
Governor, State of New York, 1955-1959
Candidate, Democratic nomination for US President, 1956
US Ambassador-at-large, 1961
United States Deputy Representative, International Conference on the Settlement of the Laotian, 1961-1962
Assistant US Secretary of State, Far Eastern Affairs, 1961-1963
Special Representative to the US President, Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, 1963
Under US Secretary of State, Political Affairs, 1963-1965
US Ambassador-at-large, 1965-1969
Chairman, President's Commission of the Observance of Human Rights Year, 1968
Personal Representative of the US President, Peace Talks with North Vietnam, 1968-1969
Chairman, Foreign Policy Task Force, Democratic National Committee, 1976
Member, American Academy of Diplomacy Charter, Club of Rome, Council on Foreign Relations, Knights of Pythias, Skull and Bones Society, Psi Upsilon Fraternity and the Jupiter Island Club.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for W. Averell Harriman ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article W. Averell Harriman; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Searches on eBay