W. Averell Harriman

William Averell Harriman (November 15, 1891 – July 26, 1986) was an American politician, businessman, and scion of the wealthy Harriman family. He was a founder of Harriman & Co. which merged with the older Brown Brothers to form the Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. investment bank, served as Secretary of Commerce under President Harry S. Truman, and was the 48th governor of New York. He unsuccessfully sought the Democratic Party nomination for president in 1952 and 1956. Throughout his career, he was a key foreign policy advisor to Democratic presidents.

Harriman was born to a wealthy family as the son of railroad baron E. H. Harriman. While attending Groton School and Yale University, he made contacts that led to creation of a banking firm that eventually merged into Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. He owned parts of various other companies, including Union Pacific Railroad, Merchant Shipping Corporation, and Polaroid Corporation. During the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harriman served in the National Recovery Administration and on the Business Advisory Council before moving into foreign policy roles. After helping to coordinate the Lend-Lease program, Harriman served as Roosevelt's personal envoy to the United Kingdom, then as the ambassador to the Soviet Union, and attended the major World War II conferences. After the war, he became a prominent advocate of George F. Kennan's policy of containment. He also served as Secretary of Commerce, and coordinated the implementation of the Marshall Plan.

In 1954, Harriman defeated Republican Senator Irving Ives to become the Governor of New York. He served a single term before his defeat by Nelson Rockefeller in the 1958 election. Harriman unsuccessfully sought the presidential nomination at the 1952 Democratic National Convention and the 1956 Democratic National Convention. Although Harriman had Truman's backing at the 1956 convention, the Democrats nominated Adlai Stevenson II in both elections.

After his gubernatorial defeat, Harriman became a widely respected foreign policy elder within the Democratic Party. He helped negotiate the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty during President John F. Kennedy's administration, and was deeply involved in the Vietnam War during the Lyndon B. Johnson administration. After Johnson left office in 1969, Harriman became affiliated with various organizations, including the Club of Rome and the Council on Foreign Relations.

William Averell Harriman was born in New York City, the son of railroad baron Edward Henry Harriman and Mary Williamson Averell. He was the brother of E. Roland Harriman and Mary Harriman Rumsey. Harriman was a close friend of Hall Roosevelt, the brother of Eleanor Roosevelt.

During the summer of 1899, Harriman's father organized the Harriman Alaska Expedition, a philanthropic-scientific survey of coastal Alaska and Russia that attracted 25 of the leading scientific, naturalist, and artist luminaries of the day, including John Muir, John Burroughs, George Bird Grinnell, C. Hart Merriam, Grove Karl Gilbert, and Edward Curtis, along with 100 family members and staff, aboard the steamship George Elder. This gave young Harriman his first introduction to Russia, a nation on which he spent much attention in his later life in public service.

Harriman attended Groton School in Massachusetts before going on to Yale, where he joined the Skull and Bones society and Psi Upsilon. He graduated in 1913. After graduating, he inherited one of the largest fortunes in America - his father had died in 1909 - and became Yale's youngest Crew coach.

Using money from his father, he established the W.A. Harriman & Co banking business in 1922. His brother Roland joined the business in 1927 and the name was changed to Harriman Brothers & Company. In 1931 it merged with Brown Bros. & Co. to create the highly successful Wall Street firm Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. Notable employees included George Herbert Walker and his son-in-law Prescott Bush.

Harriman's main properties included Brown Brothers & Harriman & Co, the Union Pacific Railroad, the Merchant Shipbuilding Corporation, and venture capital investments that included the Polaroid Corporation. Harriman's associated properties included the Southern Pacific Railroad (including the Central Pacific Railroad), the Illinois Central Railroad, Wells Fargo & Co., the Pacific Mail Steamship Co., American Ship & Commerce, Hamburg-Amerikanische Packetfahrt-Aktiengesellschaft (HAPAG), the American Hawaiian Steamship Co., United American Lines, the Guaranty Trust Company, and the Union Banking Corporation. He served as Chairman of The Business Council, then known as the Business Advisory Council for the United States Department of Commerce, in 1937 and 1939.

Harriman's older sister, Mary Rumsey, encouraged Averell to leave his finance job and work with her and their friends, the Roosevelts, to advance the goals of the New Deal. Averell joined the NRA National Recovery Administration, a federal effort to revitalize the American economy via price controls, marking the beginning of his political career.

Following the death of August Belmont Jr., in 1924, Harriman, George Walker, and Joseph E. Widener purchased much of Belmont's thoroughbred breeding stock. Harriman raced under the nom de course of Arden Farm. Among his horses, Chance Play won the 1927 Jockey Club Gold Cup. He also raced in partnership with Walker under the name Log Cabin Stable before buying him out. U.S. Racing Hall of Fame inductee Louis Feustel, trainer of Man o' War, trained the Log Cabin horses until 1926. Of the partnership's successful runners purchased from the August Belmont estate, Ladkin is best remembered for defeating the European star Epinard in the International Special.

During the war he was active in publicizing the "Rape of Belgium" in the US. In 1916, President Wilson entrusted him with organizing the American intervention in the war ("Operation Harriman"). In this capacity he supported the organizers of the February Revolution in Russia.

Harriman's 1915 first marriage, two years after graduating from Yale, was to Kitty Lanier Lawrence. The daughter of Francis C. Lawrance Jr., Kitty was the great-granddaughter of James Lanier, a co-founder of Winslow, Lanier & Co., and the granddaughter of Charles D. Lanier (1837–1926), a close friend of J.P. Morgan Before their divorce in 1929, and her death in 1936, Harriman and Lawrence had two daughters together:

Mary Averell Harriman (January 1917 – 1996), who married Shirley C. Fisk

Vice President, Union Pacific Railroad Co., 1915–17

Director, Illinois Central Railroad Co., 1915–46

Member, Palisades Interstate Park Commission, 1915–54

Chairman, Merchant Shipbuilding Corp.,1917–25

Chairman, W. A. Harriman & Company, 1920–31

"Leadership in World Affairs." Foreign Affairs, Vol. 32, No. 4, July 1954, pp. 525–540. doi:10.2307/20031052