Averell Harriman

Averell Harriman moved through Harry S. Truman’s political world in several capacities: as a roving ambassador in Europe, a special assistant on war-emergency problems, a forceful adviser during the Korean War, and a contender in Democratic presidential politics. His interventions mattered not because he always prevailed, but because he brought information and arguments directly to the President at moments when military choices, congressional support, and party leadership were unsettled.

Diplomatic Service and Presidential Counsel

Harriman was among the officials Truman inherited from Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration. At a landmark Oval Office meeting on April 23, 1945, Harriman sat with Roosevelt’s former advisers and senior officials, including Edward R. Stettinius Jr., Henry L. Stimson, James Forrestal, George C. Marshall, William D. Leahy, Charles Bohlen, and others. The gathering included no one from Truman’s former Senate staff or political circle. Harriman’s presence therefore placed him within the established foreign-policy group through which the new President first encountered consequential international questions.

By 1950 Harriman had been serving in Europe as a kind of roving ambassador. In the last week of June, as the Korean crisis began, Truman recalled him and made him a special assistant for war-emergency problems. One of Harriman’s first concerns was the political basis for the President’s response. He urged Truman to seek a congressional war resolution while public support remained strong. Dean Acheson took the opposite position: he argued that the President should rely on his constitutional authority as Commander in Chief, since the process of securing congressional approval could itself be harmful. Harriman’s advice thus raised a question that would recur throughout the crisis: how to connect executive action to congressional backing without sacrificing the ability to act quickly.

Harriman soon became a channel for urgent military information. On August 4 he left for Tokyo with Matthew Ridgway and General Lauris Norstad. They returned to Washington on August 9, and Harriman went straight from the airport to Blair House to see Truman early in the morning. He had arranged the timing so he could speak with the President alone. His mission had brought back details of Douglas MacArthur’s proposed amphibious operation, a strategy intended to strike behind enemy lines. The plan had been discussed at the Pentagon, but its details had remained uncertain and the Joint Chiefs of Staff were skeptical. In Tokyo, MacArthur presented it at length, and Harriman, Ridgway, and Norstad were persuaded by the case. Harriman told Truman it might offer a way to save the campaign.

The Korean War and Civilian Authority

Harriman’s support for MacArthur’s military plan did not prevent him from becoming one of the officials angered by the general’s public conduct. At a later meeting, Truman read aloud MacArthur’s statement, and Harriman was described as the most upset among those present. Truman considered replacing MacArthur in the field with Ridgway, but rejected that step at the time, in part because he did not want the change to appear a personal demotion. The episode shows Harriman participating in the tension between confidence in a dramatic military strategy and concern over the general’s relationship with civilian leadership.

The question of MacArthur’s command came to a head in 1951. After the general’s public statements continued to conflict with Washington’s instructions, Truman initially chose a restrained reprimand rather than immediate dismissal. Acheson and Robert A. Lovett warned that challenging MacArthur could provoke public backlash: the country was weary of the war, while MacArthur promised victory. The political danger formed part of the setting for a decision that was also about constitutional authority. When Harriman, Marshall, Ridgway, and Acheson agreed that MacArthur should be relieved, Truman said he shared their view and directed Ridgway to prepare the papers. Dean Rusk later characterized the conflict as centrally about the President’s relationship to a general and the principle of civilian control of the military, rather than simply a contest of personalities. Harriman was part of the senior group advising Truman as that principle was put into practice.

His connection to the Korean War also appeared in the personal diplomacy surrounding it. At dinner aboard the presidential yacht USS Williamsburg, Winston Churchill spoke about the Soviet empire, praised American nuclear power, and commended Truman’s leadership, including his decision to commit American forces in Korea. Harriman was among those present. The occasion placed him alongside senior officials witnessing an affirmation of Truman’s international leadership, a markedly different setting from the tense meetings over MacArthur and the conduct of the war.

Presidential Politics and the Stevenson-Harriman Reversal

Harriman’s political prospects became a subject of Truman’s deliberations over the Democratic nomination. In 1952, Truman considered him the ablest of the possible candidates, but also judged that his lack of experience running for office and his association with Wall Street would make him difficult to elect. Truman ultimately favored Adlai E. Stevenson of Illinois. He thought Alben Barkley too old for the demands of the presidency and distrusted Estes Kefauver, while Harriman’s political liabilities appeared to weigh against a candidacy of his own.

The contest shifted as the convention approached. Truman waited for Stevenson, but as the convention drew near and he became determined to prevent Kefauver from winning, he suggested that Barkley might be a suitable choice. At the same time, Harriman declared himself a candidate and strongly championed the New Deal and Fair Deal program, a position that pleased Truman. During the convention, Truman sent word to Harriman and other governors to release their delegates to Stevenson. The message reached Harriman through Charlie Murphy, but Harriman had already decided to withdraw in Stevenson’s favor. His candidacy thus ended not in a public break with Truman, but in a return to the candidate Truman wanted to advance.

Four years later their positions were reversed. In 1956 Harriman had become governor of New York, and Truman worked to support him rather than Stevenson for the Democratic nomination. Truman believed the country needed a president who wanted the job and criticized Stevenson’s perceived lack of the fighting spirit required to win. In a private conversation weeks earlier, Stevenson had asked what he was doing wrong; Truman advised him to learn how to reach the ordinary person on the street. Harriman’s emergence as Truman’s preferred candidate therefore reflected more than the earlier admiration for his policy commitments: Truman now saw him as a plausible political alternative to Stevenson.

That preference belonged to a wider field of Democratic ambitions. Truman also favored Stuart Symington and Lyndon B. Johnson, though he recognized that neither had much chance. He refused to support Stevenson for a third attempt and considered John F. Kennedy too young and inexperienced. Against that backdrop, Harriman represented one of Truman’s preferred paths for the party, even though the evidence here does not establish that he secured the nomination.

Continuing Association and Public Memory

Harriman’s relationship with Truman continued beyond nomination politics. He made a substantial private contribution to the effort to establish the Truman Library. The building’s dedication drew a crowd of about five thousand, including former President Herbert Hoover, Eleanor Roosevelt, Sam Rayburn, senators, governors, members of Truman’s family, and former White House staff. Harriman was among the governors present. The project was financed by contributions from across the country, numbering about seventeen thousand in all, and Truman acknowledged each gift regardless of its size. Harriman’s donation placed him among the private supporters who helped turn the former President’s papers and public career into a lasting institution.

When Truman died, Harriman was among the limited company invited to the burial service in the library courtyard. Because the library auditorium could accommodate only 250 people for the service, the guest list included close associates such as Clark Clifford, Charlie Murphy, Harry Vaughan, and Sam Rosenman, as well as Harriman. His presence at both the library’s public dedication and Truman’s private burial marks the span of their association: from participation in high-level decisions to a place among the former President’s enduring political and personal connections.