The 'old crocodile' businessman who pulled the strings in World War II
Averell Harriman was a very influential banker in the United States government during and after the conflict.
- Businessman from the United States
It's no secret that the geopolitical status quo we've been living with for the past few generations is the one forged 80 years ago at the Yalta Conference, when the three major powers on the verge of victory in World War II met to lay the foundations for what the world would be like in the following decades. Present were Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin, representing the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union, respectively. But the American delegation also included a much lesser-known man, albeit one accustomed to moving within the machinery of diplomacy: businessman and politician Averell Harriman.
His family's social standing allowed him to study at Yale, one of the top universities in the prestigious Ivy League. Not only did he earn a bachelor's degree, but he also joined Skull & Bones, a secret student society that has included key figures from the country's elite. Before entering college, he had already inherited a large fortune from his father, a railroad magnate who died prematurely. In addition to the estate, he also inherited his father's positions, so that upon completing his studies, he joined the board of directors of the Union Pacific Railroad.
His first relationship with the company was in 1915, and he later went on to chair the board of directors from 1932 to 1946. Alongside this work, he used the family's abundant assets to set up a bank with his brother: Harriman Brothers & Company. Some friends from the Skull & Bones era joined the business, including Prescott Bush, who years later would become the father and grandfather of two US presidents. Subsequently, the Crash of '29 caused serious problems for one of the country's oldest banks, Brown Brothers, which found the most advisable solution to merge with the Harriman brothers' bank, becoming Brown Brothers Harriman, still in existence today and a frequent subject of conspiracy theories regarding power. Later, Harriman created Union Banking Corporation, a financial institution whose mission was to trade with Nazi Germany, thanks to the fact that its shareholders included some of that country's magnates, such as the Thyssens of the steel industry.
Influential businessman
Between the 1910s and 1930s, Harriman's list of business positions is extremely long, including prominent positions at the aforementioned Union Pacific Railroad, as well as at Illinois Central Railroad, Merchant Shipbuilding Corp., Soviet Georgian Manganese, and Today magazine, among many other companies. While growing his businesses, during World War II, Harriman began collaborating with the US government and also launched his diplomatic career. He had previously opted to support the Democrats—unlike most major business leaders, who were affiliated with the Republicans—which allowed him to develop a close relationship with President Roosevelt.
Following the Yalta Summit, with which we began this article, he was appointed ambassador to the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom, and later held a wide range of positions in the public administration, including Secretary of State for Commerce and Governor of New York, as well as, in the 1950s, the leadership of the Mutual Fund for Foreign Affairs (MUF). His political career extended into the mid-1960s, when he became Undersecretary for Political Affairs under President John F. Kennedy. In the 1980s, after retirement, he was highly critical of Republican President Ronald Reagan's foreign policies toward the Soviet Union, a country he knew well. All this activity earned him the nickname "The Old Crocodile of Diplomacy," and some even accused him of being a Russian spy infiltrating the US administration.
By the way, the Yalta days of Roosevelt, Churchill and Harriman are perfectly explained in The Daughters of Yalta, a 2020 book written by Catherine Grace Katz, which recounts the experiences of the three families based on the experiences of the daughters of the three statesmen, who accompanied their fathers to the conference.
