W. Averell Harriman Autographs, Memorabilia & Collectibles

WILLIAM AVERELL HARRIMAN (1891-1986), the son of railroad tycoon Edward Harriman, was active in business and finance before devoting himself to government service. He served as Ambassador to the Soviet Union (1943-1946) and then to Great Britain (1946), Harry S Truman's Secretary of Commerce (1946-1948) and Governor of New York (1955-1959), and Harriman was a candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 1952 and 1956. As Ambassador at Large under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, Harriman helped negotiate the Geneva Agreement on Laos (1962), the nuclear test ban treaty (1963) and the initial phase of the Paris peace negotiations on Vietnam (1968-1969). He was known as one of the so-called "Wise Men" who advised U.S. Presidents in the decades after WWII.