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When Harriman finally reached a close relationship with Franklin Roosevelt, he brought a quality to the friendship that even Harry Hopkins did not have. George Backer, millionaire realtor and ex-publisher who is now one of Averell Harri man's closest political advisers, says of the Harriman-Roosevelt relationship: "They were both squires. A squire is a man with good property and unearned income, who doesn't have to work, who has been financially independent for generations. All of this Roosevelt liked. He didn't like indus trialists who worked for their money. Besides, Harriman went to Groton. And nobody could be too bad if he went to Groton."
When Harriman began to take important diplomatic assignments, this affinity between the two men soon showed itself.
At times, both the British Foreign Office and the U.S. State Department were circumvented when Harriman acted as direct liaison between Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt.
A Clear Eye. No man participated in as many of the key international conferences of World War II as did Averell
Harriman.* In recent months some of Harriman's political foes have sought to tar him with being duped by the Communists in those years. The record clearly shows that he was not.
Eloquent testimony on that point appears in the diaries of the late James Forrestal, then U.S. Secretary of the Navy, who wrote on April 18, 1945: "I saw Averell Harriman last night. He stated his strong apprehension as to the future of our relations with Russia unless our entire attitude toward them became character ized by much greater firmness. He said the outward thrust of Communism was not dead, that we might well have to face an ideological warfare just as vigorous and dangerous as Fascism or Naziism."
Nor was Harriman fooled about the situation in China. Wrote Forrestal: "He said he thought it was important that we determine our policy as to a strong or weak China, that if China continued weak, Russian influence would move in quickly and toward ultimate domination. He said that there could be no illusion about anything such as a 'free China' once the Russians got in, that the two or three hundred millions in that country would march when the Kremlin ordered."
The Greater Honor. Despite his high role as a national and international policymaker, Averell Harriman wanted a greater kind of honor: he wanted to be elected to office by the people.
He made his first try in 1952, seeking the Democratic nomination for the presidency. It was not a happy effort. In the role of platform campaigner, the essentially shy Harriman stammered, mumbled, stumbled and froze his audiences into nervous, bored, agonized silence. As usual, he had been driving himself to fatigue, and his deepset eyes and solemn, gaunt face gave him the appearance of an aging pointer after a particularly tiring hunt. Harriman's efforts got him only 123-2 votes at the convention in Chicago.