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This harsh tone, in the eyes of Harriman partisans, is one of their man's assets as a presidential prospect for 1956. They believe that Adlai E. Stevenson strikes too soft a note against his political foes, and that next year's campaign will call for hard blows. Harriman's tone as a politician is also merely another evidence of the intensity with which he has always played any game he is in.
Even if he fails to get to the mountain-top in 1956, William Averell Harriman has struggled his way to success of a kind that his father never knew. E. H. Harriman, the "Little Giant," was an "undesirable citizen" to his President, and he could not get in to see the Emperor of Austria. His son is on first-name terms with Winston Churchill, one of the greatest statesman of the age; he was at Franklin Delano Roosevelt's right hand during great moments of history; he knew Dictator Stalin better than any other American; he has beaten Dwight Eisenhower at bridge. And the people of the great state of New York have elected him their governor. What more could E. H. Harriman's son want—except the presidency of the U.S.?
* Harriman's remarkable series of Government posts centered around these major assignments: 1934-35, a division administrator, then a special assistant to the administrator, and then chief administrative officer of NRA: 1940-41, an executive in the Office of Production Management; 1941, special missions to London and then to Moscow for President Roosevelt; 1941-42, Lend-Lease expediter in London with rank of minister; 1943-46, Ambassador to Russia; 1946, Ambassador to the Court of St. James's; 1946-48, Secretary of Commerce; 1948-50, roving EGA ambassador in Europe; 1950-51, Special Assistant to the President; 1951-53, Director of Mutual Security. * In 1941 Harriman was at the Atlantic Charter meeting with Churchill and Roosevelt, and at their later conference in Washington; in 1942 he was with Churchill and Roosevelt in Washington, with Churchill and Stalin in Moscow; in 1943 he was with Roosevelt and Churchill at Casablanca, in Washington and in Quebec; with Cordell Hull, Anthony Eden and Vyacheslav Molotov in Moscow; with Roosevelt, Churchill and Chiang in Cairo, and with Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin at Teheran; in 1944 he was with Stalin, Churchill and Eden in Moscow; in 1945 with Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin at Yalta, Harry Hopkins and Stalin in Moscow, Harry Truman, Churchill, Clement Attlee and Stalin at Potsdam. He missed only one of the big World War II conferences: the second Quebec Conference between Roosevelt and Churchill in September 1944.