Banker-diplomat dies

Press, 28 July 1986, Page 8

Banker-diplomat dies

NZPA-Reuter New York W. Averell Harriman, whose diplomatic career spanned four decades and who served in high-rank-ing posts under five American Presidents, died at the week-end. He was 94.

Mr Harriman, one of the key shapers of American policy towards the Soviet Union from World War II through the Cold War into the era of detente, died of renal failure complicated by pneumonia. He had been in failing health for about a month. An international banker and son of a rail-

road tycoon, he began his diplomatic career as Ambassador to the Soviet Union for the Franklin Roosevelt Administration. In the late 1960 s he was the chief United States negotiator in the Paris peace talks with North Vietnam.’

Mr Harriman, whom John Kennedy once said held more important posts than any American since John Quincy Adams, served as Ambassador to the Soviet Union, and Britain, was a Secretary of Commerce, an Undersecretary of State, and a one-term Governor of

New York. His first visit to the Soviet Union, in 1922, included a discussion with the revolutionary leader, Leon Trotsky. On his last, in 1983 when he was 92, he met the then Soviet leader, Yuri Andropov, who urged better EastWest relations.

Through the 1970 s and 1980 s Mr Harriman remained a leading advocate of arms control, urging in 1983 that Washington and Moscow cut their nuclear arsenals 50 per cent.

He was Governor of New York in 1954-58.