America and Russia in a Changing World: A Half Century of Personal Observation

by W. Averell Harriman

America and Russia in a Changing A Half Century of Personal Observation

About the author

William Averell Harriman, better known as Averell Harriman, was an American Democratic politician, businessman, and diplomat. The son of railroad baron E. H. Harriman, he served as Secretary of Commerce under President Harry S. Truman and later as the 48th Governor of New York. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1952 and 1956, as well as a core member of the group of foreign policy elders known as "The Wise Men".

Reviews

[Stefania Dzhanamova · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was written by American diplomat Averell Harriman, a man with a rich public career, who remained unflinchingly anti-Communist throughout the years, but was not a Cold Warrior in the full sense of the word. He records his observations about the Cold War and American foreign policy. Knowing that he was a man of great experience in diplomacy, I was rather surprised by the scarcity of insight and analysis in his work.

He begins with the Second World War, the conferences, such as Yalta, and the deteriorating relations with the Soviets. For a person who had the opportunity to witness all these important moments and who was directly involved in the Marshall Plan, he has surprisingly little to discuss. He chronicles what happened, but his account has no more interesting thoughts than any general history of the period.

Things improve when he gets to Vietnam, my main topic of interest. Harriman had a better understanding of the situation there and its causes than many of his contemporaries. He saw Ho Chi Minh not only as a Communist, but as a nationalist for whom the independence of his country mattered most, and he even believed that Vietnam under Ho might have developed its own brand of Communism that would not have let Moscow and Beijing control its foreign policy and would not have been hostile to the West. I doubt that Vietnam would have succeed in this, but it is interesting that he thought so. He also thought that helping the French in the First Indochina War had been a bad decision. Unlike most scholars, who agree that many decisions led to the ill-fated American involvement in Vietnam, Harriman confidently assigns the blame to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles's decision to take over France's role in South Vietnam in 1954. The Geneva Accords stated that it was the responsibility of the French to give advice and support to South Vietnam. According to Harriman, America should have continued to give aid indirectly, through the French, instead of getting involved with Diem and all the political, economic, and military responsibilities for his government. "You can be critical of subsequent steps that have been taken in expanding and escalating our involvement, but having once undertaken responsibility for South Vietnam, it was difficult to disengage," he writes, and I think that he has a point.

However, his account of his negotiations with North Vietnam's representatives during the peace talks in 1968 is again brief and devoid of any insight. It is strange that he, who had a series of private meetings with Le Duc Tho, has nothing to share. It is true that those meetings were secret at the time, and the public knew only about the Four Party Conference, which was more of a show than serious negotiations, but it still surprises me, that Harriman chronicles what happened like he was a witness, not a direct participant. One of the few things of interest that he mentions is that the Soviets were of great help to America during the peace talks. Although they had limited influence over North Vietnam, they stirred its leaders toward an agreement. He does not elaborate how, though, leaving the reader to wonder.

Harriman caught me off-guard with his views on the Vietnamization of the war. He called it "immoral" – something that I did not expect to hear from an American official of that period. He believed that the American government had no right to encourage longer fighting and that all efforts should be put into ending the Vietnam conflict, which was wasting so many lives and resources. He advocated for "responsible withdrawal," but acknowledged that such would be difficult because of the many killings. Regarding My Lai, he embraced the views that the American government and military were trying to avoid: the whole system, not individuals, was responsible for the massacre. He does not go beyond these statements, though.

The one time he allows himself to be analytical is when discussing the future. He criticizes the American government for having stopped respecting neutrality because of Communism and warns against clinging to the idea that everyone who was not as anti-Communist as America, was America's enemy. In the future, he writes, America should learn to respect neutrality again, and the Vietnam conflict was preventing it from doing that. 

AMERICA AND RUSSIA IN A CHANGING WORLD is not the work that one might expect from a diplomat who, in his own words, had been to fifty countries and talked to heads of governments in almost all of them. What he has written appears to me to be insufficiently informative. This book will be of interest to those who want to familiarize themselves with Harriman and some of his observations, but the reader should not raise their expectations high. It is not a comprehensive analysis of American foreign policy.

[parastimo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Note: I read this book in Finnish, an edition published in 1971 with title "Huipputason diplomatiaa". I am not aware as of yet whether this is a direct translation, or whether some parts have been slightly edited due to Finland's relations towards Russia and President Kekkonen's influence - of which, anecdotally, a hint is given in the back cover of the book, where Harriman is photographed standing next to Kekkonen at some formal occasion, even though latter is never even mentioned in the book.

I enjoyed this read.

Harriman articulates and arguments his actions in an understandable manner, and even though things that have happened half a century or further apart in the past are less known to me, I can parse and combine actions and occasions to other facts I have learned from elsewhere. In that sense, the book feels complete as itself and also gives a plenty of behind-the-scenes material that make it an enjoyable read.

Furthermore, the author does not hesitate to voice in his opinions about things done well or lesser so, which is always refreshing, especially when politics are involved. He even dares to suggest what should be done in the future, and more so than not, I eagerly agree.

It is a fascinating thing to get inside someone's head, and have a chance to see how the future has unfolded during all these decades I have postponed learning about his work.

[Marvinwww · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was written about fifty years ago in terms of current thoughts on current events (in historical context). Now, however, those current events are long past, and the book is really of simple historical interest. It is not a great book, but at times it is thought-provoking. It is always enlightening to hear "straight from the horse's mouth" -- straight from a diplomat who had many, many conversations with Stalin, Khrushchev and other Soviet leaders, as well as with FDR, Truman and other American leaders -- not to mention travels all over the world and meetings with leaders of many nations at the behest of several American presidents.