Ten-Goal Rating

Handsome William Averell Harriman, whose father left him a railroad kingdom, a fortune of $100,000,000 and a reputation of fearing “neither God nor J. P. Morgan,” used to have an eight-goal polo rating. Then he went into diplomacy. Last week high sources in Washington said flatly that Averell Harriman’s diplomatic rating had been raised to a ten-goal top, that Franklin Roosevelt would soon name him U.S. Ambassador to Russia to replace Sea Dog William H. Standley.

Industrialist Harriman, 51, looked like a good man for the job. Despite his glittering social background Harriman is no playboy. He has worked on a section gang, was a surveyor, once worked as a fireman on the Union Pacific. Now U.P.’s chairman of the board, he is known as one of the most liberal of U.S. industrialists, is also known as a hardheaded businessman who has made (and sometimes lost) millions on flyers of his own.

In London since 1941 as Franklin Roosevelt’s “defense expediter,” Harriman became a Lend-Lease liaison officer between the U.S. and Great Britain, did a bang-up job, journeyed to Russia with Winston Churchill to confer with Joseph Stalin. He is said to have made a great impression on the Soviet leader.

Work-minded Averell Harriman, as U.S. Ambassador to Russia, will have his work cut out for him. The U.S. and Russia must soon have a definite agreement on military policy, and postwar policy is not far behind. Russian agreement on postwar policy perhaps depends largely on convincing Stalin that Britain and the U.S. have contributed substantially to Germany’s defeat, and beyond this stretch all the questions of postwar policy itself.