Scope and Content Note
The papers of Rudy Abramson (1937-2008) span the years 1941-1990. The collection contains the research files for Abramson’s biography of W. Averell Harriman, Spanning the Century: The Life of W. Averell Harriman, 1891-1986.
Included in the papers are transcripts of interviews with W. Averell Harriman and sixty-eight other people including McGeorge Bundy, Clark M. Clifford, Mary Averell Harriman Fisk, William C. Foster, Jack W. Germond, Pamela Digby Churchill Hayward Harriman, Richard Helms, Richard C. Holbrooke, Robert A. Lovett, John J. McCloy, Kathleen Lanier Harriman Mortimer, William S. Paley, W. W. Rostow, Dean Rusk, Dorothy Schiff, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., Theodore C. Sorensen, and Jack Valenti. The collection also includes a file relating to Harriman’s interactions with Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin. The file spans the years between the beginning of the Lend-Lease program, which Harriman helped coordinate, and Harriman’s tenures as United States ambassador to the Soviet Union and United States ambassador to the United Kingdom.
The remainder of the collection mainly consists of Abramson’s research into the Lend-Lease program and Harriman’s role in helping coordinate it. There is also a portion of a diary published by Robert P. Meiklejohn, one of Harriman's former secretaries, a small miscellany file, and Abramson's research notes.