Wartime Letters

By: Kathleen Harriman

Published by Yale University Press, 2026-02-24

The extraordinary story of Kathleen Harriman, daughter of the US ambassador to the USSR, told through her wartime letters Kathleen Harriman was the daughter of American businessman W. Averell Harriman. A journalist by background, she accompanied her father on his wartime postings to London and Moscow, where he served as FDR's envoy and later as US ambassador to the Soviet Union. She dined with Winston Churchill at Chequers, played bridge with General Eisenhower, and, in Moscow, banqueted with Stalin. She learnt Russian and soon became one of the best-known American women in the USSR. In her work as a journalist, Kathy visited war-torn cities and sites of covered-up atrocities. In more than two hundred letters, Harriman wrote all about these trips, people, and experiences. Deeply personal as well as highly political, her correspondence provides a fresh insight into the machinations of Second World War politics and diplomacy. In this fascinating account, Geoffrey Roberts brings together Harriman's letters to tell the full story of her wartime life for the first time.