Chapter – IV

`The Center of Power is in Washington'

Brown Brothers Harriman & Co.

59 Wall Street, New York

Cable Address ``Shipley-New York''

Business Established 1818

Private Bankers

September 5, 1944

The Honorable W.A. Harriman

American Ambassador to the U.S.S.R.

American Embassy,

Moscow, Russia

Dear Averell:

Thinking that possibly Bullitt's article in the recent issue

of ``LIFE'' may not have come to your attention, I have clipped

it and am sending it to you, feeling that it will interest you.

At present writing all well here.

With warm regards, I am,

Sincerely yours,

Pres----

`` At present writing all is well here. '' Thus the ambassador to Russia was reassured by
the managing partner of his firm, Prescott Bush. Only 22-1/2 months before, the U.S.
government had seized and shut down the Union Banking Corp., which had been
operated on behalf of Nazi Germany by Bush and the Harrimans (see Chapter 2). But that
was behind them now and they were safe. There would be no publicity on the Harriman-
Bush sponsorship of Hitlerism.

Prescott's son George, the future U.S. President, was also safe. Three days before this
note to Moscow was written, George Bush had parachuted from a Navy bomber airplane
over the Pacific Ocean, killing his two crew members when the unpiloted plane crashed.

Five months later, in February 1945, Prescott's boss, Averell Harriman, escorted
President Franklin Roosevelt to the fateful summit meeting with Soviet leader Joseph