A New Deal administrator turned wartime diplomatic envoy
In Moscow in May 1945, Hopkins asked Stalin when Soviet forces would be ready for war against Japan, and Stalin named August 8.
Harry Hopkins was the administrator who organized U.S. public relief during the Great Depression around paid work, and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s closest adviser. After directing federal relief and public-works programs, he served as secretary of commerce and helped coordinate Lend-Lease and Allied cooperation during the war. Despite declining health, he negotiated with the Soviet Union as Roosevelt’s and Truman’s envoy, and in Moscow in May 1945 drew out Stalin’s position on the timing of the war against Japan and occupation zones, exposing the stakes of the postwar order in East Asia.
Career Timeline
- 1913–1915Superintendent, Employment Bureau, New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor
- 1915–1918Executive secretary, New York City Bureau of Child Welfare
- 1921–1923General manager, American Red Cross Southwestern Division
- 1933–1935Administrator, Federal Emergency Relief Administration
- 1935–1938Administrator, Works Progress Administration
- 1938–1940United States secretary of commerce
- 1940–1945Special assistant to President Roosevelt and wartime envoy
- 1945President Truman’s envoy, Moscow talks
- 1946Died in New York