A biography of politics, power and sex by Marjorie Arons-Barron

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog.

Kingmaker by Sonia Purnell, author of A Woman of No Importanceis another display of the author’s mastery of biography. In this scrupulously researched and documented chronicle, her subject is Pamela Churchill Harriman, a too-often-dismissed woman of consequence. A woman of power and influence, she was, in the 20th century, an even more influential courtesan than was Madame de Pompadour in the 18th century.

Born into an affluent British family, Pamela Digby entered into a marriage of convenience with Randolph Churchill, a drunk, reprobate, gambler, lifelong womanizer and abusive husband.

She became very close to her in-laws, Clementine and Winston, lived with them and gave birth to their grandson, also named Winston.

As Nazi aggression became more deadly and lay siege to England in the blitz of 1940-1941,  Pamela became a close confidante of Winston (she called him “papa.”) When Churchill replaced Chamberlain as Prime Minister, Pamela would use her beauty and physical attraction to seduce generals and diplomats, British and American, to glean intelligence she shared with Winston. Purnell makes the case that Pamela was instrumental in winning American support for joining England in the war. She was a go-between among Britain’s most strategic allies. As the book’s subtitle puts it, Pamela led a life of “power, seduction and intrigue.”

When diplomat Averell Harriman went to Britain, she formed a liaison with him that would last a lifetime. When he became Ambassador to Russia, they went their separate ways – and liaisons – for decades. She had an affair with Edward R. Murrow and later with his boss, CBS bigwig William Paley, who called her “the greatest courtesan of the century.” At the same time, she was also involved with American philanthropist Jock Whitney. In 1948, she moved to Paris and became deeply involved with Fiat industrialist Gianni Agnelli, whom she introduced to other world leaders. Franklin Roosevelt, Jr. became his East Coast distributor.  There was an affair with Elie de Rothschild and a liaison with shipping magnate Stavros Niarchos.  All these men showered her with jewels and maintained her lifestyle. She became a force in the theater world by virtue of her marriage to theatrical producer Leland Hayward, for whom she moved to the United States and devoted herself to the financial and social aspects of his career. Her friendships included the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and JFK and Jackie. She entertained Mikhail Gorbachev and wife Raisa.

Pamela was often dismissed and decried as a social climber and a fallen woman.  But new research reveals that, in every space, she made real contributions and achieved substantive prominence.

When Leland Hayward died in 1971, after 11 years of marriage, Pamela moved to Washington and married her former lover Harriman, caring for him till his death in 1986. Consolidating her own power, she formed her own political action committee and became a powerhouse in the Democratic Party, an independent supporter of and advisor to national politicians.  She was one of the earliest supporters of Bill Clinton’s presidency, and he eventually gave her a titled position in her own right, Ambassador to France.  From her post at the embassy, she played a key role in getting the United States to take military action to stop the ethnic cleansing and mass killings in Bosnia.

Her relationships with the adult children of her previous husbands would become problematic and sometimes litigious, and in the end the continuous battles over bequests and inherited wealth sapped the indomitable energy that had carried her through half a century of intimate involvement in world events. She died at 76 in 1997 after collapsing while swimming in the pool at the Ritz in Paris, which seems fitting poetically given the lavish life she led.

Purnell’s prodigious research was enhanced mightily when she got access to 50 hours of interviews writer Christopher Ogden had with Pamela. Harriman decided she didn’t like what Ogden was writing and got the book killed. Two years ago, the Library of Congress made Harriman’s papers available. What we have is Purnell’s colorful, informative, sexually laced and strategically enlightening Kingmaker. It’s a readable dive into an intriguing character and an interestingly curated study of half a century of history seen through a unique prism, that of one of this country’s most colorful and influential courtesans.

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