When Pamela Harriman died at the age of 76 after collapsing in the pool at the Paris Ritz, the verdicts on her colorful life were mostly far from flattering.
By 1997, the British-born aristocrat and daughter-in-law to Winston Churchill, had risen to serve as President Clinton’s handpicked ambassador to France, the first woman in that role.
Yet it was commonly held that she was ‘expert only in the subject of rich men’s ceilings’, as one wag put it.
Pamela had taken hundreds of lovers, certainly, enjoyed sexually charged thrills on jets and yachts and received dozens of marriage proposals.
She was also one of the greatest unsung political players of her time with an influence over prominent world leaders that spanned more than 50 years and two continents.
A 1938 portrait of Pamela, who would soon marry Winston Churchill’s son Randolph. Pamela was a key weapon in persuading America to join the Allied war effort and would later become a leading player in US politics
A Churchill family group at Winston’s Chartwell home in 1945. Pamela, far left, had been a confidante to the great war leader, center. Her marriage to his son, Randolph, though, was unravelling
The Daily Mail reported that, ‘When historians look back on the 20th century, they will find traces of Pamela Harriman’s lipstick all over it’. She is pictured in 1941 at the opening of the famous rooftop gardens above the Derry and Toms department store in Kensington
A 1939 portrait of Pamela Churchill at the races with Lady Scott. She would later be known as the ‘courtesan of the century’, a reputation which obscured her true achievements
With Britain desperate for American support in the early years of the war, Pamela set out to seduce Washington’s special envoy, Averell Harriman. She succeeded…
Only The Daily Mail hinted at a greater significance: ‘When historians look back on the 20th century, they will find traces of Pamela Harriman’s lipstick all over it’.
Her story embraces virtually everyone who was anyone in the 20th century, from Winston Churchill to Nelson Mandela, Truman Capote to Dennis Hopper, Ed Murrow to Gloria Steinem. Frank Sinatra, Christian Dior and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor were all friends.
More to the point, Pamela Harriman changed the course of history, a confidante to Churchill, she played a key role in bringing America into the war and did much to establish the Special Relationship.
An object of intrigue to the Kennedys and Richard Nixon alike, Pamela would later revive the fortunes of an ailing Democratic Party and return it to the White House.
Yet her star sometimes shone too brightly. Pamela’s access to power drew unfriendly fire. She had the temerity to succeed when failure should—in her critics’ eyes—have been her due.
Few appreciated what she managed to do. Trashed by the prejudices of her time, history has reduced Pamela Harriman to the stereotype of a sex-obsessed gold digger.
She deserves better. And after four years of intensive research in Britain, America and France, I have been able to unearth the testimony that allows us finally to appreciate her remarkable achievements.
Pamela’s semi-mythical status as the ‘courtesan of the century’ first began to grow when in 1941, aged just 20, she was unleashed to seduce important Americans – her patriotic duty.
Pamela was married to Winston Churchill’s only son, the bumptious and bullying Randolph.
But Churchill marveled at how she combined a smoldering sexual appeal to older men with an astonishing grasp of geopolitique and for the great war leader, the national interest prevailed over the ruins of his son’s marriage.
The target of Pamela’s attention, Averell Harriman, is standing far right in a gathering of US war leaders. President Franklin D Roosevelt is seated, center
The 1939 wedding of Pamela Digby and Randolph Churchill at Admiralty House in London
Now divorced, Pamela Churchill arrives at Royal Ascot in June 1948. Soon, she would be seducing some of the richest men in Europe
Pamela’s first target was Averell Harriman, who had recently arrived in London as President Roosevelt’s special envoy to take charge of the Lend-Lease military aid program.
Her mission – which she undertook knowing that only American support could save Britain from defeat to the Nazis – was to convert Harriman to the British cause and ensure that he delivered the military hardware, food and medicines the beleaguered nation needed.
The Honorable Mrs Pamela Churchill… few men could resist her
Averell Harriman, America’s war-time special envoy to London, had never really done fun. Some thought him boring, others a plodder. Now, over a dinner of early season strawberries and dinner at the Dorchester Hotel, an astonishingly sexy young aristocrat shimmering in skin-tight gold lame had eyes only for him. Averell, could scarcely resist the way she stroked his forearm with her fingertips and laughed deliciously at his attempted repartee. It was 1941, with the Blitz at its height. When the bombing started an hour after sunset, the party turned out the lights and watched the silhouettes of hundreds of enemy planes against the searchlights. This was, as Pamela observed, a ‘very fortuitous’ raid. As Selfridges department store succumbed to fire, Averell invited her to his palatial lower floor suite ‘so we can talk easier’. She readily agreed. And as her female companion looked in vain for Pamela in the hotel lobby, Averell was peeling off that gorgeous golden dress. While the Dorchester quivered from the worst raid in London to date, Pamela lay naked in the arms of the man who might be able to bring the horror to an end. Averell remarked later, ‘there was nothing like a Blitz to get something going’. But it amounted to much more than the act of seduction. Pamela finally had a vocation. Her true war work had begun.
Pamela understood that virtually no one at this point was more crucial to Britain’s survival than the super-wealthy Harriman.
He was notoriously aloof, detached – and married – but proved powerless to resist this sexy young aristocrat with magnificent curves and glowing milky skin.
Her additional lure as the confidante of Churchill, Britain’s wartime prime minister, sealed the deal – and would prove a winning formula for countless more influential Americans who came over to support or report on the war, each conquest useful in shaping American opinion or providing vital intelligence on the thinking in Washington.
One of these was the legendary CBS correspondent Ed Murrow, whose broadcasts into the homes of Americans from London undoubtedly helped to muster US public opinion behind Britain.
Diplomatic scholars now believe that Pamela’s strategic sex life helped to create, elevate and sustain military, and also emotional, ties between Britain and America. Largely between the sheets of the Dorchester Hotel.
The Kennedys, too, had come to recognize Pamela as a power in the land. Patriarch Joe was serving as America’s ambassador to the United Kingdom while his daughter Kathleen ‘Kick’ Kennedy moved in influential British circles.
In 1947, with the war at an end, Pamela joined the Kennedys on a visit to Ireland and accompanied Jack – already a congressman – when he sought out a family he believed to be ‘original’ Kennedy relatives.
The aim was to help establish JFK’s vital ‘green vote’ credentials back in the US.
Soon afterwards, Pamela saved the future president’s life when he fell ill with what turned out to be potentially fatal Addison’s disease – a rare hormone disorder. It was Pamela who recognized the seriousness of his condition and summoned expert medical care in the nick of time.
In search of new purpose, Pamela’s erotic adventures continued, but now in mainland Europe.
For some 15 years, she lived a fantasy life of couture, yachts, palaces and jewels as the mistress of such prominent men as Gianni Agnelli of Fiat and Elie de Rothschild, who helped her establish an art collection and maintain her opulent Paris apartment with a white-gloved butler and a retinue of maids.
Throughout these years, however, she found true fulfilment lay in counselling her lovers.
For example, she helped Agnelli to rehabilitate his reputation which had been badly damaged by Fiat’s profitable role supplying trucks and tanks to the Nazis and Mussolini.
She helped Gianni persuade Washington, London and the Allies not to confiscate Fiat permanently.
The benefits went two ways. The British actress and socialite Diana Cooper recalled traveling first class on the sleeper from Rome to Paris in October 1948.
When the train stopped at Turin, a uniformed butler boarded with luxurious luggage, sheets and towels monogrammed with the Agnelli crest and even a small bunch of flowers.
As Cooper noted, the flurry was followed by ‘no less than Spam [Pamela] Churchill in the radiance of her success and beauty’, filling the compartment with expensive scent.
Before the train pulled out, a mink-coated Pamela and Gianni whispered ‘anguished farewells’ at the window.
Fur coat over her arm, Pamela is pictured as she prepares to board the Queen Mary from New York to England in 1946
A 1940 portrait of Pamela with her baby son, named Winston Churchill
Then, as she finally turned to greet Diana, the giant gems at Pamela’s ears ‘socked’ her jaw leaving dark marks on the skin. One of Pamela’s fingers was black under the weight of her ring.
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This was a time when a Friday night with Gianni might be enlivened by a helicopter ride over the magnificent edifice of the Grand-Hôtel at Cap-Ferrat on the Cote d’Azur, then out to sea before jumping into the water and swimming back to the rocky shoreline.
At other times, Gianni would drive Pamela at grand prix speed through the narrow streets of Turin. The police would flag them down but often just to ogle the green Ferrari with red leather interior
Their fast Riviera friends included such playboy princes as film star Errol Flynn and Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis.
Aircraft, boats, servants, skiing, fast cars and palatial villas were taken for granted. As were cocaine-fueled carousing sessions known as ‘les nuits blanches’.
There was something of The Great Gatsby about it all.
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