Armand Hammer

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This article is about the American industrialist. For the homonymic brand, see Arm & Hammer.

Armand Hammer (May 21, 1898[1] – December 10, 1990) was a flamboyent business tycoon most closely associated with Occidental Petroleum, a company he ran for decades, though he was known as well as for his art collection, his philanthropy, and for his close ties to the Soviet Union.

He was the youngest of three brothers, and had close relationships, including business relationships, with his brothers (Harry and Victor) thoughout their lives. He married three times, first in 1927 to a Russian actress named Olga Van Root. Then, in 1943 to Angela Zevely. Finally, in 1956 he married the wealthy widow Frances Barrett, and they remained married until her death in 1989.[2] He had only one child, a son named Julius, of his Russian wife. Julius would prove to be a disappointment to Hammer, especially when he was tried for murder in 1955 (he was acquitted).[3]

Thanks to business interests around the world and his "citizen diplomacy," Hammer cultivated a wide network of friends and acquaintances. Late in life, he would brag that he had been the only man in history friendly with both Vladimir Lenin and Ronald Reagan.

Hammer remains a controversial figure because of his ties to the Soviet Union, which led to speculation that he was disloyal to the United States. During his lifetime, some also objected to him on the grounds that he had made an illegal campaign contribution to U.S. president Richard Nixon. Because of his tight control of Occidental Petroleum, Hammer is also sometimes blamed for the company's misdeeds, including environmental pollution, alleged mistreatment of workers, and four SEC investigations into financial improprieties.

Hammer hungered for publicity, and was subject to major magazine and newspaper profiles from the 1920s through his death in 1991. He appeared frequently on television, commenting on international relations or agitating for research into a cure for cancer. As of 2008, he has been the subject of five biographies -- in 1975 (Considine, authorized biography), 1985 (Bryson, coffee-table book), Weinberg 1989, Blumay 1992, and Epstein 1996 -- and two autobiographies (1932 and a best seller in 1987). His art collection[4][5] and his philanthropic projects[6] were the subject of numerous publications as well.

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[edit] Early Life

Hammer was born in Manhattan, New York to Julius and Rose (Robinson) Hammer. His father (from a family that had made and lost its fortune in shipbuilding) was brought to the United States from Odessa in 1875, and settled in The Bronx, where he ran a general medical practice and five drugstores.

When young, Hammer sometimes claimed that his father had named him after a character, Armand Duval, in La Dame aux Camélias, a novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils. In fact, according to multiple biographers, Hammer was named after the "Arm and Hammer" symbol of the Socialist Labor Party (SLP), in which his father, a committed socialist, had a leadership role at one time.[7] (After the Russian Revolution, a part of the SLP under Julius' leadership split off to become a founding element of the Communist Party USA.) Later in his life, Hammer would admit the communist tie himself.[1]

During the Spanish flu pandemic, Julius Hammer performed an abortion on a Russian-born woman ill with pneumonia;[8] she died and he served 2½ years at Sing Sing.[9]

Hammer attended Columbia College (BA, 1919) and then medical school at Columbia University (MD, 1921). His father was sentenced to prison as he entered medical school; he and his brothers took the Allied Drug, the family business, to new heights, reselling equipment they had bought at depressed prices at the end of World War I. According to Hammer, he scored his first business triumph in 1919, manufacturing and selling a ginger extract which legally contained high levels of alcohol. This was extremely popular during prohibition, and the company had $1 million in sales that year. In 1921, while waiting for his internship to begin at Bellevue Hospital, Hammer went to the Soviet Union for a trip that ended up lasting until late 1930.[10] Although his career in medicine was cut short, he relished being referred to as "Dr. Hammer".

[edit] The Quest for the Romanoff Treasure

Hammer's intentions in the 1921 trip have been debated ever since. He has claimed that he originally intended to recoup some $150,000 in debts for drugs shipped during the Allied intervention, but was soon moved by a capitalistic and philanthropic interest in selling wheat to the then-starving Russians.[11] In his passport appliction, Hammer had stated that he intended to visit only western Europe.[12] J. Edgar Hoover in the Justice Department knew that this was a lie, but Hammer was allowed to travel anyway.[13] A skeptical U.S. government would keep an eye on him through this trip, and for the rest of his life.

[edit] Career

After graduating from medical school, Hammer extended earlier entrepreneurial ventures with a successful business importing many goods from and exporting pharmaceuticals to the newly-formed Soviet Union. On his initial trip, he took $60,000 in medical supplies to aid in a typhus epidemic, and made a deal with Lenin for furs and caviars in exchange for a shipment of surplus American wheat. He moved to the USSR in the 1920s to oversee these operations, especially his large business manufacturing and exporting inexpensive pencils.

Edward Jay Epstein has claimed that, while in Russia, Hammer failed in every business, losing all of his family's money.[citation needed] In part due to his financial situation he began working for the Soviets.[14]

After returning to the US, he entered into a diverse array of business, art, cultural, and humanitarian endeavors, including investing in various U.S. oil production efforts. These oil investments were later parlayed into control of Occidental Petroleum.

Throughout his life he continued personal and business dealings with the Soviet Union, despite Cold War taboos against such dealings by Americans. In later years he lobbied and traveled extensively at great personal expense, working for peace between the United States and the Communist countries of the world, including ferrying physicians and supplies into the Soviet Union to help Chernobyl survivors.

Politically, Hammer was a staunch supporter of the Republican party. He boosted Richard Nixon's presidential campaign with $54,000 in campaign contributions. He was convicted on charges that one of these donations had been made illegally, but was later pardoned by Republican U.S. President George H. W. Bush.

Simultaneously, the Hammers' name was widely used in propaganda by the Soviets. The contradiction between Hammer's open sympathy for the Soviet Union and his success as a capitalist, as well as his involvement in international affairs and politics, have made Hammer a subject of suspicion and conspiracy theory for many; further, his close relationship with former Democratic Tennessee Senator Albert Gore, Sr., despite Hammer's own party affiliations, has been the subject of especially broad scrutiny and speculation.

Hammer was also an avid collector of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings. His personal donation forms the core of the permanent collection of the UCLA Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, California.

Hammer was a philanthropist, supporting causes related to education, medicine, and the arts. Among his legacies is the Armand Hammer United World College of the American West (now generally called the UWC-USA, part of the United World Colleges). He embraced a kind of Victorian view of world affairs, in which personal relationships could overcome geopolitical tensions. Hammer bragged that he was the only man to have known both Vladimir Lenin and Ronald Reagan.

His generosity and diplomacy were recognized around the world, and by the time he died, Hammer had won the Soviet Union's Order of Friendship of People, the U.S. National Arts Medal, France's Legion of Honor, Italy's Grand Order of Merit, Sweden's Royal Order of the Polar Star, Austria's Knight Commander's Cross, Pakistan's Hilal-i-Quaid-Azam Peace Award, Israel's Leadership Award, Venezuela's Order of Andrés Bello, Mexico's National Recognition Award, Bulgaria's Jubilee Medal, and Belgium's Order of the Crown.[15] Hammer hungered for a Nobel Peace Prize, and was repeatedly nominated for one, including by Menachem Begin[16], but never won.

Hammer appeared on The Cosby Show, saying that a cure for cancer was imminent. Hammer died of bone marrow cancer in December 1990, at the age of 92.

[edit] Criticism

Edward Jay Epstein published a book critical of Hammer after his death titled Dossier: The Secret History of Armand Hammer. Among his claims:

  • James Jesus Angleton, head of counterintelligence for the Central Intelligence Agency, said that the CIA has received evidence from the British secret service that Hammer laundered money for the Soviets.
  • Lenin "issued orders to 'make note of Armand Hammer and in every way help him on my behalf if he applies'."
  • J. Edgar Hoover wrote "a rotten bunch" on the front of FBI file "61-280 --- Armand Hammer, Internal Security --- Russia."
  • Hammer may have initiated human rights abuses in Occidental Petroleum's operations in South America.
  • Hammer split apart the pages of the Da Vinci Codex (now the Codex Leicester), which he purchased in 1980 and renamed the "Codex Hammer".

An article by Robert J. McCartney in the Washington Post in December 1990 brought to wider light that Hammer had also been criticized by shareholders within Occidental Petroleum for his refusal to sell interest in IBP, Inc., a beefpacking subsidiary of the company.

[edit] Trivia

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The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.
  • "Last night, referring to some of our modern business tycoons – specifically, Armand Hammer – I said that when they’re talking, they’re lying, and when they’re quiet, they’re stealing. This wasn’t my witticism; it was used [long ago] to describe the robber barons." - Charlie Munger, 2004 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Armand Hammer, The Untold Story, Steve Weinberg, p.16
  2. ^ "Frances Hammer, A Painter, Was 87; Wife of Industrialist, Peter Flint, The New York Times," December 19, 1989
  3. ^ Armand Hammer, The Untold Story, Steve Weinberg, p.120
  4. ^ The Armand Hammer Collection: Four Centuries of Masterpieces, published by the Armand Hammer Foundation in multiple editions (eventually becoming five centuries of masterpieces), sometimes in conjunction with museums where the collection was displayed.
  5. ^ Honore Daumier 1808-1879: The Armand Hammer Daumier Collection Incorporating a Collection from George Longstreet, 1981
  6. ^ Dreams & Promises: The Story of the Armand Hammer United World College : A Critical Analysis, Theodore Lockwood, 1997
  7. ^ Dossier: The Secret History of Armand Hammer, Edward Jay Epstein, 1996, p.35
  8. ^ Armand Hammer, The Untold Story, Steve Weinberg, p.120
  9. ^ In his 1996 biography of Hammer, Edward James Epstein cites the 1990s recollections of a woman named Bettye Jane Murphy, who was then claiming to have been a mistress of Hammer's in the 1950s and was suing his estate. She said that Hammer once told her that he had performed the abortion himself and let his father go to jail rather than take the blame.[Epstein p.46] This story must be balanced against that of the patient's maid, who was present during the procedure and testified during the 1919 grand jury hearing that Julius Hammer was responsible, leading to his indictment.[Weinstein p.25] Murphy's claim is sometimes cited as evidence that he was a murderer.
  10. ^ Armand Hammer, The Untold Story, Steve Weinberg, p.77
  11. ^ Armand Hammer, The Untold Story, Steve Weinberg, p.43
  12. ^ Dossier: The Secret History of Armand Hammer, Edward Jay Epstein, 1996, p.45
  13. ^ Armand Hammer, The Untold Story, Steve Weinberg, p.36
  14. ^ "Charlie Rose: November 29, 1996" (25:07) Charlies Rose Television interview show. Guests include Edward Jay Epstein
  15. ^ Dossier - The Secret History of Armand Hammer, Edward Jay Epstein, 1996, p.8
  16. ^ "The Unfinished Business of Armand Hammer; After A Lifetime in the Public Eye, He Still Worries About His Place in History," Donald Woutat, Los Angeles Times Magazine, June 7, 1987, p.8
  • Dark Side of Power: The Real Armand Hammer, by Carl Blumay, Simon & Schuster, November 1992, ISBN 978-0671700539
  • Biographical Dictionary of American Business Leaders (pp. 533-36), by John N. Ingham, Greenwood Press, 1983, ISBN 0313239088
  • Hammer: Odyssey of an Entrepreneur (book review) (sorta) [1]