And Now, an Embassy of Her Own

By Martha Duffy

Pamela Digby Churchill Hayward Harriman was not an obvious choice to be America's ambassador in Paris, and not just because she is neither American- born nor of French heritage. The daughter of a British baron, she has been famous ever since LIFE magazine put her on its cover more than 50 years ago, mainly for the men she has married (Randolph Churchill, Leland Hayward, W. Averell Harriman) or enchanted (Giovanni Agnelli, Edward R. Murrow) and for her peerless charm. But she has always had a fondness for France, where she spent a prewar year using the Sorbonne as a finishing school and the postwar years enjoying the company of such men as Baron Elie de Rothschild, Aly Khan and Agnelli. And she certainly possessed a prime qualification of an ambassador, having diligently raised money for the new President and his party. But most of her friends assumed that the restoration to power of her adopted Democrats meant she would, at 73, embrace the role she had earned as Washington's preeminent hostess and salon keeper. They underestimated her.

This Wednesday Ambassador Harriman will formally present her credentials to French President Francois Mitterrand. Ever since she arrived in Paris four weeks ago, she has been making it very clear that hers will be a high-profile tenure. On the day she landed, after an overnight flight, she was in her office meeting senior counselors, fielding her first courtesy call and having a working dinner with her deputy chief of mission. Jet lag, anyone? The next day she had lunch with an ambassador, gave a speech in honor of a retiring embassy employee, hosted a reception and made her own first courtesy call, to British Ambassador Sir Christopher Mallaby.

And so it went. Briefings, meetings with various departments of her 1,100- member staff, lunches with more ambassadors -- and, in between, keeping up with five newspapers, CNN and the local rebroadcast of the CBS Evening News. The week she arrived, Cabinet members Lloyd Bentsen, Ron Brown and Mickey Kantor came to town for an economic summit -- and to be feted at receptions and dinners given by Harriman. She also threw a luncheon at the embassy residence on the Rue du Faubourg St. Honore for former Secretary of State George Shultz.

Although Harriman will never be known as a deep or reflective thinker, she works earnestly at dispelling her image as a socialite and dilettante, and an invitation to her table does not mean endless rounds of wine and gossip. The Shultz lunch was typical. Douglas Warner, president of Morgan Guaranty Trust Co., discussed the U.S. economy. Shultz spoke of his fears about growing protectionism. He was dying to join an animated exchange between Harriman and former French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing, but they were speaking in rapid-fire French, and he couldn't keep up. "I enjoyed that lunch because the talk was substantive," says Shultz. Then, after a pause, he adds, "Well, it's true she provides the spark and the sparkle -- and the pictures."

Yes, the pictures. Almost the first thing Harriman did when she arrived was to hang parts of the major painting collection she inherited from Harriman, a Democratic Party elder who was heir to the Union Pacific Railroad fortune. Up went Van Gogh's Roses, Cezanne's At the Water's Edge, an exquisite Sargent. Then down came some of them as she pondered where various works would best be seen by the public. Later, as waves of her friends started coming through, the arrangements were reviewed. "I had a couple of little suggestions," says J. Carter Brown, former head of the National Gallery and an occasional escort of the new ambassador.

An ambassador's role has changed since the onset of instant communication and the centralization of policymaking in Washington. The job is now often one of public relations and establishing a prominent presence. For that Harriman is well equipped. The French consider her a glamorous choice who has access to the President. Her years of involvement in party politics also stand her in good stead. "She understands domestic policy better than any ambassador to France since Sargent Shriver under Johnson," says historian Michael Beschloss. "At a time when Bill Clinton is rethinking our role in the world, it's good to have her in Europe."

Harriman spared nothing in preparing herself for the job. For years she had gathered around her Democratic foreign-policy mandarins, among them Sandy Berger and Richard Holbrooke. When her appointment was announced, she asked Nicholas Wahl, director of the Institute of French Studies at New York University, to conduct a daylong seminar under State Department auspices. When he asked her what she wanted to emphasize, she went straight to trade and economic issues. Says Wahl: "She also asked, 'Who in the present French government will be friends? Who is interested in the U.S.?' She is tough- minded, with a real sense of where niches are where you can get in and get things moving."

Harriman's self-awareness and determination come from being born into a formidable family. Her father was the 11th Baron Digby, master of Minterne, the family estate in Dorset. She greatly admired her mother -- "a very, very strong woman," as she recalls -- who wanted her children active. Her brother, now Lord Digby, remembers her as a child who was never shy, who rode beautifully -- Minterne still has a roomful of the rosettes she won at horse shows -- and who had a certain magic. "She had the most wonderful red hair," he recalls, "and when she went into the sea, she would emerge with a head of beautiful curls." Others, too, noticed her emerging good looks. In her teenage years, dozens of young men flocked to her house parties.

She spent a year being "finished" in Munich and Paris. She did not like Germany: "I knew something evil would happen because of the Nazis and their goose-stepping." Paris was another matter. She loved the ambiance, the art, the language. "It was all so exotic," she says. "On the weekends my friends and I would walk down the Champs Elysees and have the only thing we could afford, a jus de raisin. Well, it's just grape juice, but to me it's still more exciting than champagne."

Soon after her return to London at 19, she was telephoned by Winston Churchill's son Randolph, who asked her on a blind date. "What do you look like?" he inquired, none too gallantly. "Redheaded and rather fat, but Mummy says that puppy fat disappears." Two weeks and three dates later, they decided to get married.

When her father-in-law became Prime Minister, the young couple moved into 10 Downing Street and spent their weekends at Chequers. "The experience colored my whole life," she says. The PM doted on her, played bezique with her, kept her up all night listening to him brood over the delayed invasion of Sicily. Most of all he introduced her to anyone he received, and more and more Americans turned up. "It seemed natural for me to be entertaining General Marshall or General Eisenhower," she says. Among the visitors was Averell Harriman, then Franklin Roosevelt's special envoy, who was dining with the Churchills at Chequers one night when a valet turned on a radio to provide reports of Japan's sneak attack of Pearl Harbor. Pamela later said Harriman was "the most handsome man I had ever met." He was, however, married.

Did she ever look in the mirror and ask herself if this was all a dream? "No. It sounds ridiculous now, but then it was natural." Her marriage to Randolph, a noted drinker and gambler, broke up in 1945 (the couple had one son, Winston, now in the House of Commons), and Pamela moved to France.

In 1960, when she was 40, she married a vibrant, glamorous American, Leland Hayward, a mega-agent and producer whose credits included South Pacific and Gypsy and who represented the likes of Fred Astaire, Clark Gable and Judy Garland. A few months after he died in 1971, she was invited to a dinner by Washington Post owner Katharine Graham and renewed her friendship with Harriman. They were married shortly after. He was 29 years her senior. Her wedding present to him was initiating the process of becoming a U.S. citizen.

Many of her friends believe the root of her interest in American politics, Democrat division, was a desire to keep her husband active. Certainly that was a factor, but her determination to be near great men and her instinct for politics were lifelong (when she was a child, seven members of her family were in Parliament). Drawing on decades of observation of government workings and business deals, she began the task of helping rebuild the party after it lost control of the Senate in 1980.

Her political-action committee, Democrats for the '80s, was at first derisively called PamPAC, but Harriman persevered. She was host of a series of "issues evenings," at which policy analysts and Senate candidates shared ideas and presidential hopefuls were featured as speakers. Among her favorites were Al Gore, Jay Rockefeller and Bill Clinton. Democratic donors ponied up $1,000 a place for the privilege of being part of the party. In the process, she raised close to $12 million and won the right to be taken seriously. Diane Sawyer recalls that as late stayers gossiped in corners, Pamela would still be talking seriously with a knowledgeable guest.

In part the reason may be that small talk does not come easily to her. Her detractors claim she has no sense of humor. Her friend Arthur Schlesinger Jr. notes wisely, "She has a great memory, and that can pass for humor." If Churchill colored her life, he also colored her speech, which tends to rolling rhetoric and echoing generalities.

So what is the secret of this ageless enchantress? Can concentration be the answer? The columnist Joseph Kraft remarked that she is "an eloquent listener." Her brilliant blue eyes never rake the room but stay focused on her companion. "She coaxes secrets out of men because she works at it," observes Holbrooke, just named ambassador to Germany. "When she goes after a man, he is a goner."

Another facet of her secret is sheer vitality. There is great energy in her step; when she enters a room, she makes an immediate impact. She radiates health, and for good reason. She still rides, swims regularly and is an implacable hiker. The hikes occur at her country estate in Middleburg, Virginia, and at her spread in Sun Valley, Idaho. That's where she goes to relax (always accompanied by legions of houseguests).

Harvard president Neil Rudenstine admires her for knowing "that there is a lot to get through in life." When Harriman wants to be alone to think things out, she either climbs a hill or gets on a horse. She is guarded about her image. She initially agreed to write her memoirs with former TIME correspondent Christopher Ogden, then abruptly withdrew from the project. Ogden is proceeding with an unauthorized biography, as is another writer, Sally Bedell Smith.

All intuition and tactics, Harriman has no fixed public philosophy or agenda. She appeals to harried politicians because she still believes in the old ideals that Churchill taught her. Postwar Paris excited her because she felt a new world being formed there, at the Marshall Plan headquarters and NATO. Her problems in Paris now are thorny issues of trade talks, Bosnia and the future of NATO. But she believes they will be solved, and in a morally responsible way. In mid-interview she whips out a statement she wrote the night before about how the U.S. and France "have responsibilities to create a world where peace can rule." She believes every word.

For most of her life she lived for men and through them. But now she is on her own, thriving and surprisingly eager to get aboard the feminist bandwagon. When Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary came to Paris for a conference recently, Harriman arranged for her to address an international meeting on women's issues. She is transparently proud of her granddaughter Marina Churchill, who is a London barrister. When asked if she would lead an independent life like Marina if she were starting out now, the blue eyes blaze: "Would I? Would I?" Yes, you can bet she would.