Oxy to Foot Bill for Chief’s Latest Book About Himself

If you’ve wondered what oilman Armand Hammer has been up to since 1985, get ready to read about it next year.

Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum has spent $255,000 on a sequel to its chairman’s 1987 autobiography--”Hammer”--and expects to spend another $120,000 to finish the job, according to the company’s latest proxy statement mailed to shareholders.

Hammer, 91, is two-thirds of the way through the sequel, which should be published next year, according to Occidental spokesman Frank Ashley.

So, why another autobiography by a man who has already written or collaborated on four books about himself?

“ ‘Hammer’ only went through 1985,” Ashley said of the chairman’s most recent autobiography. “This book tells of more recent activities at Occidental and of Dr. Hammer’s activities around the world,” he said.

In 1986, for example, Hammer helped arrange and pay for medical treatment for victims of the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Soviet Union. And last year, he stunned the art community by announcing that he would build a museum to house his $250-million art collection instead of donating the works to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

In its proxy statement, Occidental, which also bankrolled Hammer’s previous book, said the $255,000 spent so far has been mostly for research and the services of writer Neil Lyndon, who helped pen “Hammer.” The money has also covered Lyndon’s expenses related to “traveling with Dr. Hammer to record” his international efforts, the statement said.

And cost-conscious shareholders can take comfort from the fact that Occidental has received more than $600,000 in royalties from “Hammer,” which has sold 200,000 hard-cover copies and has been translated into 12 languages.

“We think this book will do as well,” Ashley said of the sequel.