WASHINGTON INSIGHT

PREPPING FOR PARIS: Democratic doyenne Pamela Harriman is preparing to become U.S. ambassador to France, sources say. She first got politically involved with President Clinton in the early 1980s, when she started a political action committee that helped Democrats regain control of the Senate in 1986. Known colloquially as Pam’s PAC, it has raised nearly $4 million. . . . Her reported acceptance of the Paris post is surprising: With Clinton’s ascendancy, she had been widely expected to reign as the Democrats’ foremost party-giver at her elegant Georgetown salon. . . . Meantime, two writers are racing to finish unauthorized biographies about her, and gossips long fascinated with her colorful past are hoping for new details at last. Once married to the son of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, she was the wartime girlfriend of diplomat Averell Harriman, then became the wife of stage and screen producer Leland Hayward before she married Harriman, who died seven years ago.