Los Angeles Times Interview : Pamela Harriman : On Having an Affinity for Power; On Being the Ideal U.S. Ambassador

When President Bill Clinton gave a political fund raiser and Washington hostess the plum job of ambassador to France, few doubted Pamela Harriman deserved the reward. The surprise is that she has turned out to be uniquely qualified for the job.

Pamela Digby Churchill Hayward Harriman, a force in the Democratic Party and early supporter of Clinton, has been the U.S. government’s envoy in Paris for 18 months, presiding over the large embassy staff and handling weighty economic and military matters. But perhaps more important, her skills as a political insider, her close links to Clinton, her fluency in French, her sense of style and her ease in international drawing rooms have made this British-born aristocrat a favorite of French business and political leaders.

Indeed, at age 74, Harriman’s extraordinary life, which has intersected with many of the world’s most famous and powerful men, seems to have been one long preparatory school for this job. Married to Winston Churchill’s son, Randolph, she lived at No. 10 Downing Street during World War II, often serving as the prime minister’s hostess. (Her stories of Gen. Charles de Gaulle’s visits to the Churchill home never fail to impress her French hosts.)

She was later married to Broadway producer Leland Hayward and, after his death, to W. Averell Harriman, presidential adviser and Democratic political heavyweight who died in 1986. She was also romantically linked over the years with other important men, including CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow, Italian car magnate Gianni Agnelli and French aristocrat, Baron Elie de Rothschild.

From the early 1980s until Clinton’s election, she was an important figure in the Democratic Party, founding a political-action committee and hosting regular “issues evenings” that helped shape party strategy and policy.

An unauthorized biography of Harriman, “The Life of the Party,” published earlier this year, portrays her as a calculating courtesan who targeted rich and powerful men, “parlaying her ambition and talents into a vast fortune and major political clout.” The ambassador refuses to talk about the book. And, through her attorney, she denies claims made in a recent lawsuit filed by 19 Harriman heirs, who accuse the ambassador and other trustees of Averell Harriman’s estate of mismanaging $25 million in trust funds.

Neither the lawsuit nor her past romances bother the French, though. In fact, her life story only seems to gild her reputation as a political insider. An invitation to lunch is coveted by the high and mighty in French politics and culture. Visitors to the ambassador’s residence are treated to orchid-filled rooms and part of her impressive personal art collection, which includes works by Picasso, Matisse and Cezanne, as well as the formidable “White Roses,” by Van Gogh. Talking in her large office on a recent rainy Paris afternoon, she discussed everything from French-U.S. relations to the attributes of powerful men in a strong voice, lightly accented by her British heritage.

*

Question: What is it the French have trouble understanding about America?

Answer: One of my principal efforts ever since I got here has been to make them understand the power of our Congress, because under their system, there is no such power. It does not exist . . . .

When French ministers visit Washington, I’ve tried to convince them to meet with people on the Hill . . . . But it has been interesting how difficult it is to make others understand the political division between the Administration and Congress.

Q: Are there any other areas?

A: Of non-understanding? Yes, especially in the cultural area. Films for us are commercial and for them, they’re culture. And there is a disagreement and a misunderstanding, quite understandably, about that.

Of course, our films are so enormously popular in France . . . . But our film magnates are really trying to do more to involve French producers, directors and actors. The world today is global and we’ve got to start looking at it through that vision. There is a problem, but this can be addressed, and I think we are probably taking the lead in doing that.

Q: On the other side of the coin, do you find yourself having to clear up misunderstandings in Washington about French politics?

A: That’s why embassies exist, to report back to Washington what we see as the feeling that is prevailing in our respective countries. We must realize where they (the French) are coming from; it’s often not evil intentions but natural traditions. The Atlantic is a very large space of water.

One of the things about France today is that it’s really emerging as a high-tech country. It is no longer the country of wine and perfume. It’s the country of Airbus, satellites, the TGV (high-speed trains). And I think that is putting France in kind of a different category in the global thick of things.

Q: Are the French beginning to take Clinton more seriously?

A: At first, they didn’t know him, and they may have been apprehensive that they had read that he was a domestic President. But everyone here was really extraordinarily impressed with him the first time he came to Europe. And when he came to Paris in June, they were absolutely bowled over.

Some of the French have said to me, “You know, this is the first time we’ve seen an American President who really could discuss Europe and had a vision for Europe.” They found it exciting. People at home forget that this is the first President who has had a European education. He was at Oxford; he did travel as a student over here. So he’s had an appreciation.

And I must tell you that the first time that my late husband, Averell Harriman, and I got to know the young governor from Arkansas, which was, I guess, ’79 or ‘80, he impressed us because he was so very interested in European history, talking with Averell about World War II, and (Josef) Stalin and (Winston) Churchill and (Charles) de Gaulle. So I’ve always known that he had an interest and understanding of global affairs.

Q: Is it possible, in these times, for a President to maintain a high approval rating over a long period of time?

A: That’s what history is going to tell us. But I suspect that this is a particularly difficult moment in history. He has, I believe, a very good vision of the problems. But there are volcanoes going off all over the world.

Anybody can pick a quarrel with any agreement, you and I know that. But the thing is to get things moving, to get them on track, to get them going the way we want them to go and I think we have a President who is committed to that. It’s showing, and the world is beginning to see.

You know, it’s awesome to be the one superpower in the world. (But) I really think the President is showing his good, true colors.

Q: You have known some of the most important world leaders of this century. Is there some common denominator?

A: It basically comes down to very simple components. There are many, many clever and brilliant people. But to be a public figure, a leader on the world stage, you have to first of all have an extraordinary health and physical strength.

I’ve known many leaders, and all of the greats have had an outstanding physical capacity--a capacity to endure. And it sounds silly, but I think that is a very, very important component, and we see that in the President today. However brilliant you are, unless you are blessed with a health that gives you that extra endurance, that extra energy . . . . and Churchill had it--even FDR (Franklin D. Roosevelt) had it, with all his physical problems. That goes all through. They all had it.

Q: Are there other qualities?

A: Great men have to know how to delegate. I remember Churchill saying once, when talking about his own Cabinet, that unless people know how to delegate, they can’t administer. I suspect there’s a great deal of truth in that.

Q: Is it important, too, to be able to listen?

A: Yes, that was one of the great strengths of Jack Kennedy, that he would get his wise men in around him, and would listen to all of their points of view, then he would make up his own mind. But he would listen to all of them first. And that’s a trick of a leader, isn’t it?

Q: Who have been your teachers in the art of diplomacy?

A: When you get to my age, you’ve known a lot of people, you’ve seen a lot of things, and I’m privileged. One of the fascinating things for me about this 50th anniversary year of the D-day landings was, in a sense, that I was there 50 years ago. To be in this position 50 years later is kind of wonderful.

I remember that long wait we had for the invasion. And that’s when I understood the leadership of (Gen. Dwight D.) Eisenhower, because, whatever history writes or does, we knew that Ike made that decision alone. Of course, it turned out to be absolutely the right decision.

Q: But on the question of your teachers?

A: There are always little things that happen, and I suddenly remember what so-and-so said, or what Churchill might have said or what Averell had told me about Stalin . . . . You can’t sort of pinpoint it really, but there have been many years of having been privileged to listen to great men in many situations. I think it also gives one balance.

Q: What do you mean by that?

A: People always say, “It’s the worst of times,” and we think we have so many problems, but, you know, there have always been deep problems. And the nearer you are to the center, the more those problems are obvious.

Politically, one of the lessons to me--which is something which history really doesn’t record--is that when Churchill became prime minister in May, 1940, and moved into Downing Street, there were many, many times in the next five years when he went down to the House of Commons and didn’t know whether they would throw him out.

You read history and everybody says, “Well, Churchill was all-powerful and he was a great leader of the war.” But when you knew the inside story, there were bad moments in the war. The Conservative Party wasn’t always on his side, and there were certain elements that would have been perfectly happy to see him removed during the war. And all these things are very interesting when you put them in a modern context.

Q: Congress is due to take up GATT in the coming weeks. How crucial is its passage?

A: It is very, very important that it pass--for America and for our economy. It will bring us a strong, reliable trading system, worldwide income and job-generating opportunities. It would really be a disaster if, after seven years of hard work, this was not ratified. The rest of Europe is waiting for us.

Q: What is your assessment of the French leaders of today?

A: They’re very different from the French politicians I knew in the ‘50s.

Q: In what way?

A: Well, they’re much more outgoing, they’re much more individualist. I guess, you know, modern technology brings them more into the public arena, television and all of that.

Q: Does anything in Europe surprise you today?

A: What is surprising to me is how little it has changed and yet how well it has modernized itself. If you take this city, which is perhaps one of the most beautiful cities in the world, it is better than it was 30 years ago when I lived here. The buildings have been cleaned, the lighting at night is extraordinary.

What is fascinating to me is the fact that a president here can spend a lot of money doing over the Louvre, which all comes out of the taxpayers’ pockets, and everybody is happy about it, proud of it and applauds it. This is kind of comforting that, in the difficult world we live in, people are still prepared to let their governments do these things. It isn’t building extravagance; it’s really keeping the culture and heritage. You know the French traditions; we can get sometimes very annoyed by “ les traditions ,” but it is a big force in this country.

Q: What’s been your biggest challenge here?

A: I think really the challenge has been to find out how I can best interpret the French to us in America, to us in Washington. And that’s where perhaps I have an advantage, being European-born.

Q: Do you find the demands of the job particularly taxing?

A: Listen, if a job is dull, it’s long and grueling. If it’s exciting, it’s really a pleasure. Every day is different, you’re dealing with a lot of different things and it is just very fascinating. I’m privileged to be here.

Q: Has the publication of the unauthorized biography of you, “Life of the Party,” affected the way you function here?

A: No, absolutely not. Why should it? We’re far removed from any of that kind of nonsense.