Pamela Harriman

Pamela Harriman (20 March 1920 – 5 February 1997) was a Washington, D.C. socialite, and diplomat married to Randolph Churchill (son of Sir Winston Churchill) on 4 October 1939. They had a son Winston, named after his famous grandfather.

Early life

Christened Pamela Beryl Digby in Farnborough, Hampshire, England, the daughter of Edward Kenelm Digby, 11th Baron Digby, and his wife, Constance Pamela Alice, the daughter of Henry Campbell Bruce, 2nd Baron Aberdare, a peer in the House of Lords. Pamela was educated by governesses in the ancestral home at Minterne Magna in Dorset, along with her three younger sisters. Her patrilineal ancestor (great great aunt) was nineteenth-century adventurer and courtesan Lady Jane Digby, who was notorious for her exotic travels and scandalous personal life.

At age seventeen, she was sent to a Munich boarding school for six months. Whilst there she was introduced to Adolf Hitler by Unity Mitford. In 1939, she went to work at the Foreign Office in London doing French to English translations, and she met and married Randolph Churchill.

When she became pregnant, she went to live with her in-laws at 10 Downing Street. Two days after Randolph Churchill took his seat in the House of Commons, their son Winston was born. She miscarried a second pregnancy. She was later employed in the Ministry of Supply.

Romantic involvements, scandal, affairs

Harriman was pretty, intelligent, and ambitious. She had three marriages and many affairs with men of prominence and wealth during her lifetime, almost all of these occurring during her marriage to Churchill. Her romantic involvements included, but are not limited to, Edward Roscoe Murrow (1908 – 1965), broadcast journalist; John Hay "Jock" Whitney (1904 – 1982), philanthropist and diplomat, last owner of the New York Herald Tribune; Prince Aly Khan (1911 – 1960), son of Aga Khan III and Therese Magliano; Gianni Agnelli (1921 – 2003), son of Edoardo Agnelli and Virginia dei Marchesi Bourbon del Monte Santa Maria; and Baron Elie de Rothschild (born 1917), son of Baron Robert Philippe de Rothschild, and Nelly Beer. [1]

Harriman became well known for her attentions to detail with men. When involved romantically with a man, she paid extremely close attention to his desires, his preferences, and went to any lengths necessary to satisfy their needs during the affair. One of her later husbands, Leland Hayward, would later call Harriman "The courtesan of the century", meaning it more as a compliment than a detraction. [2]

Later, she was introduced to Averell Harriman, and began an affair which led ultimately to her 1946 divorce from Churchill and friction between Randolph and his parents, who he maintained had condoned the affair.

After her divorce from Randolph Churchill, she moved to Paris and in 1948 began her five-year-long affair with Gianni Agnelli. She described this as the happiest period of her life. Agnelli, however, was not faithful in this relationship. In 1952, Pamela discovered him in bed with a young girl and threw them out, and Agnelli sustained a severe leg injury in a car accident while bringing the girl home. Pamela nursed him through his injury, and later became pregnant (although it was never confirmed that this was by Agnelli), but had an abortion in Switzerland. Later, Princess Marella Caracciolo di Castagneto became pregnant by Agnelli, and Harriman ended the affair ([3]).

Her next relationship was with Baron Elie de Rothschild, who was married. He supported her financially, and she was schooled in art history and wine-making during this clandestine and short relationship ([4]).

In 1959, she took up residence in New York, renewing her acquaintanceship with Broadway producer Leland Hayward, whom she married on 4 May 1960 in Carson City, Nevada. He died on 18 March 1971. That same year Pamela married her former lover Averell Harriman, on 27 September 1971. This marriage lasted until his death in 1986 ([5]).

Political life

As Pamela Churchill Harriman she became a United States citizen in 1971 and became involved in the Democratic Party, creating a fund-raising system that helped return that party to the White House. In 1993, U.S. President Bill Clinton appointed her United States Ambassador to France.

She died in Paris, aged 76, after suffering a massive stroke while taking her customary morning swim in the pool of the Paris Ritz.

The morning after her death in Paris, President Jacques Chirac of France placed the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor on Mrs. Harriman's flag-draped coffin. She was the first female foreign diplomat to receive this honor.

Titles and styles

• The Honourable Pamela Beryl Digby
• The Hon. Mrs. Randolph Churchill
• The Hon. Mrs. Leland Hayward
• The Hon. Mrs. W. Averell Harriman
• The Honorable Pamela Harriman

She was usually styled as Pamela Churchill Harriman.

Sources

• Reflected Glory:the Life of Pamela Churchill Harriman, Sally Bedel Smith, 1996.
• Life of the Party:the Biography of Pamela Digby Churchill Hayward Harriman, Christopher Ogden, 1994.

External links

• [6] (The Pamela Harriman Foreign Service Fellowship)