Scope and Content Note
The papers of Pamela Harriman (1920-1997) span the years 1909-1997, with the bulk of material dating from 1943 to 1997. The collection documents most phases of Harriman's adult life, including her wartime marriage to Randolph S. Churchill, Winston Churchill's only son; her marriage to agent and producer Leland Hayward from 1960 until his death in 1971; and her marriage to diplomat, politician, and entrepreneur W. Averell Harriman from 1971 until his death in 1986. Also included are extensive records from Harriman's political action committee Democrats for the 80's and files from her role as United States ambassador to France from 1993 to her death in 1997. Largely absent from the collection is material from her childhood, and relatively little is included from her life in Paris during the 1950s. The collection material is in English and French.
The collection is arranged in two parts. Part I comprises the more personal parts of the collection and is arranged in nine series: Personal and Family Papers, General Correspondence, Ambassadorial File, Speeches and Writings, Scheduling and Travel, Miscellany, Artifact, Classified, and Oversize. Part II consists largely of the records of the Democrats for the 80's and is arranged in seven series: Subject File, Administrative File, Projects File, Event File, Lists, Oversize, and Digital Files.
Part I
The Family Papers in the Personal and Family Papers series contain correspondence and related material from Harriman's own Digby family and from the families into which she married. The correspondence chronicles Harriman's relationships within this broad family network that included her son, grandchildren, parents, siblings, in-laws, stepchildren, nieces, and nephews. With the exception of her wartime letters to W. Averell Harriman, however, very little correspondence is included between Pamela Harriman and her husbands. The Digby family correspondence mostly dates after Pamela Harriman's move to the United States in 1959 and contains letters to and from her parents, siblings, nieces, and nephews. The Churchill family material includes two letters from Harriman's husband Randolph S. Churchill to his father Winston Churchill during the war. Harriman's own correspondence with her parents-in-law is more extensive. Most of the letters from the Churchills discuss visits from their grandson Winston S. Churchill and express appreciation for gifts sent by Harriman. A few letters discuss more personal matters including Harriman's divorce from their son and her later marriage to Leland Hayward. The bulk of Harriman's Churchill family correspondence is with her son Winston S. Churchill, her daughter-in-law Minnie Churchill, and her grandchildren. Most of these letters discuss family matters and the activities of the grandchildren.
The Hayward family material includes a small number of items documenting Leland Hayward's career as an agent and producer, including an undated client list. Most of his professional papers, however, were given by Harriman to the New York Public Library following his death in 1971. Notable in this series are letters received during Hayward's last illness and condolence letters received after his death. The letters reflect the breadth of Hayward and Harriman's friendships both within and beyond the world of theater and film. The Hayward family files also contain Harriman's correspondence with her stepchildren, including Brooke Hayward whose 1977 memoir Haywire dwelled in part on her relationship with the last of her stepmothers.
The earliest Harriman family material dates from the Second World War when Pamela and W. Averell Harriman first met. It contains only one wartime communication from Averell Harriman to Pamela Harriman- a brief note annotated by Harry L. Hopkins under whose door it had been placed mistakenly. Far more extensive are Pamela's letters to Harriman and his daughter Kathleen Lanier Harriman Mortimer. The letters begin after the Harrimans moved to Moscow following Averell Harriman's appointment as United States ambassador. In addition to describing her own activities, Pamela's letters recount war news, events in London, and encounters with mutual friends. Kathleen Harriman's letters to Pamela Harriman discuss her life in Moscow where she served as her father's hostess. Included are accounts of her trips to Katyn Forest with journalists in January 1944 and to the Yalta Conference with her father in February 1945. Other Harriman family material postdates Pamela's marriage to Averell in 1971. Included are notes between husband and wife on the occasion of birthdays and anniversaries; a declaration of gift to her in 1982, including works of art; and a large set of files on Averell's death in 1986. Present are condolence letters from prominent friends, political leaders, and heads of state, among them Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev and Margaret Thatcher. Completing the subseries is a small amount of correspondence with members of the Whitney family which has been included in the subseries because of the Whitneys' connections with the Harriman family.
The Personal Papers in the Personal and Family Papers series were kept as a separate set of files by Harriman and her staff. The bulk of the subseries consists of her personal correspondence. Included are wartime letters and notes from Max Aitken Beaverbrook; Charles de Gaulle; Charles Frederick Algernon Portal, Viscount Portal of Hungerford; and William ("Bill") Walton. Most of the correspondence in the subseries dates after Harriman's move to the United States in 1959. This later correspondence includes letters from friends she made during her years in Paris in the 1950s, among them Giovanni Agnelli, Maurice Druon, Stavros Niarchos, André de Staercke, and C. L. Sulzberger. Other friendships, including those with Brooke Astor, Kitty Carlisle Hart, and Katharine Hepburn, followed her marriage to Leland Hayward. Washington friends include Katharine Graham and members of the Kennedy family whom she first knew in postwar Europe. The subseries also contains her correspondence with United States presidents and first ladies, most notably Bill Clinton who served briefly on the board of her political action committee and whose presidential campaign in 1992 she supported as a national co-chair; Lady Bird Johnson with whom she shared an interest in gardening; and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Also found in the Personal Papers subseries are marriage certificates and other records documenting her three marriages, congratulatory letters on her marriage to Averell Harriman, records from the Jansen Shop she owned and operated in New York in the 1960s, a horoscope from 1955 when she was living in Paris, passports and other personal documents, and photographs.
The bulk of the General Correspondence series is concentrated in the years 1971-1993. As such, it reflects her immersion in Washington, D.C., life, her active role in Democratic Party politics as the founder and chair of the Democrats for the 80's, and her involvement in the world of diplomacy and international relations following her marriage to Averell Harriman. The series contains correspondence with politicians, public officials, Supreme Court justices, diplomats, foreign leaders, university presidents, academics, journalists, writers, corporate heads, union presidents, actors and other performers, and an array of Washington insiders. Represented are leading Democrats who served on the Democrats for the 80's board of directors, among them Samuel R. Berger, Clark M. Clifford, Stuart Eizenstat, Abraham Feinberg, Harry McPherson, Edmund S. Muskie, Walter H. Shorenstein, and Robert S. Strauss; Democratic presidential candidates, most notably Al Gore and John D. Rockefeller, IV, both of whom she supported; and Democratic National Committee chairs Ronald Harmon Brown, Paul G. Kirk, and Charles T. Manatt, in addition to numerous Democratic members of Congress, governors, mayors, and other office holders. The series also contains correspondence with diplomats, foreign policy advisors, and academics. Among these are Graham T. Allison, McGeorge Bundy, Richard Helms, Richard C. Holbrooke, and Marshall Darrow Shulman. A large file on the Soviet Union includes correspondence with Anatolii Fedorovich Dobrynin, as well as material on Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev's state visit in 1987 during which Harriman hosted a luncheon for Raisa Maksimovna Gorbachev. Subject file material in the series includes correspondence, memoranda, agenda, minutes, and reports from various boards and committees on which Harriman served and organizations in which she was active. These include the Atlantic Council of the United States, Brookings Institution, College of William and Mary, Council on Foreign Relations, Menninger Foundation, National Gallery of Art, Rockefeller University, and the Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union at Columbia University, as well as various Churchill foundations.
The Ambassadorial File chronicles Harriman's role as United States ambassador to France from 1993 to 1997. Included are files from her confirmation hearings and swearing-in ceremony early in the Clinton presidency. Aspects of her official duties as ambassador can be traced through an alphabetical correspondence file, copies of unclassified State Department records, her speeches and writings, a scheduling file, and travel vouchers. A significant portion of the series, including much of her correspondence, is more personal in nature. Very little is included on her death in Paris in February 1997 apart from copies of eulogies.
The Speeches and Writings series contains speeches delivered by Harriman between 1973 and 1992 and articles, largely op-ed pieces, written between 1980 and 1990. Most of the speeches and articles cover similar topics, including Democratic Party politics, foreign relations, and Harriman's recollections of Winston Churchill during World War II. A master speech file contains final versions of her speeches while separate files document the drafting process. Initial drafts were often authored by others, including Robert Shrum, and contain annotations and comments by Samuel R. Berger, Clark M. Clifford, and others. A similar drafting process is evident in files of her articles. The series also contains a draft novel by John Bowles, IV, who served on the Democrats for the 80's board. He sent a copy of the novel with the hope of getting assistance in finding a publisher.
The Scheduling and Travel series consists of engagement calendars, event files, invitations, miscellaneous records and calendars, scheduling binders, and foreign travel files. Harriman's engagement calendars span the years 1959 to 1997, with some years missing. An extensive event file largely documents events hosted by Harriman, but also includes some that she attended as a guest. The bulk of the file dates after her move to Washington, D.C., in 1971, and many of the events were political fund-raisers. The event files in this series overlap considerably with the Event File series in Part II, but are more distilled than the larger working files found in Part II. The trip file at the end of the series documents Harriman's foreign travel, most often to France, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union. Included are itineraries, arrangements, correspondence, and several photograph albums.
The Miscellany series documents many aspects of Pamela Harriman's life. Her wide circle of family, friends, and connections can be traced through her address books which date from the late 1940s to the 1990s, and through Rolodexes, largely from the 1980s and 1990s. Biographical material relates chiefly to proposed and published biographies of Harriman. Included are transcripts of extensive interviews in 1991 with writer Chris Ogden with whom she had contemplated writing her autobiography. Subsequent legal files discuss the termination of their collaboration. Also contained within Miscellany is a series of diary excerpts, memoranda of conversations, and trip reports written by Harriman between 1973 to 1993. Although episodic, the accounts are generally rich in descriptive detail. Guest books record the numerous visitors to Harriman's homes in Barbados, New York, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. Press files include clippings that chronicle her activities from the 1937 to her death in 1997, correspondence with journalists, and some transcripts of interviews. The series also contains scrapbooks, some of which document specific events, others of which are compilations of letters from prominent political figures, many of whom thanked Harriman for supporting their campaigns. Finally, an Artifact series contains a gold medal depicting Konrad Adenauer that Salvador Dali designed in 1967. It is uncertain when Harriman acquired the medal.
Part II
Part II contains the records of the Democrats for the 80's, the political action committee founded by the Harrimans after the 1980 elections when Democrats lost both the White House and Senate. The records provide a case study on the proliferation and evolution of political action committees in the 1980s. More specifically, they chronicle the role played by the Democrats for the 80's in helping to reshape the Democratic Party's agenda, fund its candidates, and introduce modern campaign techniques. Renamed the Democrats for the 90's in 1989, the political action committee was dissolved at the end of 1990. Pamela Harriman continued to support the Democratic Party and its candidates during the early 1990s, most notably Bill Clinton's presidential campaign in 1992. These activities are also documented in Part II.
The Subject File series contains files relating to Democratic committees and organizations, Democratic National Conventions, party conferences and meetings, political analysts and newsletters, political campaigns of various candidates, and a variety of topics including campaign finance, political action committees, polling, and women in politics. The series also features a large reference file of election-year data from 1980 to 1990. Correspondence, memoranda, minutes, and reports from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Democratic Governors' Association, Democratic National Committee, and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee provide insight into the evolution of Democratic strategy in the 1980s and the ways in which the Democrats for the 80's supported these efforts. Among the project initiatives funded by the Democrats for the 80's was the establishment of the Harriman Communications Center which sought to make state-of-the-art communication technology available to Democratic candidates and members of Congress. Files on the Democratic National Conventions include related material on efforts to improve communications at the 1988 and 1992 conventions. Other topics covered in the Subject File include her membership on the Commission on Presidential Debates from 1987 to 1993 and her support as national co-chair of Bill Clinton's presidential campaign in 1992. The series contains memoranda, correspondence, and talking points from the campaign, and post-election letters from individuals seeking appointments in the new administration.
The operations of the Democrats for the 80's and the shaping of its priorities are documented in the Administrative File series. A large chronological arranged by year contains correspondence, memoranda, board minutes, reports, financial records, and lists of political contributions to candidates by the political action committee and Harriman personally. The founding of the Democrats for the 80's is detailed in chronological files for 1980 while its dissolution is covered in those for 1990. Other material in the series includes bylaws, board lists and resolutions, brochures and newsletters, contributor lists, Federal Election Commission and non-federal filings, office memoranda, and procedural manuals. Legal guidance on federal and state laws governing political action committees is found in a file of correspondence with attorneys for the Democrats for the 80's. Talking points in a press file trace how the political action committee defined itself, its activities, and its political message. The series also contains transcripts of some of the committee's early events and meetings. Washington insider Janet A. Howard served as the political action committee's third executive director. A large chronological file under her name was assembled from unfiled correspondence, reports, notes, and printed matter and reflects her busy schedule and the full array of her activities.
The Project File series features some of the Democrats for the 80's major initiatives. The committee raised funds for federal campaigns as well as those for local and statewide office. Beginning in 1982, it concentrated its fund-raising efforts on Senate candidates, launching the Win the Senate '84 campaign and, in 1984, the Senate Majority '86 initiative. Both projects were supported by direct-mail campaigns well documented in the series. One of the earliest priorities of the Democrats for the 80's was an effort to counter the influence of New Right conservatism in the Republican Party. The Project File includes research files and drafts of a 1981 New Right Manual that provided Democratic candidates with information and talking points on conservative political groups. Related correspondence with and about the National Conservative Political Action Committee, a primary focus of this campaign, is available in the Subject File. In 1982, the Democrats for the 80's produced a more general Democratic Fact Book for use by candidates. Included are working files from the 1982 edition, as well as from its 1984 and 1986 revisions. The Democrats for the 80's partnered with the Democratic National Committee and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in 1983 in analyzing the legislative records of Republican incumbents in key Senate races. Copies of the reports on Colorado, Illinois, Maine, Mississippi, and New Hampshire are available in the series. The Democrats for the 80's also launched various media campaigns, producing radio and television advertisements and short films, the earliest of which were aimed at the New Right conservatism. A fund-raising campaign to pay for satellite technology at the Harriman Communications Center followed in 1987. The renamed Democrats for the 90's undertook a series of national polling projects in 1989-1990 that included full-scale national polls on voter attitudes, perceptions of the Democratic Party, and the testing of themes. Smaller surveys and focus groups gauged voter opinions on campaign finance reform, capital gains tax cuts, medicare catastrophic coverage, and other issues. The polling projects were coordinated by Peter D. Hart. Finally, files from two major fund-raising events, the celebration of W. Averell Harriman's ninetieth birthday in 1981 and a Democratic gala at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in 1990, are included in the series because of the size of the events and the complexity of their planning.
The Event File series contains working files from other events, most of which were hosted by the Harrimans and the Democrats for the 80's. The series complements material found in the Scheduling and Travel File in Part I, providing a fuller record through correspondence, memoranda, lists of attendees, financial records, invitations, programs, notes, photographs, seating charts, speeches, publicity, and news clippings. The types of events documented in the series include fund-raising dinners, lunches, breakfasts, receptions, garden parties, and "issue evenings," small gatherings in the Harriman home that featured talks by prominent Democratic leaders. Other event files include material from Democratic National Conventions and election-night gatherings hosted by the Harrimans in their home. Pamela Harriman held a major fund-raising event for Bill Clinton and Al Gore at her estate in Middleburg, Virginia, in September 1992 and a dinner for the president-elect during the Clintons' first trip to Washington after the election. Both events are documented in the series.
The Lists series contains lists from a wide variety of sources including political candidates, office holders, Democratic Party committees and organizations, political action committees, lobbyists, labor unions, corporations, industries, foundations, institutions, and religious organizations. The original titles of the lists or those supplied by the Democrats for the 80's have been retained. Although the use of these lists by the Democrats for the 80's is rarely indicated, they were most likely culled for fund-raising campaigns, invitation lists, and general networking. Database lists created by the Democrats for the 80's are also included as well as lists identified as "Harriman contacts" that are filed by state.
The collection contains a small Digital Files series. The digital content was originally stored on thirty-nine 5.25" disks and comprises just over one thousand files dating from 1982 to 1990. Several disks represent an attempt to systematically backup files from a staff member's personal computer. The remainder are more random assortments of the office's work product. Word-processed documents include drafts of fund-raising letters and event correspondence, biographical statements, newsletters, press releases, speeches, and talking points. Topics include the Party of the Decade at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, annual dinners, and other events hosted by the Democrats for the 80's, the National Polling Project, and satellite communication projects. Also included are lists of names and addresses and databases of contributors dated 1985-1986. Data from three magnetic tape reels are currently unprocessed and unavailable.