Armand Hammer

Template:Short description {{#invoke:other uses|otheruses}} Template:Distinguish Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox person Armand Hammer (May 21, 1898<ref name=Untold/>Template:Rp – December 10, 1990) was an American businessman and philanthropist. The son of a Russian Empire-born communist activist, Hammer trained as a physician before beginning his career in trade with the newly established Soviet Union. Having made his fortune in pharmaceuticals and whiskey, he nearly retired before coming into control of the then-failing Occidental Petroleum in 1956.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He spent the next 33 years as chief executive officer and chairman of the company, overseeing its growth to become one of the largest companies in the U.S.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Called "Lenin's chosen capitalist" by the press, he was also known for his art collection and his close ties to the Soviet Union.Template:Sfn<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Christian Science Monitor-1980b">Template:Cite news</ref>

Hammer's business interests around the world and his "citizen diplomacy" helped him cultivate a wide network of friends and associates.

Early lifeEdit

Armand Hammer was born in New York City to Rose (née Lipschitz) and Julius Hammer. Rose and Julius Hammer were Jewish emigrants from the Russian Empire, from Vitebsk (now in Belarus) and Odesa (now in Ukraine), respectively.<ref name="Hammer">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>Template:Sfn<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Julius Hammer came to the United States in 1875 and settled in the Bronx, where he ran a general medical practice and five drugstores.<ref name="Remarkable">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="rou">Template:Cite news</ref>

Following the Russian Revolution, a part of the Socialist Labor Party of America (SLP) under Julius's leadership split off to become a founding element of the Communist Party USA, which supported Vladimir Lenin and Bolshevism.Template:Sfn As the administrative head, commercial attaché, and financial advisor of the Ludwig Martens-led Russian Soviet Government Bureau, Julius Hammer was assigned to generate support for the Russian Soviet Government Bureau and funded the Soviet Russian Bureau by money laundering the proceeds from illegal sales of smuggled diamonds through his company Allied Drug, while his Allied Drug partner, Abraham A. Heller, headed the Soviet Bureau's commercial department.Template:Sfn Julius Hammer and Heller traveled extensively across the United States to stop the embargo of Soviet Russia and to increase United States trade with Soviet Russia and improve the image of Bolsheviks, whom American socialists despised overwhelmingly.Template:Sfn During the United States embargo against Soviet Russia, Julius Hammer used his Allied Drug and Chemical as a front to smuggle items and materials between the United States and Soviet Russia through Riga.Template:Sfn After the Lusk Committee supported the police raid of the Soviet Russian Government Bureau on June 12, 1919, Ludwig Martens escaped and went underground, often hiding at Hammer's home.Template:Sfn<ref name=MartensBio>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> On December 18, 1920, Martens was deported; he was returned to Soviet Russia in January 1921.Template:Sfn<ref name=MartensBio/>

File:Socialist Labor Party of America logo.svg

The symbol of the SLP

Hammer said originally that his father had named him after a character, Armand Duval, in La Dame aux Camélias, a novel by Alexandre Dumas. According to other sources, Hammer later was said to be named after the "arm and hammer" graphic symbol of the SLP, in which his father had a leadership role.Template:Sfn Late in his life, Hammer confirmed that the latter story contained the true origin of his given name.<ref name=Untold/>Template:Rp

Father's imprisonmentEdit

Due to his socialist and communist activities, Hammer's father Julius had been put under federal surveillance.<ref name=Matsen/> On July 5, 1919, federal agents witnessed Marie Oganesoff (the 33-year-old Russian wife of a former tsarist diplomat) entering Julius's medical office located in a wing of his Bronx home.<ref name=Matsen/> Oganesoff, "who had accumulated a life-threatening history of miscarriages, abortions, and poor health, was pregnant and wanted to terminate her pregnancy."<ref name=Matsen>Template:Cite book</ref> The surgical procedure took place in the midst of a great flu epidemic.<ref name=Ingham>Template:Cite book</ref> Six days after the abortion, Oganesoff died of pneumonia.<ref name=Ingham/> Four weeks after her death, a Bronx County grand jury indicted Julius Hammer for first-degree manslaughter.<ref name=Matsen/> The following summer, a criminal prosecutor convinced a jury that Julius Hammer had let his patient "die like a dog" and that the claims that she had actually died from complications due to influenza were mere attempts to cover up his crime.<ref name=Matsen/> In 1920, a judge sentenced Julius Hammer to three and a half years in Sing Sing prison.<ref name=Matsen/><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

While most historians (such as Beverly Gage<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and Nigel West<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>) state that Julius had performed the abortion, an opposing position has been put forward by author Edward Jay Epstein, who in his book Dossier: The Secret History of Armand Hammer puts forward the claim that it was Armand Hammer, then a medical student, rather than his father, who performed the abortion and his father Julius assumed the blame.<ref name=Persico/> Epstein's claims come from interview comments made by Bettye Murphy, who had been Armand's mistress.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> According to Murphy and Epstein's account, the legal strategy was that Julius did not deny that an abortion had been performed, but insisted that it had been medically necessary and that a licensed doctor, rather than a medical student, would be more convincing in presenting that argument.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Allied DrugEdit

After the Soviet Russian Government Bureau closed, Allied Drug's smuggling activities between the United States and Soviet Union ceased, which caused Allied Drug to gain enormous debts from storing large amounts of unpaid items in warehouses in New York and Riga.Template:Sfn In March 1921, Ludwig Martens sent a letter from Moscow through the Soviet mission in Tallinn to Julius Hammer, who was imprisoned at Sing Sing until 1924, granting his Allied Drug and Chemical concessions for trade with the Soviets and requested an Allied Drug representative to be present in the Soviet Union.Template:Sfn

When his father was imprisoned, Hammer and his brother took Allied Drug, the family business, to new heights, reselling equipment they had bought at depressed prices at the end of World War I. According to Hammer, his first business success was in 1919, manufacturing and selling a ginger extract, which legally contained high levels of alcohol. This was extremely popular during Prohibition, and the company had $1 million in sales that year.Template:Citation needed

Family envoy in Soviet UnionEdit

While Julius was imprisoned, he sent Armand Hammer, who could not speak any Russian, to the Soviet Union to look after the affairs of Allied Drug and Chemical.<ref name=Persico/>Template:Sfn Hammer traveled back and forth from the Soviet Union for the next 10 years.<ref name=Persico>Template:Cite news</ref> In the meantime, Hammer graduated from Columbia College in 1919 and received his medical degree from the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1921.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

In 1921, while waiting for his internship to begin at Bellevue Hospital, Hammer went to the Soviet Union for a trip that lasted until late 1930.<ref name=Untold>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp Although his career in medicine was cut short, he relished being referred to as "Dr. Hammer". Hammer's intentions in the 1921 trip have been debated ever since. He has claimed that he originally intended to recoup $150,000 in debts for drugs shipped during the Allied intervention, but was soon moved by a capitalistic and philanthropic interest in selling wheat to the then-starving Russians.<ref name=Untold/>Template:Rp In his passport application, Hammer stated that he intended to visit only Western Europe.Template:Sfn J. Edgar Hoover in the Justice Department knew this was false, but Hammer was allowed to travel, anyway.<ref name=Untold/>Template:Rp The 26-year-old Hoover, who was the Justice Department's expert on subversives, was tipped off that Armand Hammer was a courier for the COMINTERN and ensured that foreign intelligence agencies were notified of Armand Hammer's travels.Template:Sfn A skeptical U.S. government watched him through this trip and for the rest of his life.Template:Sfn<ref name=HammerSpies>Template:Cite book</ref>

CareerEdit

Early Soviet venturesEdit

First trip to RussiaEdit

After leaving Columbia Medical School, Hammer extended earlier entrepreneurial ventures with a successful business importing many goods from and exporting pharmaceuticals to the newly formed Soviet Union, together with his younger brother Victor. The blockade of Soviet Russia had ended for most items in February 1921, and on July 5, 1921, he departed New York on his first trip to Soviet Russia as Allied Drug's representative in Soviet Russia.Template:Sfn Prior to his departure, he visited Charles Recht, Lenin's United States attorney that supported Soviet Russia's best interests in the United States and whose law office was in the same building that the former Soviet Russian Government Bureau had occupied, and Recht gave Hammer a package to deliver to Ludwig Martens in Moscow.Template:Sfn During this first visit, Armand Hammer allowed the Cheka, the Soviet secret police who later became known as the KGB, to take control of Allied Drug and Chemical.<ref name="LastTycoonNYT">Template:Cite news</ref>

Asbestos concessionEdit

During his time in Soviet Russia and later the Soviet Union, he perfected bribery and money-laundering techniques, which were exposed later in the 1960s and 1970s during which he tape-recorded his payoffs.Template:Sfn After returning to the United States, Hammer stated that Lenin had granted him an asbestos concession for 25 years to mine asbestos from the Urals in Soviet Russia.Template:Sfn<ref name="Pivdenny">Template:Cite news</ref> According to Hammer, on his initial trip, he took $60,000 in medical supplies to aid in a typhus epidemic and made a deal with Lenin for furs, caviar, and jewelry expropriated by the Soviet state in exchange for a million bushels (27,216 tons) shipment of surplus American wheat.<ref name="Pivdenny"/>

Lenin New Economic PolicyEdit

During Lenin's New Economic Policy, Armand Hammer became the mediator for 38 international companies in their dealings with the USSR.<ref name="Christian Science Monitor-1980a">Template:Cite news</ref> Before Lenin's death, Hammer negotiated the import of Fordson tractors into the USSR, which served a major role in agricultural mechanization in the country.<ref name="Christian Science Monitor-1980a"/><ref name="Flanigan-1988">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Later, after Stalin came to power, additional deals were negotiated with Hammer as an American–Soviet negotiator.<ref name="Christian Science Monitor-1980a"/>

Hammer's move to Soviet UnionEdit

He moved to the USSR in the 1920s to oversee these operations, especially his large business manufacturing and exporting pens and pencils.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> According to Alexander Barmine, who was assigned by the Central Committee to run the Mezhdunarodnaya Kniga company to compete with Hammer, the stationery concession to produce such items in the Soviet Union was actually granted to Julius Hammer.<ref name=survived>Template:Cite book</ref> Barmine states the party spent five million gold rubles on stationery supplies made in factories controlled by Julius Hammer and other concessionaires, making them rich.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Barmine further contends that a factory led by himself eventually succeeded in producing certain items, such as pens, of comparable and better quality than Hammer's, but that the main Soviet pencil trust never achieved Hammer's quality while Barmine was in the USSR.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Armand Hammer remained in the Soviet Union until 1930.<ref name="Andrews-1989"/>

Return to the United StatesEdit

Back in the United States, Hammer was bequeathed a few Fabergé eggs by the Soviets between 1930 and 1933.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="UPI">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The authenticity of the artifacts was questioned.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> According to Géza von Habsburg, Armand's brother Victor Hammer stated Stalin's trade commissar Anastas Mikoyan provided Fabergé hallmarking tools to Armand to sell fakes,<ref name="UPI"/>Template:Sfn and Victor stated a 1938 New York sale he ran with Armand, which grossed several million dollars, consisted of both authentic and inauthentic items (called Fauxbergé by Habsburg), with commissions going back to Mikoyan.<ref name="UPI"/> Although certainly some fakes were produced, on close examination many of the so-called fake items turned out to actually be from various workshops, particularly that of Henrik Wigstrom, and had been appropriated by the Soviet government when they closed the Faberge company. As the items were either unfinished or not ready for retail sale, many were not hallmarked, so Hammer and his associates finished the work.Template:Citation needed

In his 1983 book, Red Carpet, author Joseph Finder discusses Hammer's "extensive involvement with Russia."<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In Dossier: The Secret History of Armand Hammer, Edward Jay Epstein called Hammer "a virtual spy" for the Soviet Union.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Oil company, Libya deals, and return to Soviet negotiationEdit

After returning to the U.S., Hammer entered into a diverse array of business, art, cultural, and humanitarian endeavors, including investing in various U.S. oil-production efforts.

He gained enormous wealth through his United Distillers of America, which was a 1933 established firm known as the A. Hammer Cooperage Corporation until 1946, when it changed its name to United Distillers of America Ltd.<ref name="UnitedDistillers">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In early 1944, Hammer purchased American Distilling Co. and a former New Market, New Hampshire, rum distillery at which his American Distilling employee, Dr. Hanns G. Maister, began producing the first United States-made potato-based spirit, which was a vodka, and also produced a blended whiskey that was retailed through the cooperage's account with West Shore.<ref name="UnitedDistillers"/> After a B-25 plane crashed into the north face of the 79th floor of the Empire State Building on a foggy Saturday July 28 in 1945, Hammer purchased the damaged 78th floor, refurbished it, and made it the headquarters of his United Distillers of America.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

His oil investments were later parlayed into control of Occidental Petroleum (Oxy) which he obtained in 1956.<ref name="HammerSpies"/> Through his Occidental Petroleum and its stakes in Libya, Hammer was pivotal in breaking the tight grip that the major United States domestic producers had on the price of oil, and instead gave OPEC control over oil prices.<ref name="LastTycoonNYT"/> Arthur Andersen was Oxy's auditor.Template:Sfn National Geographic described Occidental chairman Hammer as "a pioneer in the synfuels boom."<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

In 1973, Libya nationalized 51% of Oxy's holdings in Libya. In 1974, Armand Hammer announced a 35-year oil exploration agreement with Libya, the first such agreement signed by Libya after Muammar Gaddafi came to power in September 1969. By the 1974 deal, 81% of the oil extracted by Occidental Petroleum was going to the Libyan government, with only 19% retained by Occidental Petroleum. At the time, Oxy was the second largest producer of oil in Libya, and Libya was the company's only major source of crude. The Libyan government continually threatened the assets of the company, who would usually give in to Gaddafi's demands.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Throughout his life Hammer continued personal and business dealings with the Soviet Union, despite the Cold War. In later years, he lobbied and traveled extensively at a great personal expense, working for peace between the United States and the Communist countries of the world, including ferrying physicians and supplies into the Soviet Union to help Chernobyl survivors.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In his book The Prize, Daniel Yergin writes that Hammer "ended up as a go-between for five Soviet General Secretaries and seven U.S. Presidents."<ref>Yergin, Daniel. The Prize, page 557. Simon & Schuster, 1991</ref>

DétenteEdit

Template:Stack Through Hammer's closeness to Yuri Andropov, Andropov assigned Mikhail Ilyich Bruk (Template:Langx; 1923 Moscow – 2009 Jurmala) also called Mike or Michael Brook or Brooke, who was an English-Russian translator, as Hammer's personal ambassador and expediter and was present as Hammer's translator at all meetings between Armand Hammer and Soviet leaders in the Soviet Union beginning in 1964.Template:Sfn<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Bruk had been a technical translator at the first Pugwash conference called the Thinkers' Lodge held in July 1957.Template:Sfn According to Armand Hammer, "Mike's KGB."Template:Sfn

In early 1969, Armand Hammer obtained control of Eaton's Tower InternationalTemplate:Efn through which Hammer would have a controlling majority stake in Tower International in exchange for Hammer's Occidental Petroleum assuming the debts of Tower International and Eaton receiving 45% of any profits from Tower International's future projects.<ref name=macleans13111989/>Template:Sfn Template:Efn Template:Efn

During Soviet times Armand Hammer also financed the Template:Interlanguage link, which opened in 1979 and became known as the Hammer Center.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Trade deals between Nixon and BrezhnevEdit

After Richard Nixon, as the first United States President to visit the Soviet Union, traveled to Moscow for a summit that ended on June 1, 1972, Hammer traveled to Moscow arriving July 14, 1972,Template:Efn and, with Sargent Shriver as his legal advisor, negotiated the first trade agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union following Nixon's summit.Template:Sfn Six weeks prior to Nixon's departure, Hammer personally gave Maurice Stans, the finance chairman of Nixon's campaign fund, $46,000 in cash from a numbered bank account in Switzerland which Hammer used as his slush fund money.Template:Sfn Later, in September 1972 Hammer gave Nixon's campaign fund an additional $54,000 from the same Swiss bank account amounting to a total of $100,000 that Hammer donated to Nixon's campaign fund.Template:Sfn On July 18, 1972, Hammer returned to the United States through London and called Tim Babcock, Hammer's lobbyist for the Nixon administration, to have him arrange a meeting with Nixon through H. R. Haldeman, who was Nixon's chief of staff, in order to debrief the President about Hammer's trade deal which occurred on July 20, 1972.Template:Sfn

During détente in July 1972, Armand Hammer negotiated a twenty year agreement through Leonid Kostandov, who was a close friend of Hammer and was the Minister of the Chemical Industry in the USSR from October 1965 to 1980,<ref name=gse79>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref><ref name=upi>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=nytreu>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> with Leonid Brezhnev of the Soviet Union that was signed by Hammer in April 1973 in which the Hammer-controlled firms Occidental Petroleum and Tower International would export to the Soviet Union, and later Russia, phosphate, which Occidental mined in northern Florida, in return for the Soviet Union, and later Russia, exporting from Odessa through Hammer's firms natural gas that would be converted into ammonia, potash, and urea.Template:Sfn This fertilizer deal was to continue until Hammer's 100th birthday in 1998.Template:Sfn JaxPort at the Port of Jacksonville in Jacksonville, Florida, was the United States port through which this trade occurred.<ref name="JacksonvillePhosphateOxy">Template:Cite news</ref> Nixon encouraged the Export–Import Bank to finance in part the deal, valued at $20 billion over 20 years,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="The New York Times-1981">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Rich">Template:Cite news</ref> and fund the Soviet construction of four ammonia plants in the greater Volga region, and a pipeline connecting them to the port at Odessa.<ref name="Rich"/>

On July 27, 1978, the fertilizer deal began functioning in the Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union, with the opening of the port and the Odessa plants near the former location of Grigorievka (Template:Langx, Template:Langx) at the seaport "Pivdenny" (Template:Langx, Template:Langx), which is the deepest port in Ukraine servicing vessels with drafts up to Template:Convert.<ref name="Pivdenny"/><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="10FactsPivdenny">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Pivdenny is located at the Small Adzhalyk Estuary west of the 1974 established Yuzhne. The Port of Pivdenny was known as "Grigorievsky" (Template:Langx) until 1978 and as the Port of Yuzhne from 1978 until April 17, 2019, when the port was renamed from the Russian word to the Ukrainian word for southern.<ref name="Pivdenny"/><ref name="10FactsPivdenny"/><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Illegal financial support of Nixon's Watergate fundEdit

Politically, Hammer was a Democrat; but according to the memoir of his lawyer Louis Nizer, he was also one of "many executives who contribute to both political parties [and] preferred no publicity about his dual gifts." In 1972, "under pressure" from various sources, Hammer donated an unusual amount to Nixon's second campaign: "He wished his substantial contribution to Nixon to be anonymous because he himself was a Democrat."<ref name=Nizer>Template:Cite book</ref> Hammer anonymously gave $46,000 to support Nixon before a 1971 law took effect on April 7, 1972, which banned political contributions both anonymous and through another person.<ref name=NYT15081989>Template:Cite news</ref> Later, in September 1972, Armand Hammer made an additional three illegal contributions totaling $54,000 to Richard Nixon's Watergate fund through friends of former Montana Governor Tim Babcock, who was Hammer's vice president of Occidental Petroleum,Template:Sfn after which both Hammer and Babcock pleaded guilty to charges involving illegal contributions.<ref name=NYT15081989/><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Hammer received probation and a $3,000 fine.<ref name=Nizer/> In August 1989, U.S. President George H. W. Bush pardoned Hammer for the illegal contributions to aid Nixon's re-election in 1972.<ref name=NYT15081989/><ref name="Andrews-1989">Template:Cite news</ref>

Association with the Gore familyEdit

A 2003 interview with Aleksey Mitrofanov erroneously places the Hammer and Gore families close to each other in Europe.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Occidental's coal interests were represented for many years by attorney and former U.S. Senator Al Gore Sr., among others. Gore, who had a longtime close friendship with Hammer, became the head of the subsidiary Island Creek Coal Company, upon his election loss in the Senate in November 1970.Template:Sfn<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Much of Occidental's coal and phosphate production was in Tennessee, the state Gore represented in the Senate, and Gore owned shares in the company.Template:Efn Former Vice President Al Gore Jr. received much criticism from environmentalists, when the shares passed to the estate after the death of Gore Sr., and Gore Jr. was a son and the executor of the estate.<ref name="goremoney">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Gore Jr. did not exercise control over the shares, which were eventually sold when the estate closed.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Hammer was very fond of Gore Jr. and, in 1984, under Hammer's guidance, Gore Jr. sought Tennessee's Senate office previously held by Howard Baker. Hammer supposedly promised Gore Sr. that he could make his son the president of the United States. It was under Hammer's encouragement and support that Gore Jr. sought the Democratic Party presidential nomination in 1988.Template:Sfn<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Stake in Arm & HammerEdit

In the 1980s Hammer owned a considerable amount of stock in Church & Dwight, the company that manufactures Arm & Hammer products; he also served on its board of directors. However, the Arm & Hammer company's brand name did not originate with Armand Hammer. It was in use 31 years before Hammer was born.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> While Hammer and Occidental said that the Church & Dwight investment was a coincidence, Hammer acknowledged previously trying to buy the Arm & Hammer brand as a result of often being asked about it.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

President's Cancer PanelEdit

In 1981, Hammer was appointed by U.S. President Ronald Reagan to serve on the three-member President's Cancer Panel and he later served as chairman of the panel from 1984 to 1989.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> As chairman of the panel, he announced a campaign to raise $1 billion a year to fight cancer.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Other activities and pursuitsEdit

Hammer was a philanthropist, supporting causes related to education, medicine, and the arts. He was a collector of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings. His personal donation forms the core of the permanent collection of the UCLA Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, California. Together with his brother Victor, he was the owner of the "Hammer Galleries" in New York City.<ref name=gallery>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=gallery2>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name=gallery3>Template:Cite magazine</ref> Hammer purchased Knoedler, the oldest art gallery in America, in 1971.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Hammer hired art historian John Richardson as director at Knoedler;<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Richardson later wrote an unflattering portrait of him, nailing Hammer with the tag "a veteran con man".<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

File:Another sign of Holmby Park, Holmby Hills, Los Angeles, California..JPG

Sign of the Armand Hammer Golf Course in Holmby Park in Holmby Hills, Los Angeles

Among his legacies is the Armand Hammer United World College of the American West (now generally called the UWC-USA, part of the United World Colleges), which he helped found in 1981, with the support of the then-Prince of Wales, Charles, who was president of United World Colleges International. Due to his closeness to the future Charles III, he was figuratively called a godfather to one of the Prince's children.Template:Sfn<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> It has been reported that Charles intended to make Hammer Prince William's godfather but was forced to abandon these plans as Princess Diana disliked the idea.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In the 1980s, Hammer gave strong financial support to Prince Charles's projects of nearly 40 million pounds and free use of Hammer's Boeing 727.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Together with his friends Harry and Rosa Strygler, he also supported several Jewish foundations, particularly those associated with the Holocaust. Hammer hungered for a Nobel Peace Prize, and he was repeatedly nominated for one, including by Menachem Begin,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> but never won.

In 1986, Forbes magazine estimated his net worth at $200 million.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Hammer made a guest appearance on a 1988 episode of The Cosby Show (as the grandfather of a friend of Theo Huxtable's who was suffering from cancer), saying that a cure for cancer was imminent.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Hammer was leading Occidental in 1988 when its oil rig, Piper Alpha, exploded, killing 167 men. The Cullen Report highlighted failings in many areas on the platform.

As of 2016, he has been the subject of six biographies: in 1975 (Considine, authorized biography), 1985 (Bryson, coffee table book), Weinberg 1989, Blumay 1992, Epstein 1996, and Alef 2009; and two autobiographies (1932 and a bestseller in 1987). His art collection, The Armand Hammer Collection: Four Centuries of Masterpieces, published by the Armand Hammer Foundation in multiple editions, eventually became five centuries of masterpieces, sometimes in conjunction with museums where the collection was displayed.<ref>Honore Daumier 1808–1879: The Armand Hammer Daumier Collection Incorporating a Collection from George Longstreet, 1981</ref> and his philanthropic projects<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> were the subject of numerous publications.

AwardsEdit

In 1978, Hammer, as a non-citizen of the Soviet Union, received the Soviet Union's award the Order of Friendship of Peoples from Leonid Brezhnev because of his strong support of both the International Workers and Communist movement and the needs of the Soviet Union.<ref name=HammerSpies/>Template:Sfn By the time of his death, Hammer had received other awards, including:

Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement (1978)<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> Template:Div col

U.S.: National Medal of Arts (1987)
France: Legion of Honor
Italy: Grand Officer of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (August 1, 1981)<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Sweden: Royal Order of the Polar Star
Austria: Knight Commander's Cross
Pakistan: Hilal-i-Quaid-Azam Peace Award
Israel: Leadership Award
Venezuela: Order of Andrés Bello Template:Citation needed
Mexico: National Recognition Award
Bulgaria: Jubilee Medal
Belgium: Order of the Crown Template:Sfn
John Jay Award (1981) from Columbia College, his alma mater<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> Template:Div col end

Personal lifeEdit

File:The Armand Hammer Family Tomb in Westwood Memorial Park.JPG

Family tomb in Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery

Hammer was the middle of three sons. He had close relationships, including in business, with his brothers, Harry and Victor Hammer, throughout their lives.

Hammer married three times. In 1927, Hammer married a Russian actress, Olga Vadimovna von Root, who was the daughter of a czarist general.<ref name="Remarkable"/><ref name="rou"/> In 1943, he married Angela Zevely. In 1956, he married the wealthy widow Frances Barrett, and they remained married until her death in 1989.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Hammer had one son, Julian Armand Hammer, by his first wife.<ref name="Untold"/>Template:Rp<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Hammer's grandson is businessman Michael Armand Hammer; his great-grandson is actor Armie Hammer.

Hammer died of bone marrow cancer in December 1990, aged 92 in Los Angeles. He is buried in Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery, across the street from the Occidental Petroleum headquarters on Wilshire Boulevard.