THE RIDDLE OF ARMAND HAMMER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000302500002-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 20, 2010
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: November 29, 1981
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/20: CIA-RDP90-00552R000302500002-1
ON FACIE t9.
Y0 ==z, MAGAZINE
29 November 1 0/81
to American capitalists. The son of one
Tay 2;;award Jay Epstein of the founders of the American Com-
munist Labor Par
H
b
ty,
ammer
ecame
n Moscow, on May 27, 1922, a multimillionaire capitalist, thanks in:
Vladimir Lenin, the ailing, large measure to his relations with the
leader of the Russian Revolu.: leaders of the Soviet Union. He has
tion, sent an urgent and secret maintained cordial relations with
message to Joseph Stalin, the Soviet leaders for more than half a cen-
newly appointed General Sec- tury,- providing Moscow with a. vital
retaryof the Communist Party," link to Western industry and technolo-
instructing him and the Polit- gy. (Six years ago Soviet leader Leonid
buro to give their "particular I. Brezhnev gave Hammer a luxurious,
support" to a young American and his Moscow apartment, and Kremlin offi-
trading venture. Lenin explained: ciais have proposed that he be named
"This is a small path to the American United States ambassador to the Soviet
`business' world and this path should be Union. Such recommendations have
made use of in every way." The Ameri. made some members of the :Reagan'
can was a 24-year-old graduate of the ! Administration uneasy. Says one mem-
College of Physicians and Surgeons of ber of the President's inner circle, who I
Columbia University. asked not to be identified by name, "We
In Los Angeles, on Aug. 31,1981, more simply don't know which side of the
than a thousand leading businessmen fence Hammer is on. ")
and politicians gathered at the Century Hammer also happens to be Jewish
Plaza Hotel for the presentation of the (by background if not belief), yet
annual Armand Hammer Businessman Libyan strongman Col. Muammar el-
of the Year Award. Bob Hope intro- Qaddafi has made him a major bene-1
duced Armand Hammer, now 83, as the! ficiary of Libya's oil wealth. In the
"epitome of success" of American early 1970's, Hammer negotiated an ac-
capitalism. He lauded him as "an in-! commodation with Qaddafi that had the
dustrialist, an art collector, a diplomat, eventual effect of contributing to the,
and a philanthropist," all titles to? growth and power of OPEC and which '
which Hammer can lay indisputable,, radically changed the oil business
claim. He is the head of Occidental Pe-1 around the world. (Even though both
troleum, the largest independent oil. Mobil and Exxon announced decisions*
company in the world and itself the' to suspend production in Libya earlier'
owner of giant subsidiary companies in this month, Occidental, the main chan-:
such vital areas as food production and. nel of Libyan oil, declared its intention
chemicals. Dr. Hammer, as he prefers
a usual.)
to be called (in deference to the medi-: And continue
although Hammer is s a
cal degree he has never used), also hap. And gh Hamy Demo
oral, he pleaded guilty and received a
pens to be the owner of the Hammer. suspended sentence for providing se-
and Knoedler Galleries, among the . cret and illegal campaign funds to then-
leading art dealers in America, and he ; President Richard M. Nixon in 1972.
is the chairman of the Armand Ham-
lions of dollars every year to charitable, ---6
1 victions and motive. ,
s
.
uaat tions that underlie these
Armand Hammer is that he created is not a simple matter.
this personal empire largely by negoti.
Hammer's skills as an
ating extraordinary deals .with nations. tetrsatlonaI wheeler-deal-
that have usually been hostile to the
STAT
ment. For example, on April 28, 1981 -
the day after President Ronald Reagan ,
reopened the door to trade with the Soviet
Union by ending the embargo imposed in
1979 as a retaliation for the Soviet invasion
of Afghanistan - Armand Hammer en-
tered the Soviet Union aboard OXY 1, his
private Boeing 727, one of the very few !!!!
private aircraft permitted to fly in Soviet ,
airspace. He had already dictated a letter
to Ronald Reagan commending the Presi-
dent on his "courageous decision" and
suggesting that renewed East-West trade
was in the interest of the United States. '
Not incidently, perhaps, it was also in
Hammer's interest. His company was,
committed to ship a million tons of con- !
centrated phosphoric acid to the Soviet
Union annually for the next 20 years. This
would provide Soviet agriculture with the:
liquid fertilizers that it desperately needs
to improve crop yields. The deal, which
Hammer reckoned to be worth no less
than $20 billion, had been nearly wrecked
by the American embargo. Dr. Hammer
was now flying to Moscow to get it moving
again.
The OXY 1 has been specially de-
signed for such intercontinental flights.
Additional fuel tanks give the jet a non-
stop range of up to 5,000 miles, and so-
phisticated telecommunications equip-
ment allow Hammer to telephone al-'
most anywhere in the world while en
route. The 100-foot-long cabin has been
reconfigured into a personal salon '
equipped with such small luxuries as a
Betarnax video recorder and a video-
tape library of Chaplin films. There is
even a guest room, further forward.
On this flight. Hammer invited along
as his guest David Murdoch, a Los An-'
geles financier who owned the largest
interest in Iowa Beef Processors, the
biggest and most advanced beef-packer
in the world. Murdoch was also an avid
collector of Arabian horses. At a dinner
in Los Angeles earlier this year, he had
casually mentioned to Hammer that
the Russians had bred one of the finest
lines of Arabian horses in the world, in-
4
trnitpd 5 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/20: CIA-RDP90-00552R000302500002-1