The Remarkable Life of Dr. Armand Hammer

New York: Harper & Row, 1975. First Edition. First Printing. Hardcover. Good/Fair. 287, illus., appendices, index, slight soiling to fore-edge, DJ soiled and some edge wear. Robert Bernard Considine, known as Bob Considine (November 4, 1906 - September 25, 1975), was an American journalist, author, and commentator. He is best known as the co-author of Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo and The Babe Ruth Story. With the advent of World War II, Considine become a war correspondent with the International News Service, also owned by Hearst. The wire service was a predecessor to United Press International. His column "On the Line" was a well known syndicated feature. Considine had a notable array of admirers in high places; he had correspondence from Truman, Lyndon B. Johnson, Rube Goldberg, Nelson A. Rockefeller, Cardinal Francis Spellman, and General William C. Westmoreland. President Dwight D. Eisenhower in a 1960 letter to William Randolph Hearst, Jr., praised Considine's reporting on the 1960 U-2 incident in which the Soviets downed an American aircraft piloted by Francis Gary Powers and used for intelligence gathering. Armand Hammer (May 21, 1898 - December 10, 1990) was an American business manager and owner, most closely associated with Occidental Petroleum, a company he ran from 1957 until his death, though he was known as well for his art collection, his philanthropy, and for his close ties to the Soviet Union. Hammer's business interests around the world and his "citizen diplomacy" helped him cultivate a wide network of friends and associates. He appeared frequently on television, commenting on international relations or agitating for research into a cure for cancer. 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 best seller in 1987). His art collection and his philanthropic projects were the subject of numerous publications as well. After graduating from 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. 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 and caviars in exchange for a shipment of surplus American wheat. He moved to the USSR in the 1920s to oversee these operations, especially his large business manufacturing and exporting pens and pencils. According to Alexander Barmine, who was assigned by the Central Committee to run the Mezhdunarodnaya Kniga company to compete with Hammer, the stationery concession was actually granted to Dr. Julius Hammer. 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. Barmine further contends that the Soviets were eventually able to duplicate certain items such as typewriter parts and pens and end those concessions but were never able to match the quality of Hammer's pencils so that concession became permanent. 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. These oil investments were later parlayed into control of Occidental Petroleum. National Geographic described Occidental chairman Hammer as "a pioneer in the synfuels boom." Hammer was a philanthropist, supporting causes related to education, medicine, and the arts. 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). By the time of his death, Hammer had won the Soviet Union's Order of Friendship of Peoples, the U.S. National Medal of Arts (1987), France's Legion of Honor, Italy's Grand Order of Merit, Sweden's Royal Order of the Polar Star, Austria's Knight Commander's Cross, Pakistan's Hilal-i-Quaid-Azam Peace Award, Israel's Leadership Award, Venezuela's Order of Andrés Bello, Mexico's National Recognition Award, Bulgaria's Jubilee Medal, and Belgium's Order of the Crown. Hammer hungered for a Nobel Peace Prize, and was repeatedly nominated for one, including by Menachem Begin, but never won.