Opinion

Remember Pamela Harriman? She helped forge the modern Democratic Party

Through extraordinary guile and charm — and marriage to his son — she became Winston Churchill’s confidante in Britain during World War II. And later in America, she was John F. Kennedy’s close friend and Bill Clinton’s champion when few others thought him capable of reversing the Democrats’ long losing streak. Early in Joe Biden’s career, she supported him in his senatorial bid.

She married three famous and powerful men, the last being the veteran diplomat and former New York governor Averell Harriman, an elder statesman of the Democratic Party. Ultimately, however, her goal was neither men nor money, but power.

In late 1980, as the Democratic salons of Georgetown entered their darkest hour with Ronald Reagan’s landslide victory over Jimmy Carter, Pamela saw her chance. Even as the losses came flooding in, she had been on the phone to political friends to call a “war council.” Churchill had bounced back, returning as prime minister in 1951, she told them, and so could the Democrats. Adversity galvanized her; here at last was an exit from a shrinking life with an elderly husband. Most important of all after four decades of frustration, however, was the prospect of finding the excitement and perhaps even the access to power she had enjoyed as a young woman in London.

A few days later, Pamela gathered her favorite Democrats, including Richard C. Holbrooke, Stuart E. Eizenstat, Clark Clifford and Robert Strauss, to discuss the party’s future over dinner. Holbrooke later described the pervasive “sense of disaster,” but the Harrimans struck an upbeat note, and suddenly hope, however faint, was in the air: “The governor [Averell Harriman] ignited it” but “Pam gave it form and structure.” The challenge was not just how to raise more money and organize better to win back seats, but how to create an attractive alternative to Reaganism that was more centrist and sustainable. She was brimming with ideas on policies to appeal to the middle class but was still widely viewed as a “foreign ornament” to her illustrious husband, according to Eizenstat; it was clear she could not yet take the lead because “no one present would have taken her seriously.”

The idea was that the Harrimans would jointly head a political action committee — to be called “Democrats for the ’80s” — and, publicly, Pamela gave the impression it was Averell in the driver’s seat. In fact, he doubted her chances of success and, although supportive, was too frail to take on more than a nominal role. Averell “didn’t do a damn thing except show up,” Strauss noted. “She did everything herself.” Eizenstat echoed this sentiment: “Her marriage had put her in touch with leaders of the party. Without that, it wouldn’t have been possible. But she then did it on her own.”

Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger introduced Pamela to a 34-year-old Washington outsider who had failed to win reelection in 1980 as governor of Arkansas. “Sandy told me she was trying to help the Democrats get reorganized after we all got whacked, including me,” Bill Clinton said. Clinton was in a “depressive funk,” believing he had blown his political career. Even his wife, Hillary, thought he might never recover. Pamela saw it differently. “It’s very important in life to have success, but it’s even more important to have failure,” she repeatedly advised. “And to know how to handle it.”

With a prescience that would come to change American politics, she saw beyond Clinton’s rookie mistakes. His critics, including Averell, viewed him as “cocky” and “provincial,” but she marveled at how he worked a crowd, synthesized policy ideas and deciphered the bigger political picture. She invited him to dinner to persuade him to join the “PamPAC” board. Until he decided to run again for governor in 1982, Clinton became the other public face of Democrats for the ’80s, and she introduced him around D.C. as much as she could.

The benefit was not one-way. “Inviting him to join her board gave him credibility,” said Peter Fenn, PamPAC’s first executive director. “She was very, very helpful to him.” Clinton was not too proud to acknowledge Pamela’s belief in him at a time when “I wasn’t always able to believe in myself.” He wrote to thank her for giving him the opportunity to work together “to regain the political leadership of our country and to correct some of our past errors.” He took her seriously, just as she did him.

But Pamela was a paradox. It was always a bit awkward that Democrats’ new “voice in the wilderness” had a cut-glass English accent, five homes and a safe full of jewels. Soon after setting up PamPAC, she threw a reception for 85 excited labor leaders and two dinners for party leaders on Capitol Hill. Then-House Majority Whip Tom Foley, attended one and compared it to an invitation to the White House. “Normally, to have 15 people at a Democratic gathering, you have to invite 40,” he observed. “Tonight we invited 15 and there are 40 here.”

Pamela’s supporters joked that it was easier to get a Senate quorum at her N Street residence than on the chamber floor and relished her special knack for lifting spirits and calling in favors. Pamela “had this way with the senators,” said Sven Erik Holmes, who came in later as director of PamPAC. “She did a strokey, strokey of their forearm, saying, ‘I’d love it if you could do …’ and they all promised to do it and came away feeling terrific.” Few knew it then, but Pamela was in the early 1980s also opening a door to business and financial interests that would in time change Democratic fundraising forever.

By 1982, PamPAC had given $600,000 to congressional candidates Pamela had largely chosen herself. She took good advice, but ultimately the decisions on whom to back were her own rather than the party’s. Her choices were informed by pragmatism (was the seat winnable?) and personality (was the candidate a winner?). She had supported enough outliers and losers in the past, including backing Bella Abzug’s unsuccessful Senate runs, to know the signs. When West Virginia Sen. Robert C. Byrd’s reelection bid appeared to need help, she thought it worth funneling $10,000 into boosting his campaign. “She’s an indefatigable worker,” said the grateful Byrd on his reelection. He went on to become majority leader and serve in the Senate for a record 51 years.

Pamela’s strike rate was phenomenal. In 1982, the Democrats gained 26 seats in the House in part thanks to her. Thereafter, she switched her attention to the Senate, making more progress in 1984. One of the three candidates she had given the maximum campaign contribution to early on had been Sen. George Mitchell of Maine, but she had also hosted fundraisers for other favorites including Al Gore of Tennessee and John F. Kerry of Massachusetts. Her contributions to Joe Biden’s campaigns in Delaware since 1983 elicited effusive letters from the young senator, whom she considered “very, very bright,” even keeping a file of newspaper cuttings to track his progress.

“It is wonderful to have friends who are always there when you need them,” Biden told her. In truth, Pamela disliked calling people up and asking for cash and her role was best described as “warhorse … instigator” and “disciplinarian,” according to one of her board members, Washington lawyer Berl Bernhard. She also resented being corralled away from the almost exclusively male talk of new ideas. “She wanted it to be more than a fundraising enterprise because she knew people weren’t buying what we were selling,” Clinton says. She saw that change was needed in “personnel and policy” and was not interested in a “vanity project.”

The “issues evenings” Pamela hosted might have been mocked by some as a “drawing-room farce,” but over the coming years, they established her as a kingmaker and political queen. She held the first in March 1981, basing the occasion on her old Churchill Club model of gathering people of affluence and influence in beguiling surroundings. The idea was for up to 40 potential donors to pay $1,000 each to listen to a party figure or Democratic hopeful — names such as Ted Kennedy or John Kerry — who would be invited to the Harrimans’ N Street library to talk about the state of play from the economy to defense.

The antithesis of a soulless tea party in a hotel ballroom, the evening would offer a reverie of style and cosseting combined with hardheaded fundraising and policy discussion. The evenings had a precise choreography: guests would arrive at 7 p.m. to be ushered through the glossy front door into “Pamelot,” where they would mingle over cocktails and mini soufflés served by the white-gloved butler near the Van Gogh. When Pamela shimmered into the room in couture, the effect was complete.

“That whole business model was very important to the resurrection of the [Democratic] party,” said Eizenstat. When he first saw Van Gogh’s “Roses” at the Harrimans’, Robert Stein, a senior party official, “practically collapsed, it was so powerful.” The company would then be seated in rows of gilt bamboo chairs to hear Pamela talk about the need to raise money for Democrats fighting marginal races, to find leaders of the future and to identify policies that would rejuvenate the party. She then took her seat on a sofa at the front next to Averell. She pretended the company had come for her husband — who by now could barely see or hear — but it was no longer true, and often he slipped out of the room after toasting his wife.

After an introduction by Strauss or Clifford, the speaker had the floor for an hour or so until a candlelit dinner at round tables on the sun porch, laid with starched white tablecloths with Pamela’s PCH monogram and handwritten place cards. Proximity was key: up and coming Democrats would be seated next to donors with money or party elders with advice. “I learned from Pamela that someone should always meet someone new at a dinner,” said Kiki McLean, a longtime Democratic operative who started her political career as an N Street assistant, “and someone they already know.”

Another rule was that the cuisine should be of a standard virtually unknown elsewhere in the city. A typical menu started with a light-green turtle soup, followed by raw Chesapeake oysters, fresh jumbo shrimp and creamed Maine lobster, then rum raisin cake, Colombian coffee, cognac and cigars. After dinner, the speaker took questions before everyone left at 10:30 p.m., passing a donation basket placed strategically on the hall table on their way to the door.

When the takings were counted at the end of the night, they totaled $100,000 on average. The 90 or so issues evenings held over the next 10 years amounted to much more than fundraising. Pamelot became the “gathering place for the party in exile,” lobbyist Tony Podesta said. “Pamela had a magnetic charm that came from her beauty,” recalled Eizenstat, adding that she picked up the tab herself. “She also had an understanding of how power works.”

Her detractors were wrong that her charms were a “substitute for intellect and insight,” said Bob Shrum, a former political consultant to Democrats. “She was widely read and mostly self-educated,” and she knew whom to invite, the topics to discuss and the tone to set. Major donors found a call to arms from Pamela irresistible. She exuded a compelling optimism despite the bleak Democratic Party outlook. “Pamela learned about leadership from Winston Churchill,” said Stein. “She, too, had tenacity, willfulness and a joie de vivre in the midst of devastation. Churchill’s public image was that we can do this, we’re greater than this. And Pamela provided that spirit to American politics.”

Her mission was to identify, nurture and fund fresh faces with electoral pizazz. N Street became a sort of “paddock where the best horses for the electoral races were paraded” and “tested for their ability to jump political hurdles,” according to Henry Brandon, Washington correspondent for the Sunday Times. Pamela formed her opinion of contenders — including possible presidential candidates — on their performance in her house.

Clinton did not remain on the PamPAC board for long. He ran again for governor in 1982 and won. Pamela’s friend Cynthia Helms, wife of former CIA director Richard Helms, watched with amazement how she continued to devote herself to introducing “a rather obscure young governor from Arkansas to the Washington elites.” A turbulent childhood in the South had immunized Clinton from the elitist tag attached to Michael Dukakis, although Clinton had studied at both Georgetown and Oxford. The flip side was that he was perceived in some D.C. circles as an upstart from a “hick” state with an erratic electoral record. The un-grand Clintons were not a hit with the grand hostesses of Georgetown.

Pamela thought that was no longer important. “The whole thing has changed,” she told the New York Times, and the concept of the hostess was dead. “Women aspire to be political leaders, not social leaders.” Herself included: Woe betide anyone who now called Pamela a hostess.

She had also thrown herself into the substance of party policy by funding and presiding over the hugely popular Democratic Fact Book or “bible,” as it soon became known. It was compiled by a team of policy staffers she recruited to the top floor of No. 3034, the building next to the Harrimans’ N Street home, to gather facts on Reagan’s policies and the best alternative Democratic thinking so that every candidate would in effect have a “walking research staff” on some 20 key issues, party strategist Tom O’Donnell told me in an interview. It was the beginning of a much more substantive and well-funded party opposition research effort that continues to this day.

On election night in 1986, Pamela ascended to a stage bedecked with red, white and blue balloons, wearing a neat blue suit and a wide smile. The Democrats had just recaptured the Senate and increased their majority in the House in the midterm elections, and during the jubilation afterward, three pillars of the party lavished praise on the woman standing beside them for what she described as a “political earthquake.” Mitchell thanked her for making victory possible; Paul Kirk, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, hailed her as the “first lady” of the Democratic Party; and Rep. Tony Coelho of California declared, “We are indebted to her, and we love her.”

Barely four months after Averell’s death, Pamela had proved she had the electoral firepower that had eluded her husband all his life. It was recognition for an incredible six years during which she had helped teach the party that it could be as tough, professional and determined to win as the Republicans. It was a moment to savor. PamPAC had once been considered “a boondoggling idea,” she informed a reporter, “but I don’t think they think that now.”

Pamela threw her last major fundraiser, the “Day in the Country for Clinton,” at her Virginia farm known as Willow Oaks on Sept. 13, 1992, hoping to raise $1 million. Seven hundred donors were expected, requiring 15 full- time staff led by Janet Howard, Pamela’s new chief of staff, to work through the night. The demand for tickets was so great that Howard collapsed with tremors in her arm, and Melissa Moss, a senior Democratic official, had to take over. By the time Howard returned from the hospital wearing a sling, 1,200 people were on the list.

On the day itself — pleasantly cool and autumnal — more than 150 elite donors pledging at least $10,000 each sat down to lunch at the nearby Red Fox Inn. They alone donated $1.7 million. Wearing a black-and-white dress and diamonds, Pamela had them over for early-evening cocktails at the house with Clinton and Gore, but some of her guests thought she looked a little distracted. It turned out that long queues of people had formed outside the gates and as far down the lane as the eye could see, with huge convoys of cars banked up against the hedgerows. More people than anyone had imagined (over 1,300) had turned up for dinner on the lawn.

Nerves had started to fray as the caterers searched for extra food. Staff were dispatched in a desperate hunt for more tables and chairs. Seating plans were redone and then abandoned. A false calm permeated the drawing room, but outside there were scenes of near chaos, and Pamela began to fear her reputation for flawless organization was about to be trashed — along with her chances of a job in Clinton’s administration. She also knew that Barbra Streisand was hosting a fundraiser a few days later and was horrified by the prospect of her own being overshadowed.

“The Middleburg event was overwhelming,” remembered Moss. “Janet had a picture of a beach on her desk. When things got too crazy she would say, ‘Let’s pretend we’re on that beach for a moment.’ But that also meant success.” The event raised $2.2 million at a time when the battle to oust George Herbert Walker Bush was anything but certain. Two weeks later, Pamela was rewarded with a title: national co-chair of the Clinton-Gore campaign. “Everyone,” national chairman Mickey Kantor wrote to her, “is honored to have you working so closely with us.”

Two weeks after the election, blue-and-white squad cars blocked off traffic along N Street. Throngs of spectators were waiting behind yellow police tape, their breath visible in the crisp night air. Viewed from inside No. 3038, black Secret Service SUVs were silhouetted against the lights of the TV crews opposite. Filling the hallway and library were the Gores and 100 hand-selected lawmakers, activists and off-duty media stars, whose excited hubbub quieted as the blare of sirens drew closer.

Just before 8 p.m., an agent in a trench coat with one hand pressed to his ear gave the “One minute!” warning. Sixty seconds later, Pamela’s front door swung inward in perfect unison with the armored limousine drawing up outside. Pamela stepped out into the volley of flashbulbs, shouts from journalists and applause from the crowd. Bill and Hillary Clinton turned and waved before climbing the couple of steps to their beaming host. “Hi, Pamela,” Clinton said, embracing her. “Hello, Mr. President!” she replied triumphantly. “And welcome. I am so glad you could come this evening.”

A few months later, she was named ambassador to France.