Armand Hammer
Encyclopedia
Armand Hammer was an American
business tycoon most closely associated with Occidental Petroleum
, a company he ran for decades, though he was known as well as for his art collection, his philanthropy, and for his close ties to the Soviet Union
.
Thanks to business interests around the world and his "citizen diplomacy," Hammer cultivated a wide network of friends and acquaintances. Late in life, he would brag that he had been the only man in history friendly with both Vladimir Lenin
and Ronald Reagan
.
Hammer remains a controversial figure because of his ties to the Soviet Union
, which led to speculation that he was disloyal to the United States
. During his lifetime, some also objected to him on the grounds that he had made an illegal campaign contribution to U.S. president Richard Nixon
. Because of his tight control of Occidental Petroleum, Hammer has been blamed for the company's misdeeds, including environmental pollution, alleged mistreatment of workers, and four SEC investigations into financial improprieties.
Hammer hungered for publicity, and was the subject of major magazine and newspaper profiles from the 1920s through his death in 1990. He appeared frequently on television, commenting on international relations or agitating for research into a cure for cancer
. As of 2008, he has been the subject of five biographies — in 1975 (Considine, authorized biography), 1985 (Bryson, coffee table book
), Weinberg 1989, Blumay 1992, and Epstein 1996 — 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.
n-born Jewish immigrants Julius and Rose (Lipshitz) Hammer. His father came to the United States from Odessa
, Ukraine in 1875, and settled in The Bronx
, where he ran a general medical practice and five drugstores.
Hammer sometimes claimed that his father had named him after a character, Armand Duval, in La Dame aux Camélias, a novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils
. In fact, according to multiple biographers, Hammer was named after the "Arm and Hammer" symbol of the Socialist Labor Party of America
(SLP), in which his father, a committed socialist, had a leadership role at one time. (After the Russian Revolution
, a part of the SLP under Julius' leadership split off to become a founding element of the Communist Party USA
.) Later in his life, Hammer would admit the communist tie himself.
During the Spanish flu
pandemic, Julius Hammer performed an abortion
on a Russian-born woman ill with pneumonia
; she died and he served 2½ years at Sing Sing
.
Hammer attended Morris High School
, Columbia College (B.A., 1919) and then medical school at Columbia
(M.D., 1921). When his father was sentenced to prison as he entered medical school; he and his brothers 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, he scored his first business triumph 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. In 1921, while waiting for his internship to begin at Bellevue Hospital
, Hammer went to the Soviet Union
for a trip that ended up lasting until late 1930. Although his career in medicine was cut short, he relished being referred to as "Dr. Hammer".
, but was soon moved by a capitalistic and philanthropic interest in selling wheat to the then-starving Russians. In his passport application, Hammer stated that he intended to visit only western Europe. J. Edgar Hoover
in the Justice Department knew this was false, but Hammer was allowed to travel anyway. A skeptical U.S. government watched him through this trip, and for the rest of his life.
ial 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 caviar
s 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. According to Barmine the party spent five million gold rubles on stationery supplies made in factories controlled by Julius Hammer and other concessionaires making them rich. 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 according to Barmine.
In his 1983 book Red Carpet, author Joseph Finder discusses Hammer's "extensive involvement with Russia."
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
. Throughout his life he continued personal and business dealings with the Soviet Union, despite the Cold War
. In later years he lobbied and traveled extensively at 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.
Politically, Hammer was a staunch supporter of the Republican party
. He boosted Richard Nixon
's presidential
campaign with $54,000 in campaign contributions. He pled guilty on charges that one of these donations had been made illegally and received probation and a $3000 fine , but was later pardon
ed by Republican U.S. President George H. W. Bush
.
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 famed "Hammer Galleries" in New York City.
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 People, 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.
In 1986, Forbes Magazine estimated his net worth at $200 million.
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.
cancer in December 1990, aged 92. He died in Los Angeles, California.
) throughout their lives. He married three times, first in 1927 to a Russian actress named Olga Von Root, the daughter of a czarist general, Baron Vadin Nicholaievitch Root; Olga was descended from German nobles and from Polish-Lithuanian general Tadeusz Kościuszko
. In 1943, he was married to Angela Zevely. In 1956 he married the wealthy widow Frances Barrett, and they remained married until her death in 1989. He had only one child, a son named Julian Armand Hammer, by his Russian wife. Hammer's grandson is Michael Armand Hammer
and his great-grandson is actor Armie Hammer
.
originated with tycoon Armand Hammer, who owned a considerable amount of Church and Dwight stock in the 1980s and served on its board of directors. The Arm & Hammer brand was in use some 31 years before Hammer was born, leading some to speculate that things were actually the other way around and Hammer's father named him after the brand.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
business tycoon most closely associated with Occidental Petroleum
Occidental Petroleum
Occidental Petroleum Corporation is a California-based oil and gas exploration and production company with operations in the United States, the Middle East, North Africa, and South America...
, a company he ran for decades, though he was known as well as for his art collection, his philanthropy, and for his close ties to the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
.
Thanks to business interests around the world and his "citizen diplomacy," Hammer cultivated a wide network of friends and acquaintances. Late in life, he would brag that he had been the only man in history friendly with both Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...
and Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
.
Hammer remains a controversial figure because of his ties to the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, which led to speculation that he was disloyal to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. During his lifetime, some also objected to him on the grounds that he had made an illegal campaign contribution to U.S. president Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
. Because of his tight control of Occidental Petroleum, Hammer has been blamed for the company's misdeeds, including environmental pollution, alleged mistreatment of workers, and four SEC investigations into financial improprieties.
Hammer hungered for publicity, and was the subject of major magazine and newspaper profiles from the 1920s through his death in 1990. He appeared frequently on television, commenting on international relations or agitating for research into a cure for cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
. As of 2008, he has been the subject of five biographies — in 1975 (Considine, authorized biography), 1985 (Bryson, coffee table book
Coffee table book
A coffee table book is a hardcover book that is intended to sit on a coffee table or similar surface in an area where guests sit and are entertained, thus inspiring conversation or alleviating boredom. They tend to be oversized and of heavy construction, since there is no pressing need for...
), Weinberg 1989, Blumay 1992, and Epstein 1996 — 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.
Early life
Hammer was born in Manhattan, New York, to RussiaRussia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n-born Jewish immigrants Julius and Rose (Lipshitz) Hammer. His father came to the United States from Odessa
Odessa
Odessa or Odesa is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast located in southern Ukraine. The city is a major seaport located on the northwest shore of the Black Sea and the fourth largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1,029,000 .The predecessor of Odessa, a small Tatar settlement,...
, Ukraine in 1875, and settled in The Bronx
The Bronx
The Bronx is the northernmost of the five boroughs of New York City. It is also known as Bronx County, the last of the 62 counties of New York State to be incorporated...
, where he ran a general medical practice and five drugstores.
Hammer sometimes claimed that his father had named him after a character, Armand Duval, in La Dame aux Camélias, a novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils
Alexandre Dumas, fils
Alexandre Dumas, fils was a French author and dramatist. He was the son of Alexandre Dumas, père, also a writer and playwright.-Biography:...
. In fact, according to multiple biographers, Hammer was named after the "Arm and Hammer" symbol of the Socialist Labor Party of America
Socialist Labor Party of America
The Socialist Labor Party of America , established in 1876 as the Workingmen's Party, is the oldest socialist political party in the United States and the second oldest socialist party in the world. Originally known as the Workingmen's Party of America, the party changed its name in 1877 and has...
(SLP), in which his father, a committed socialist, had a leadership role at one time. (After the Russian Revolution
Russian Revolution of 1917
The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar was deposed and replaced by a provisional government in the first revolution of February 1917...
, a part of the SLP under Julius' leadership split off to become a founding element of the Communist Party USA
Communist Party USA
The Communist Party USA is a Marxist political party in the United States, established in 1919. It has a long, complex history that is closely related to the histories of similar communist parties worldwide and the U.S. labor movement....
.) Later in his life, Hammer would admit the communist tie himself.
During the Spanish flu
Spanish flu
The 1918 flu pandemic was an influenza pandemic, and the first of the two pandemics involving H1N1 influenza virus . It was an unusually severe and deadly pandemic that spread across the world. Historical and epidemiological data are inadequate to identify the geographic origin...
pandemic, Julius Hammer performed an abortion
Abortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...
on a Russian-born woman ill with pneumonia
Pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...
; she died and he served 2½ years at Sing Sing
Sing Sing
Sing Sing Correctional Facility is a maximum security prison operated by the New York State Department of Correctional Services in the town of Ossining, New York...
.
Hammer attended Morris High School
Morris High School (Bronx, New York)
Morris High School was a high school in the borough of the Bronx in New York City. It was built in 1897. It was the first high school built in the Bronx...
, Columbia College (B.A., 1919) and then medical school at Columbia
Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons
Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, often known as P&S, is a graduate school of Columbia University that is located on the health sciences campus in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan...
(M.D., 1921). When his father was sentenced to prison as he entered medical school; he and his brothers took Allied Drug, the family business, to new heights, reselling equipment they had bought at depressed prices at the end of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. According to Hammer, he scored his first business triumph in 1919, manufacturing and selling a ginger
Ginger
Ginger is the rhizome of the plant Zingiber officinale, consumed as a delicacy, medicine, or spice. It lends its name to its genus and family . Other notable members of this plant family are turmeric, cardamom, and galangal....
extract which legally contained high levels of alcohol. This was extremely popular during prohibition
Prohibition
Prohibition of alcohol, often referred to simply as prohibition, is the practice of prohibiting the manufacture, transportation, import, export, sale, and consumption of alcohol and alcoholic beverages. The term can also apply to the periods in the histories of the countries during which the...
, and the company had $1 million in sales that year. In 1921, while waiting for his internship to begin at Bellevue Hospital
Bellevue Hospital Center
Bellevue Hospital Center, most often referred to as "Bellevue", was founded on March 31, 1736 and is the oldest public hospital in the United States. Located on First Avenue in the Kips Bay neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, Bellevue is famous from many literary, film and television...
, Hammer went to the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
for a trip that ended up lasting until late 1930. Although his career in medicine was cut short, he relished being referred to as "Dr. Hammer".
Quest for the Romanov treasure
Hammer's intentions in the 1921 trip have been debated since. He has claimed that he originally intended to recoup $150,000 in debts for drugs shipped during the Allied interventionAllied Intervention in the Russian Civil War
The Allied intervention was a multi-national military expedition launched in 1918 during World War I which continued into the Russian Civil War. Its operations included forces from 14 nations and were conducted over a vast territory...
, but was soon moved by a capitalistic and philanthropic interest in selling wheat to the then-starving Russians. In his passport application, Hammer stated that he intended to visit only western Europe. J. Edgar Hoover
J. Edgar Hoover
John Edgar Hoover was the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the United States. Appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation—predecessor to the FBI—in 1924, he was instrumental in founding the FBI in 1935, where he remained director until his death in 1972...
in the Justice Department knew this was false, but Hammer was allowed to travel anyway. A skeptical U.S. government watched him through this trip, and for the rest of his life.
Career
After graduating from medical school, Hammer extended earlier entrepreneurEntrepreneur
An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...
ial ventures with a successful business importing many goods from and exporting pharmaceuticals to the newly-formed Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, together with his younger brother Victor
Victor Hammer (businessman)
Victor Hammer , was a businessman, founder and owner of the famed Hammer Galleries in New York City, and the younger brother of Armand Hammer....
. According to Hammer, on his initial trip, he took $60,000 in medical supplies to aid in a typhus
Typhus
Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...
epidemic, and made a deal with Lenin
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...
for furs and caviar
Caviar
Caviar, sometimes called black caviar, is a luxury delicacy, consisting of processed, salted, non-fertilized sturgeon roe. The roe can be "fresh" or pasteurized, the latter having much less culinary and economic value....
s in exchange for a shipment of surplus American wheat
Wheat
Wheat is a cereal grain, originally from the Levant region of the Near East, but now cultivated worldwide. In 2007 world production of wheat was 607 million tons, making it the third most-produced cereal after maize and rice...
. 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
Alexander Barmine
Alexander Gregory Barmine was an officer in the Soviet Army who fled the purges of the Joseph Stalin era. After settling in France, he later moved to the United States where he enlisted in the U.S. Army as a private during World War II as an anti-aircraft gunner, later joining the Office of...
, 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. According to Barmine the party spent five million gold rubles on stationery supplies made in factories controlled by Julius Hammer and other concessionaires making them rich. 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 according to Barmine.
In his 1983 book Red Carpet, author Joseph Finder discusses Hammer's "extensive involvement with Russia."
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
Occidental Petroleum
Occidental Petroleum Corporation is a California-based oil and gas exploration and production company with operations in the United States, the Middle East, North Africa, and South America...
. Throughout his life he continued personal and business dealings with the Soviet Union, despite the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
. In later years he lobbied and traveled extensively at great personal expense, working for peace between the United States and the Communist
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
countries of the world, including ferrying physicians and supplies into the Soviet Union to help Chernobyl
Chernobyl
Chernobyl or Chornobyl is an abandoned city in northern Ukraine, in Kiev Oblast, near the border with Belarus. The city had been the administrative centre of the Chernobyl Raion since 1932....
survivors.
Politically, Hammer was a staunch supporter of the Republican party
Political party
A political party is a political organization that typically seeks to influence government policy, usually by nominating their own candidates and trying to seat them in political office. Parties participate in electoral campaigns, educational outreach or protest actions...
. He boosted Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
's presidential
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
campaign with $54,000 in campaign contributions. He pled guilty on charges that one of these donations had been made illegally and received probation and a $3000 fine , but was later pardon
Pardon
Clemency means the forgiveness of a crime or the cancellation of the penalty associated with it. It is a general concept that encompasses several related procedures: pardoning, commutation, remission and reprieves...
ed by Republican U.S. President George H. W. Bush
George H. W. Bush
George Herbert Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States . He had previously served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence.Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to...
.
He was a collector of Impressionist
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
and Post-Impressionist
Post-Impressionism
Post-Impressionism is the term coined by the British artist and art critic Roger Fry in 1910 to describe the development of French art since Manet. Fry used the term when he organized the 1910 exhibition Manet and Post-Impressionism...
paintings. His personal donation forms the core of the permanent collection of the UCLA Hammer Museum
Hammer Museum
The Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Culture Center, or the Hammer Museum as it is more commonly known, is an art museum in the Westwood district of Los Angeles, California...
in Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
. Together with his brother Victor, he was the owner of the famed "Hammer Galleries" in New York City.
Hammer was a philanthropist, supporting causes related to education
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
, medicine, and the arts. Among his legacies is the Armand Hammer United World College of the American West
Armand Hammer United World College of the American West
The United World College-USA is a United World College founded in 1982 by industrialist and philanthropist Armand Hammer. It is a two-year, independent, coeducational boarding school with about 200 students representing 80-90 countries at any time...
(now generally called the UWC-USA, part of the United World Colleges
United World Colleges
UWC is an education movement comprising thirteen international schools and colleges, national committees in over 130 countries and a series of short educational programmes. The UWC movement aims to make education a force to unite people, nations and cultures for peace and a sustainable future...
). By the time of his death, Hammer had won the Soviet Union's Order of Friendship of People, the U.S. National Medal of Arts
National Medal of Arts
The National Medal of Arts is an award and title created by the United States Congress in 1984, for the purpose of honoring artists and patrons of the arts. It is the highest honor conferred to an individual artist on behalf of the people. Honorees are selected by the National Endowment for the...
(1987), France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
's Legion of Honor, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
's Grand Order of Merit, Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
's Royal Order of the Polar Star, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
's Knight Commander's Cross, Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
's Hilal-i-Quaid-Azam Peace Award, Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
's Leadership Award, Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
's Order of Andrés Bello, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
's National Recognition Award, Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
's Jubilee Medal, and Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
's Order of the Crown
Order of the Crown
The Order of the Crown is the name of a number of decorations issued by several countries. The following nations either presently, or in the past, have issued Orders of the Crown:* Order of the Crown * Order of the Crown of India...
. Hammer hungered for a Nobel Peace Prize
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel.-Background:According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who...
, and was repeatedly nominated for one, including by Menachem Begin
Menachem Begin
' was a politician, founder of Likud and the sixth Prime Minister of the State of Israel. Before independence, he was the leader of the Zionist militant group Irgun, the Revisionist breakaway from the larger Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah. He proclaimed a revolt, on 1 February 1944,...
, but never won.
In 1986, Forbes Magazine estimated his net worth at $200 million.
Hammer made a guest appearance on a 1988 episode of The Cosby Show
The Cosby Show
The Cosby Show is an American television situation comedy starring Bill Cosby, which aired for eight seasons on NBC from September 20, 1984 until April 30, 1992...
(as the grandfather of a friend of Theo Huxtable's who was suffering from cancer), saying that a cure for cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
was imminent.
Death
Hammer died of bone marrowBone marrow
Bone marrow is the flexible tissue found in the interior of bones. In humans, bone marrow in large bones produces new blood cells. On average, bone marrow constitutes 4% of the total body mass of humans; in adults weighing 65 kg , bone marrow accounts for approximately 2.6 kg...
cancer in December 1990, aged 92. He died in Los Angeles, California.
Personal life
Hammer was the middle child of three boys, and had close relationships, including business relationships, with his brothers (Harry and VictorVictor Hammer (businessman)
Victor Hammer , was a businessman, founder and owner of the famed Hammer Galleries in New York City, and the younger brother of Armand Hammer....
) throughout their lives. He married three times, first in 1927 to a Russian actress named Olga Von Root, the daughter of a czarist general, Baron Vadin Nicholaievitch Root; Olga was descended from German nobles and from Polish-Lithuanian general Tadeusz Kościuszko
Tadeusz Kosciuszko
Andrzej Tadeusz Bonawentura Kościuszko was a Polish–Lithuanian and American general and military leader during the Kościuszko Uprising. He is a national hero of Poland, Lithuania, the United States and Belarus...
. In 1943, he was married to Angela Zevely. In 1956 he married the wealthy widow Frances Barrett, and they remained married until her death in 1989. He had only one child, a son named Julian Armand Hammer, by his Russian wife. Hammer's grandson is Michael Armand Hammer
Michael Armand Hammer
Michael Armand Hammer is an American philanthropist and businessman. He is the son of Julian Armand Hammer and the grandson of industrialist Armand Hammer...
and his great-grandson is actor Armie Hammer
Armie Hammer
Armand Douglas "Armie" Hammer is an American actor. After appearing on television and playing the title role in 2008's Billy: The Early Years, he became known for his portrayal of the Winklevoss twins in the 2010 film The Social Network, and Clyde Tolson in J. Edgar...
.
Arm & Hammer
It is often claimed, incorrectly, that the brand name Arm & HammerArm & Hammer
Arm & Hammer is a registered trademark of Church and Dwight, an American manufacturer of household products. The logo of this brand is a muscular arm holding a hammer...
originated with tycoon Armand Hammer, who owned a considerable amount of Church and Dwight stock in the 1980s and served on its board of directors. The Arm & Hammer brand was in use some 31 years before Hammer was born, leading some to speculate that things were actually the other way around and Hammer's father named him after the brand.
Further reading
- Dark Side of Power: The Real Armand Hammer, by Carl Blumay, Simon & Schuster, November 1992, ISBN 978-0671700539
- Biographical Dictionary of American Business Leaders (pp. 533–36), by John N. Ingham, Greenwood Press, 1983, ISBN 0313239088
- Hammer: Odyssey of an Entrepreneur (book review)
- The Remarkable Life of Dr. Armand Hammer by Bob Considine
- The Secret History of Armand Hammer by Edward Jay Epstein
- Hammer by Armand Hammer with Neil Lyndon
- Armand Hammer. The Untold Story by Steve Weinberg