Armand Hammer was an American businessman who
was popularly known as the owner of Occidental Petroleum, which he ran for a
number of decades. Hammer is also known for his art collections, his charitable
activities, and his ties with the Soviet Union.
Hammer has maintained business interests in
many parts of the world. He was known for his “citizen diplomacy,” which allowed him to build and maintain a
network of acquaintances and friends.
Hammer was born on May 21, 1898 in New York.
His father, Julius, was of Jewish descent. The Hammer family migrated to the US
in 1875 and owned five drugstores and practiced medicine.
Julius Hammer was imprisoned for performing an
abortion on a Russian woman while Armand Hammer was in a medical school. He
decided to take over the family’s business named Allied Drug. In 1919, Hammer
began producing and selling ginger extract which contains high levels of
alcohol. During the prohibition, it was said that Hammer made $1 million in
sales.
After medical school, Hammer ventured into
importation and exportation. He imported various goods and exported
pharmaceuticals to Soviet Union. In his first trip, Hammer began with $60,000
worth of medical supplies to help in a typhus epidemic. He also dealt with
Lenin to exchange his American wheat with Russian furs. This started his
successful business with USSR up to the point of staying there in the 1920s.
When Hammer returned to the US, he ventured
into various activities which included arts and culture, humanitarian and
business. He invested in oil production. Later, these investments turned out to
be Occidental Petroleum.
Most of the coal production of Occidental
Petroleum was in Tennessee. These coal interests were represented by former
Senator Albert Arnold Gore Sr. as lawyer. Hammer had a longtime close friendship
with Gore. When Gore Sr. died, his shares were passed on to his son, Albert
Gore Jr. Hammer and Gore Jr. were good friends too. In fact, it was Hammer who
pushed Gore Jr. to ask for the Democratic presidential nomination
in 1988.
Hammer contracted bone marrow cancer and died
on December 10, 1990 at 92 years old.
No comments:
Post a Comment