Kingmaker: Pamela Harriman's Astonishing Life of Power, Seduction, and Intrigue

“Constance insisted but the lottery of being born a girl meant that Pamela would be denied education, expectations and a large inheritance. The rest of her life would be spent making up for it.”

In this quote, Purnell uses foreshadowing to connect the circumstances of Pamela’s birth with her eventual trajectory in life. It also provides context, explaining that, as she was born a girl, despite being privileged, Pamela had her own struggles to overcome. Purnell’s depiction attempts to create empathy for a figure who largely lived a life different from that of an ordinary reading audience.

“Week by week at Lady Baillie’s salon, Pamela received an education that would shape the rest of her life: how to make useful connections, gather interesting groups and revive flagging conversations; how to pay attention to the tiniest details of menus, seating plans and accommodation, and bring in expert help such as the Parisian interior designer Stéphane Boudin.”

Pamela’s experience at “Lady Baillie’s salon” is illustrative of an early form of the role of women in politics, where their role is as hostesses to support networking. As the times and Pamela evolved, this role would change significantly.

“By contrast, Pamela was immersed in world events, undemanding, attractive and full of verve, and adored Winston without reservation. It did not go down well with his daughters that she began to address Winston as Papa, or that she was taken into the heart of his world.”

A minor theme in Pamela’s life is her tendency to ruffle feathers in every family of which she becomes a part, including the Churchill family. This tendency shows the double-edged sword of power: while she had more opportunities than other women, she also attracted more enemies and criticism.

“Clementine had noticed Pamela’s power over older men (including her own husband) through a rare cocktail of flattering attention, smoldering sex appeal and an impressive grasp of geopolitics. In a carefully choreographed move, the twenty-year-old was deployed to weave her spell over forty-nine-year-old Hopkins. Washington’s ultimate insider observed how Pamela shone as the apple of Churchill’s eye; everyone else noticed how she swiftly became the apple of Harry Hopkins’s eye too.”

Purnell illustrates here how Pamela used Sexual Politics as a Route into Formal Power. While this could have been undertaken on Pamela’s own initiative, Purnell’s description of it as part of “a carefully choreographed move” suggests that it was part of the Churchills’ attempts to win support from American leadership for their war effort.

“Powerful men often recognized something of themselves in Pamela, which was part of her growing legend. Despite being a world apart in education and experience, she and the president were seducers and manipulators—understanding others’ weaknesses and strengths, and how to leverage them.”

In this passage, Purnell favorably compares Pamela to President Franklin Roosevelt. In making this comparison of their political skills, Purnell tacitly suggests that, had she been born a man or at a time when women had greater access to formal political power, Pamela would have excelled in politics like Roosevelt.

“‘You’re spoiled,’ he told her, ‘and you don’t understand what real life is’—a failing he tried to overcome by taking her to eat in pubs ‘like normal people.’ Pamela’s politics shifted. Never again would she accept that things had to stay the same.”

Over the course of her life, Pamela’s political opinions became more liberal. She was raised in a wealthy family that had historically been members of the Conservative, or Tory, Party, but she gradually left those politics behind over the course of her life. Here, Purnell credits American newsman Ed Murrow as an impetus for this change.

“By using her name, her personality, her sexuality, and her smarts, she helped to weave, sustain and elevate a web of political, military and emotional ties between America and Britain that many today call the Special Relationship. One that began between the sheets of the Dorchester Hotel. In the process, she arguably became the most influential courtesan in history.”

Purnell provocatively argues that the “Special Relationship [….] began between the sheets of the Dorchester Hotel.” This turn of phrase is a euphemism for the sexual relationships Pamela used to secure support from the Americans for the British war effort.

“She had served Britain in every way she knew, but in the process had fallen for America and Americans.”

In this description of Pamela, Purnell foreshadows Pamela’s later life in the United States. Although it would be many decades until she moved there, Purnell here suggests that she was inspired to do so because of the close relationships she had with Americans during the war.

“‘In some ways she would have liked to have been a man,’ recalls Mary Churchill’s daughter Emma Soames, ‘because she had a good brain and women then couldn’t do what they wanted.’ How to get around that problem became her ultimate aim.”

Purnell’s biography of Pamela is partially informed by interviews the author conducted with those who had known Pamela during her life. This passage is illustrative of how Purnell uses these interviews, as in this one with Emma Soames, Winston Churchill’s granddaughter, to create a more intimate portrait of her central figure.

“Foxed by conflicting emotions of anger and guilt, Pamela also resorted to giving money and pulling strings for Winston rather than paying him attention. Ultimately, her sense of maternal failure would almost destroy her.”

As an Englishwoman, Purnell occasionally uses turns of phrase more common in British English than American English, as when she describes Pamela as “foxed,” which here means baffled. This passage contains foreshadowing of how Pamela’s “sense of maternal failure” nearly led to her financial ruin as she gifted her son Winston lavish gifts like a ski chalet and a plane.

“Perhaps even the great Madame de Pompadour herself—renowned mistress of King Louis XV of France—would have been impressed at the way Pamela placed Leland and his work at the center of her universe.”

Purnell only rarely compares Pamela to other historical figures throughout Kingmaker, as she does here, comparing Pamela to Madame de Pompadour. Madame de Pompadour is a world-historical “courtesan” who leveraged her power over the king to achieve considerable political influence. By comparing the two women, Purnell suggests Pamela wielded similarly world-historical power.

“Randolph’s disintegration spurred Pamela on: if he could no longer carry the Churchill flame as his father had once intended, then could she move in to take up the challenge?”

This passage is illustrative of how Purnell uses the voice of narrative biography to provide insight into Pamela’s state of mind. She ventriloquizes Pamela’s inner thoughts in asking the rhetorical question of whether Pamela was capable of “carry[ing] the Churchill flame. While some might see this as opportunistic, it is illustrative of how Pamela used Sexual Politics as a Route into Formal Power.

“Pamela had devoted herself to being a flawless wife. She had invested in Leland’s life, interests and happiness. For her pains, she had been left with disappointment, debts and recriminations. And after a decade in America, she was further away from politics and power than ever.”

Purnell here uses Pamela’s marriage to Leland—and its disastrous outcome—as a point of comparison for how the role of “flawless wife” could lead to ruin for women like Pamela and those of her generation. This contrasts with Pamela’s next marriage, to Averell Harriman, where Pamela had more independence and power and therefore more happiness and freedom.

“It became Washington folklore that Pamela had lobbied for the invitation as a ruse to meet Averell and that she also demanded a place near him at the table. As is so often, the rumors about Pamela were salacious enough for many not to worry whether they were true.”

A motif that runs throughout Kingmaker is the difference between the public perception of Pamela and the real story of her life. Because of the media’s focus on Pamela’s sex life and her many affairs, it was readily believed that Pamela had manipulated circumstances to arrange a meeting with Averell so they could rekindle their relationship, although it was untrue. This dynamic contributes to the Misogyny in Historical Memory-Making criticized in the work.

“In the space marked employment, she had coyly written ‘Housewife.’ Once she officially became an American, though, she had different plans.”

Purnell lightly editorializes throughout to provide voice, humor, and argument to her statement of the fact of Pamela’s life. Here, she characterizes Pamela’s description of herself as a housewife as “coy.” This is a mildly ironic turn of phrase that emphasizes Pamela’s presentation of herself as a demure, shy housewife, which is in stark contrast with her true personality as an outgoing and determined political organizer.

“It was already becoming clear that this was an unusually political marriage, and that Pamela was perhaps even more eager to be engaged than her husband. There was soon a Harriman position rather than an Averell one—'he’ became ‘they.’”

Although political power couples like the Clintons are relatively common in the modern age, it was not typical in the 1970s. Purnell emphasizes this historical anomaly by noting that theirs was an “unusually political marriage.” This signals how the historical era in which Pamela lived is different from that with which the reader might be familiar.

“In truth, she was being judged through a female prism at a time when women were not supposed to show rugged ambition (a quality often admired in men). In the ruthless environment of Washington, success also inevitably led to mistrust.”

Purnell here comments on how the same qualities valued in men are denigrated in women. This sexist lens contributes to the theme of Misogyny in Historical Memory-Making criticized throughout the work.

“As the Democratic salons of Georgetown entered their darkest hour, and after nine years as an American citizen, Pamela saw her chance. Even as the losses came flooding in, she had been on the phone to political friends to call a council of war. Churchill had bounced back, returning as prime minister in 1951, 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 access to power she had enjoyed as a young woman in London.”

This passage draws a connection between Pamela’s experience as a young woman in Winston Churchill’s inner circle and her expertise in electoral politics as a 60-year-old woman. It also illustrates The Changing Role of Women in Politics over this 40 year period. Where once Pamela was frustrated at being limited in her opportunities, she now had the opportunity to intervene directly in politics.

“Pamela read up on her donors as she had once studied lovers and they were unutterably flattered. By the end of the evening, many had lost their hearts and were opening their checkbooks to make another donation. She had once again cast her spell over powerful and wealthy men accustomed to the best of everything but feeling privileged to have been admitted to something entrancing and intimate.”

Purnell recognizes Pamela’s sex appeal and hosting abilities as political skills in their own right, as she describes in this passage. This feminist intervention puts these skills on the same plane as traditionally “masculine” political skills like glad-handing and giving speeches.

“For now, although there were more women on the lower slopes of politics, they were rarely able to climb toward the summit. Pamela almost always found herself the only female at high-level political meetings. Once that had pleased her. Now she began to see how it left her exposed.”

This passage uses an extended metaphor of a mountain to describe political power and access. It describes how Pamela came to understand The Changing Role of Women in Politics. Although she was never a vocal feminist, she came to recognize that she would have more support were she not the only woman at the “summit” or top of political power.

“‘She had worked very, very hard and had reinvented the Democratic Party all by herself,’ says Judith Kipper. ‘She didn’t get credit for it, she wasn’t appointed, she wasn’t paid, she wasn’t recognized except by some. At that time of course women had a certain place. But instead of writing about parties and gossip, there should have been a proper profile of her work.’”

Judith Kipper is a renowned journalist and specialist on the Middle East and Pamela’s friend. Purnell interviewed Kipper to contribute context and color to her biography of Pamela. This quote illustrates how Pamela’s contemporaries recognize how Pamela’s legacy has been tarnished by Misogyny in Historical Memory-Making.

“If Bill and Hillary Clinton were now the Democratic king and queen, he would call Pamela the ‘queen mother.’”

“Queen mother” is the title given to the mother of a monarch. Purnell’s use of this royal metaphor in this passage connects to the title of the biography, Kingmaker. Although Purnell does not argue that Pamela alone contributed to President Clinton’s electoral victory, she recognizes Pamela’s important contributions to the “making” of this “king.”

“The pressure on her had never been greater—she had finally reached the place she had worked for over the fifty long years since Germany surrendered in May 1945. And yet this was also the moment rumors swept Paris that she wanted to give it all up, that the lawsuits and hostile coverage had taken their toll.”

Purnell characterizes Pamela as embattled in her final years. This creates empathy for her as a figure who is facing challenges, albeit some, like her financial straits, of her own making.