The World of Armand Hammer

Armand Hammer is one of the all-time great humanitarians and industrialists. He was the first Western businessman to form commercial links to the nascent Soviet Union. Unlike the ideologues in the west that poisoned the atmosphere between the Soviet Union and the rest of the world, Hammer was a pragmatist, buying grain on the world market and shipping it to the Soviet Union to help avoid starvation. Hammer also had a good relationship with Lenin, finding him charming and pleasant to be around. Hammer's commercial ties to the Soviet Union lasted until Stalin consolidated his power, and Hammer, seeing the reality, left the country. He stayed away until the early 1960's, when President John Kennedy asked him to go back to try to open ties between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Soviet leaders had such a high opinion of him that he was the only person who was allowed to fly his personal jet into the country. This book is largely a photo history of the life of Hammer; there are pictures of him from childhood up until his eighties. Many were taken in the Soviet Union and show him as a hands-on leader, meeting with a succession of Soviet leaders. Hammer was also active in the United States, he was involved in many charities, areas of industry and he is frequently shown meeting with western political leaders. It is unfortunate that the life of Armand Hammer is not more closely studied than it is. The modern news about the business sector is full of stories about company leaders that are guilty of lies, deception and greed. Hammer was an honorable man who risked his own money to prevent starvation in the early years of the Soviet Union and received rewards and respect for those acts for decades afterward. He was a decent man and his life could teach many indecent people how business should be conducted.