HAMMER

by Armand with Neil Lyndon Hammer ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 1987

Octogenarian Hammer has had uncommonly interesting and productive careers in business, the arts, and international relations, which he recounts at some length (545 pages) in this always absorbing, if occasionally disingenuous, autobiography. In many ways, the author's life story defies coherent abridgement. In broad outline, however, his odyssey runs from a comfortable childhood in the pre-WW I Bronx to the chairmanship of Occidental Petroleum, an energy concern with global revenues exceeding $15 billion annually. Along the way, Dr. Hammer made a small fortune expanding his physician father's drug firm while working toward his own M.D. at Columbia University. After graduating in 1921, he went to the Soviet Union to do some good (helping to fight a typhus epidemic) before starting his internship. Once there, Hammer learned that food, not doctors or medical aid, was the real need. In return for local goods that could be sold in the US, he contracted for grain shipments--and stayed to do well. After nine lucrative years in the USSR, the author returned home, where he turned his vast collection of czarist art treasures to good account after founding Hammer Galleries in Manhattan. In relatively short order, Hammer's entrepreneurial instincts led him into commercial alcohol, distilling, and allied industries (e.g., livestock feed). Eventually, he sold out at a handsome profit and headed West to enjoy an early retirement with his third wife, Frances. In 1956, however, Hammer (then 58) became involved with Los Angeles-based Occidental, whose net worth was barely $34,000. Once a couple of wildcat wells he bankrolled for $100,000 came in, Hammer was off to the races again, turning a dubious local venture into a major multinational enterprise via high-stakes drilling gambles in Libya, the North Sea, Latin America, and other remote venues. In the meantime, Hammer has done much to advance the cause of world peace. One of the last men on earth who can claim a substantive personal acquaintanceship with Lenin, he shuttles tirelessly between the Kremlin, the White House, and other seats of power, including mainland China's Great Hall of the People. In addition to his self-imposed responsibilities as an unofficial intermediary between political leaders in the East and West (which do nothing to hurt business), capitalist Hammer is a world-class philanthropist who has provided generous funding for cancer research and widely displayed his magnificent art collection. In his fascinating memoir, Hammer does not shy from personal blots, including two failed marriages, or other setbacks, but he cops a few pleas. Cases in point include exculpatory accounts of his post-Watergate conviction for election-law violations (which he's fighting to reverse) and Oxy's woes with Hooker Chemical of Love Canal infamy. By any measure, though, Hammer's balance sheet boasts far more credits than debits, and he can be pardoned for focusing on the high points of a remarkable life's work. An engrossing testament. The published text will have 32 pages of photographs (not seen).

Pub Date: May 1, 1987

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Putnam

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1987

Categories: NONFICTION