Word: hammerism
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Bravura Act. In negotiating with the Soviets, Hammer has shown all of his drive, determination and actor's ability to cry or laugh as the occasion seems to demand. He gave a particularly bravura performance during a series of July conferences in which he was determined to get Soviet signatures on some kind of official document. He reminded Soviet officials of the way he had made a fortune in their country in the 1920s, saying: "I have a great debt to the Russian people, and though I am an old man with not many years left, I will...
...Just as Hammer was about to leave, Dzherman Gvishiani, a top Soviet science official, produced an untranslated draft of a pact that he suggested Hammer take back to the U.S. to study. Instead, Hammer flipped through it for 30 seconds and changed just one word, scratching out "draft" and substituting "agreement." Then he signed it and handed it back to Gvishiani. When the Russian began to hem and haw, Hammer asked in mock amazement how the Soviet official could possibly object to signing his own draft. After those theatrics, the agreement was an anticlimax: it is a nebulous "technical cooperation...
...development by the Soviets, with the help of U.S. technology and capital, of natural gas fields around Yakutsk in Siberia; and 3) construction by Americans of a hotel and trade center in Moscow. All three projects face high hurdles. The hotel-trade center deal is rather vague, but Hammer hopes to put together a U.S. consortium that would arrange all design, construction and financing and turn over completed buildings to the Soviets. The fertilizer transaction, by his estimate, would require an investment of $100 million for an Occidental fertilizer plant in Florida. Counting the cost of tankers to carry...
Development of gas from the field around Yakutsk would require Occidental and a partner, El Paso Natural Gas, to supply technological help and money to build pipelines and tankers to carry liquefied natural gas to the U.S.; Occidental would take payment in gas, which it would sell in America. Hammer himself concedes that at least $3 billion in American money will be needed, but insists that Washington will guarantee the necessary loans. His logic: "We in the U.S. need the gas, or else we just face having more brownouts." But within the Nixon Administration, officials are debating whether...
Undeterred, Hammer vows to keep visiting Moscow "until we get them [the Soviets] all signed up." Perhaps he will one day achieve the biggest breakthrough toward expanded East-West trade. But he has yet to prove that his ability to conclude firm deals matches his talent for generating publicity...