Word: harrimans
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Pamela Digby Churchill Hayward Harriman, Democratic Party power hostess, widow of multimillionaire Averell, and currently U.S. Ambassador to France, has always been fiercely protective of her wealth -- every last dollar, every last dime. Now, money is at the heart of a legal battle between Harriman and Averell's descendants by his first marriage -- two daughters, six grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren. The scions of the late Governor charge that his second wife, who inherited most of his estimated $65 million legacy, has wasted the $30 million of their trust funds on ill-advised investments, leaving them with a relatively paltry...
Also named in the suit are luminaries in the Democratic Party firmament: attorneys Clark Clifford and Paul Warnke. Such Washington power brokers were the company of choice for Pamela Harriman. (In fact, White House counsel Lloyd Cutler signed on as her adviser after the suit was filed.) President Clinton once called her "the first lady of the Democratic Party." Indeed, her house and her parties were a haven for Democratic loyalists during the Reagan-Bush epoch. Over the years, she raised more than $12 million for Democratic candidates. Clifford, 87, whose name was muddied by the Bank of Credit...
...Clifford says, Harriman asked him and Warnke, both old friends, to serve as trustees for nine trusts for his children and grandchildren. After her husband's death in 1986, Pamela became a general partner in the enterprise. Within four years the initial $12 million investment had grown to $25 million. Clifford says the heirs complained they were not getting enough income, so the partnership overseeing funds diversified beyond securities. Some of the new investments were money losers. Clifford says more than $4.5 million was invested in a New Jersey resort that he admits "didn't develop in the manner...
Money matters have always soured Pamela Harriman's relations with her stepchildren. "Pam did not do me any great favors as a stepmother," says Brooke Hayward, whose father Leland Hayward was Pamela's second husband. (Averell was her third; her first was Winston Churchill's son.) "She's greedy beyond the usual human greed." Clifford says Averell's family were deeply unhappy in 1971 when Pamela, then 51, married Averell, then 80. Adds Clifford: "He was generous to Mrs. Harriman during his lifetime, and in his will. That was resented by members of his family...
...Harriman should be able to match that. She has her inheritance and more. (Her Georgetown residence and adjoining office are on the market for $5 million.) Furthermore, Pamela Harriman has always known how to keep hold of what she believes is hers. According to Life of the Party, a biography of Harriman by TIME's Christopher Ogden, she staged Averell's 1986 funeral at the gravesite where his father, mother, sister and first wife had been interred. What most of the mourners did not know is that Averell was not buried there that day. After the ceremony, the widow...