Editor's Letter

The Trouble with Harriman

Pamela Harriman—ambassador to France, widow of Democratic wise man Averell Harriman, former daughter-in-law of Winston Churchill, onetime lover of Edward R. Murrow, Gianni Agnelli, and Elie de Rothschild, political godmother to Bill Clinton and A1 Gore, and the Wicked Stepmother memorialized in Brooke Hayward's best-seller, Haywire—is certainly no stranger to controversy. Bryan Burrough— Vanity Fair special correspondent, former Wall Street Journal star, winner of the 1994 Gerald Loeb Award (for his V.F. story on the Haft family feud), co-author of the best-selling Barbarians at the Gate—is no stranger to the investigative story.

For "The Perils of Pamela," on page 76, Burrough called on all his experience as a top financial reporter ("I had to go back and relearn about trust law and venture capital," he admits) in order to figure out the bottom line on the scandal that erupted onto the front pages when Averell Harriman's daughters and grandchildren sued the ambassador. They had reportedly lost millions of dollars, but whose fault was it? Was Pamela to blame? Or her high-profile Washington trustees, Clark Clifford and Paul Warnke? Or was it William Rich III, the family's financial adviser?

"After the initial outburst, there was a common assumption that Pamela was merely a ceremonial figure," Burrough says. "No one could fathom the key role that she did have." Untangling the complicated family investments, Burrough lays clear that role, and discovers a further twist to the plot: "Pamela Harriman has been painted as the villain, and the family has a strong moral case. But what I was very surprised to learn is how much she was really a victim."

The story took Burrough into three different worlds: the social clusters of New York and Paris, Washington political circles, and high finance. For him, the irony lay in the mix: interviewing power players such as Lloyd Cutler and Felix Rohatyn and society figures such as Peter Duchin and Kitty Carlisle Hart—as well as not-so-famous sources in such places as Allentown, Pennsylvania, and the mountains of northwestern New Jersey. The result of his investigation is not just a tale of financial scandal; it is also a portrait of a prominent family in crisis.

Editor in chief