She continues to divide opinions decades after her death: was she “shameless” and “repellent” or a clever power player?
Her six names are as follows: Churchill, Pamela Beryl Digby Hayward Harriman was a British aristocrat who influenced many well-known figures in 20th-century politics and society before becoming a Washington power player and the US ambassador to France. She became “his most willing and committed secret weapon” at the age of 20, according to a new biography, when she was enlisted by her father-in-law Winston Churchill. She won over significant Americans to the British cause against the Nazis during World War Two by wine, dine, and seduction them.
As she later engaged with famous personalities such as the Kennedys, Bill Clinton, Nelson Mandela, and Truman Capote—who finally parodied her in his fiction along with his other “swans”—her influence grew even more.
