HAMMER, ARMAND

HAMMER, ARMAND (1898–1990), U.S. industrialist and art collector. When studying at Columbia Medical School in his native New York in 1918, he joined his father's business, a chain of drug stores which was about to go bankrupt. Hammer demonstrated his business acumen when he bought quantities of medicine cheaply at the end of World War I and sold them as the price rose quickly, making $1 million. After graduating medical school in 1921, he took off six months before beginning his internship and went to the U.S.S.R. His father was a member of the Communist party of America and a strong supporter of the Russian Revolution. Hammer went to help set up medical clinics in Moscow and other Russian cities. In the aftermath of the Revolution, the health-care system no longer existed and he made a significant contribution. A businessman by nature, Hammer began arranging business deals for the Soviet Union. The first major one was an American wheat purchase in exchange for Russian furs and caviar. When Lenin saw Hammer's capabilities, the Russian leader gave the young man mining rights in Siberia. To show his appreciation, Hammer engineered deals involving Ford, U.S. Rubber, and other large companies with the Soviet Union. Remaining in Russia for nine years until 1930, he and his brother, who had joined him, bought up Russian art treasures which were available for needed cash. He made another $1 million when Lenin granted him the exclusive rights to manufacture wooden pencils in the Soviet Union. On his return to the United States with an enormous horde of art treasures, many from the royal Romanov family, he had trouble selling the works because of the Depression. To be innovative, he merchandized the paintings and other art objects through major department stores such as Macy's and Gimbels. His first book dealt with his adventures collecting art in Russia and was entitled The Quest for the Romanoff Treasure. During the next 25 years, he earned a major fortune buying and selling distilleries. He retired in California in 1956, but within a short time he bought the controlling interest in Occidental Petroleum Company, a company about to fail. He struck oil with several new leases, soon registering major profits amounting to $300 million a year. This company, under his leadership, became the largest oil company in the world under private ownership. In the early 1970s his close relationship with the Soviet government resulted in his negotiating a major fertilizer purchase by the Russians from an American company worth $8 billion. His ties with Russia helped to reawaken his Jewish roots. Although secret at the time, it is now clear that Hammer intervened to seek to persuade Russian leaders to permit Soviet Jews to leave the U.S.S.R. in the 1970s – ultimately almost 200,000 then emigrated.   Although publicly non-committal about Israel and his Judaism until the 1980s, he visited the country secretly and also tried to help develop certain business ties for Israel with various countries, which had no relations with her. From the mid-1980s, he was active in getting refuseniks released and he flew Ida Nudel to Israel in his own plane when she was finally freed. He also invested in oil explorations in Israel and in offshore sites nearby, none of which produced any marketable finds. He died in his sleep only a few days before he was to have had a belated bar mitzvah. (David Geffen (2nd ed.)