Gore Family Tradition Includes Aid From Communist Oil Tycoon

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Nov 20, 2000 | by Mona Charen

It is hard to conceive that a figure of such international stature as Armand Hammer, who died in 1990 at age 92, could have been as contemptible a swindler as he apparently was, but such is the inescapable conclusion of Dossier: The Secret History of Armand Hammer by Edward Jay Epstein.

A secret agent for the Soviet Union since 1921, Hammer managed to make and lose several fortunes during his long life, along the way skirting investigations of money-laundering, fraud, conspiracy, espionage, bribery and countless other crimes by the FBI, Justice Department, Securities and Exchange Commission and other government agencies. The tale of his serial betrayals (of his family, his religion, his country), endless self-aggrandizement and success at courting the rich and famous makes fascinating reading, but there is a contemporary hook: Hammer loomed very large in the lives of one of America's prominent political families, the Albert Gores.

Hammer was born in 1898, the son of Dr. Julius Hammer, a committed communist. Julius named his first son Armand for the communist symbol of an arm holding a hammer (Armand later would purchase the baking-soda company because of the coincidence of names).

While his father served time in prison for performing an abortion that led to a woman's death, Armand (who actually had performed the abortion) traveled to Moscow in his stead and met with Vladimir Lenin in 1921. Impressed with his American fan, Lenin gave "Comrade Hammer" a concession to mine asbestos in the Ural Mountains and also assigned him the sensitive task of distributing (and laundering) money for Soviet agents around the United States. Hammer worked closely with the infamous Feliks Dzerzhinski, the first head of the KGB, known then as the Cheka.

To pursue his work on behalf of the Soviet Union, Hammer set up a number of shell corporations, a pattern that would persist throughout a lifetime. To provide hard currency for the Soviets, he styled himself an art dealer in New York, supposedly selling the "Romanov treasure." In fact, much of it was bric-a-brac and junk carrying phony identification supplied by the Soviets. Despite a lavish personal lifestyle, Hammer never did make any real money (he was near bankruptcy throughout the 1920s and 1930s) until he received another government concession, this time from the U.S. government, to produce alcohol during the World War II.

Hammer was not actually a very good businessman (though he created a myth in the press that he was a billionaire). But he was utterly unscrupulous and very adept at stroking the powerful. When, through the liquor concession, a wife's fortune and other machinations, he was able to achieve great wealth, he immediately used it to purchase political influence. In 1950, he made Rep. Albert Gore Sr. of Tennessee a partner in his cattle-breeding business, which brought Gore a substantial profit.

When J. Edgar Hoover considered moving against Hammer for his provable treason, he stayed his hand at least in part because Hammer had friends in high places, including Gore. When he became a senator, the elder Gore remained a Hammer ally and he was rewarded when he lost his bid for re-election. Hammer hired Gore Sr. as an executive of Occidental Petroleum's coal division at a salary of $500,000 per year.

Albert Gore Jr., who claims to be for the people and against the "powerful," controls between $500,000 and $1 million worth of Occidental stock. In keeping with a tradition begun by his father, Gore Jr. invited Hammer to witness the inauguration of Ronald Reagan as his guest.

It is not a crime to hold Occidental stock, nor to be wealthy. But it should send a shiver down the spines of voters to consider that the Gore family's comfort is owed to a treasonous scoundrel.

Mona Charen is a nationally syndicated columnist and writes on cultural and political issues.