The personal papers of Pamela Dig by Churchill Harriman, who died in 1997 while serving as the U.S. ambassador to France, have been given to the Library of Congress by her estate.
Harriman was a prominent figure in national politics in the 1980s and 1990s. She was on the board of directors of the Commission on Presidential Debates (1987- 1993), chair and founder of the "Democrats for the '80s" and "Democrats for the '90s," both major fund-raising committees for the National Democratic Party, as well as National co-chair of the Clinton-Gore campaign in 1992. President Clinton named her ambassador to France in 1993.
Dr. Billington called the Pamela Harri man papers a "rich and highly valuable resource" for the understanding of American national politics in the 1980s and early 1990s as well as for documenting the life of an "extraordinary woman who has been involved in national and international politics and diplomacy since the opening days of World War II." He said he expected that the Pamela Harriman papers would be consulted frequently by historians and scholars after they are organized and made available for research. (As a condition of the gift, the Harriman estate will control access to the papers for 10 years.)
The Pamela Harriman papers are a large collection, estimated to contain more than 500,000 items. They cover all aspects of her life but are most extensive regarding her active involvement in civic, political and governmental matters in the last 20 years.
In addition to her political work, Harriman was a trustee of the College of William and Mary in Virginia, Rockefeller University and the Brook ings Institution, served on the Council of the National Gallery of Art, the Winston Churchill Foundation and the W. Averell Harriman Institute for Russian Studies, as well as on the board of directors of the Mary W. Harriman Foundation and as a vice chairman of the Atlantic Council.
Born Pamela Digby in Farnborough, England, in 1920, Harriman studied at the Sorbonne in Paris (1937-1938). In 1939 she married Randolph Churchill, the son of Britain's wartime Prime Minister, Winston Churchill. She worked for various British war agencies during World War II and as a journalist for the Beaverbrook Press after the war. She came to the United States in 1959 and married Leland Hayward in 1960. She became an American citizen in 1971 and married W. Averell Harriman in that year.
In addition to the gift of the Pamela Harriman papers, her estate also donated to the Library approximately 29,000 more items to supplement the Averell Harriman papers. The Averell Harriman papers, approximately 300,000 items, are also held by the Library and were the gift of Pamela Harriman in 1986.
