The dark side of power

At his death on December 10, 1990, Armand Hammer was hailed as one of the great entrepreneurs of all time - a man who came out of retirement at the age of 59 to build the virtually bankrupt Occidental Petroleum Corporation into one of the world's great international companies. The multimillionaire industrialist was also saluted as an art collector and philanthropist and was the recipient of countless humanitarian awards. Noted, too, were his friendships with presidents, Kings, and princes, and his self-appointed role as a peace-maker with unparalleled access to the leaders of the Soviet Union. The world, it was said, would never see the likes of Armand Hammer again. Now Carl Blumay reveals a very different man in a book that could never have been published while Hammer was alive. As both his public relations consultant and Director of Public Relations at Occidental, Blumay spent 25 years as Hammer's colleague and confidant, and was the. Chief architect of the carefully crafted public image that Hammer played to perfection on the world stage. Blumay was also, however, the only close associate of Hammer's who never signed a vow of silence. Now, in The Dark Side of Power, he gives us