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Dossier: The Secret History of Armand Hammer
When Armand Hammer died at the age of 92, he was chairman of the Occidental Petroleum Company, lauded for his financial support of cancer research and for his art collection. But behind the facade of respectability lay a lifetime of fraud, both personal and professional. Now, the bestselling author of The Assassination Chronicles reveals the true story of this manipulative and corrupt man. of photos.
414 pages, Paperback
First published November 30, 1990
7 people are currently reading
397 people want to read
About the author
Edward Jay Epstein
72 books69 followersEdward Jay Epstein (born 1935) was an American investigative journalist and a former political science professor at Harvard, UCLA, and MIT. While a graduate student at Cornell University in 1966, he published the book Inquest, an influential critique of the Warren Commission probe into the John F. Kennedy assassination. Epstein wrote two other books about the Kennedy assassination, eventually collected in The Assassination Chronicles: Inquest, Counterplot, and Legend (1992). His books Legend (1978) and Deception (1989) drew on interviews with retired CIA Counterintelligence Chief James Jesus Angleton, and his 1982 book The Rise and Fall of Diamonds was an expose of the diamond industry and its economic impact in southern Africa.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
December 20, 2023
All of Hammer's autobiographical creativity hinged on his partners remaining outside of Western investigator's hands. Then he died, the Soviet Union imploded, his successors at Occidental Oil de-Hammered the company one day after his burial and cheated wives, cheated business partners, cheated mistresses and even the cheats he used to cheat all the others with came out of the woodworks. Kudos to Epstein (no relation) for assembling this vast counterhistory. It fits unto the Hammer & Lyndon autobiography like a very intricate puzzle piece, giving a twist — with reams of receipts — to nearly every deal that made Hammer who he was. I ended up gleaning what I wanted to know about early capitalist investment in the Soviet Union, which you can't from the official autobio, and much more. Very entertaining and thorough.
February 4, 2024
This is an easy-to-read survey of the life of one of the 20th century's greatest villains (in my opinion). Hammer lived such an incredibly full life full of action, adventure, daring, and mendacity that volumes could be written about him. For students of Soviet Russia and America getting an understanding of this man's life is very helpful. I recommend this book but just as a starting point.
May 21, 2025
“Arm & Hammered”: Ashkenazi Heir of the Red Revolution Architects — From Bolshevik Womb to Wall Street’s Oil Throne and deal-maker.
Born to a Marxist revolutionary, Armand Hammer turned Soviet favors into Western billions — it looks like that his name wasn’t a coincidence, it was a coded legacy of power, deception, and control.
Edward Jay Epstein doesn’t just write a biography — he drops a damn intelligence file.
This isn’t your average oil-tycoon puff piece. It’s a brutal, fact-packed exposé built on FBI files, KGB leaks, financial records, and first-hand testimonies. Epstein rips away the myth Armand Hammer spent decades polishing — and what he uncovers is a man who weaponized charm, oil, art, and ideology to play kingmaker on the world stage.
Hammer’s life reads like a geopolitical thriller:
1. Soviet connections:
Hammer had unusually close ties with the Soviet Union — doing business even in Lenin’s days. Epstein exposes Hammer as the West’s most influential Soviet-friendly businessman, with direct access to top Kremlin officials. Some of his deals? Shady AF. There’s strong evidence he acted as a go-between for Soviet interests in America, and maybe even as a willing asset.
2. Oil and politics:
Hammer wasn’t just in oil. He was in leverage. Occidental Petroleum became a geopolitical weapon. Deals with Libya’s Gaddafi, Venezuela, and even the Shah of Iran were brokered in the shadows, always with Hammer walking away richer and more powerful.
3. Family empire & wealth games:
His father, Julius Hammer, was a founding member of the U.S. Communist Party. The family wealth came partially from backroom pharmaceutical and medical hustles. Armand then used that capital to build layers of opaque investment firms and tax shelters — offshore, off-books, and off-limits to regulators.
4. Backers and elite connections:
Hammer knew how to climb. He partied with Rockefellers, exchanged favors with the Rothschilds, and made himself indispensable to every U.S. president from FDR to Reagan. These alliances weren’t accidents — they were currency.
5. Art, image, and manipulation:
Epstein shows how Hammer used art — real and forged — to buy access. Paintings to Soviet leaders, art donations to US institutions, and a cultivated image as a “humanitarian.” Underneath it? A ruthless operator laundering influence through canvas and charm.
⸻
Now, let’s decode the name: Armand Hammer.
No coincidence. He always denied the connection, but come on — the symbol of the Arm & Hammer, a traditional emblem of global socialist revolution perfectly mirrors both his father’s communist roots and Armand’s own double life:
“Arm and Hammer” = the capitalist with a Communist past.
He literally embodied the fusion of Communist-Marxist symbology and American corporate imperialism.
Whether it was code, satire, or sheer audacity, the name is a symbolic flex — he was the hammer of capitalism, with an arm deep in Soviet pockets….
Verdict:
Dossier is a must-read if you’re into deep-state geopolitics, power games, or just love watching a carefully crafted legacy get torched with receipts. Epstein doesn’t speculate — he documents. And Hammer? He’s exposed as a brilliant, corrupt chameleon who seduced both Communists and Capitalists while serving only himself.
Born to a Marxist revolutionary, Armand Hammer turned Soviet favors into Western billions — it looks like that his name wasn’t a coincidence, it was a coded legacy of power, deception, and control.
Edward Jay Epstein doesn’t just write a biography — he drops a damn intelligence file.
This isn’t your average oil-tycoon puff piece. It’s a brutal, fact-packed exposé built on FBI files, KGB leaks, financial records, and first-hand testimonies. Epstein rips away the myth Armand Hammer spent decades polishing — and what he uncovers is a man who weaponized charm, oil, art, and ideology to play kingmaker on the world stage.
Hammer’s life reads like a geopolitical thriller:
1. Soviet connections:
Hammer had unusually close ties with the Soviet Union — doing business even in Lenin’s days. Epstein exposes Hammer as the West’s most influential Soviet-friendly businessman, with direct access to top Kremlin officials. Some of his deals? Shady AF. There’s strong evidence he acted as a go-between for Soviet interests in America, and maybe even as a willing asset.
2. Oil and politics:
Hammer wasn’t just in oil. He was in leverage. Occidental Petroleum became a geopolitical weapon. Deals with Libya’s Gaddafi, Venezuela, and even the Shah of Iran were brokered in the shadows, always with Hammer walking away richer and more powerful.
3. Family empire & wealth games:
His father, Julius Hammer, was a founding member of the U.S. Communist Party. The family wealth came partially from backroom pharmaceutical and medical hustles. Armand then used that capital to build layers of opaque investment firms and tax shelters — offshore, off-books, and off-limits to regulators.
4. Backers and elite connections:
Hammer knew how to climb. He partied with Rockefellers, exchanged favors with the Rothschilds, and made himself indispensable to every U.S. president from FDR to Reagan. These alliances weren’t accidents — they were currency.
5. Art, image, and manipulation:
Epstein shows how Hammer used art — real and forged — to buy access. Paintings to Soviet leaders, art donations to US institutions, and a cultivated image as a “humanitarian.” Underneath it? A ruthless operator laundering influence through canvas and charm.
⸻
Now, let’s decode the name: Armand Hammer.
No coincidence. He always denied the connection, but come on — the symbol of the Arm & Hammer, a traditional emblem of global socialist revolution perfectly mirrors both his father’s communist roots and Armand’s own double life:
“Arm and Hammer” = the capitalist with a Communist past.
He literally embodied the fusion of Communist-Marxist symbology and American corporate imperialism.
Whether it was code, satire, or sheer audacity, the name is a symbolic flex — he was the hammer of capitalism, with an arm deep in Soviet pockets….
Verdict:
Dossier is a must-read if you’re into deep-state geopolitics, power games, or just love watching a carefully crafted legacy get torched with receipts. Epstein doesn’t speculate — he documents. And Hammer? He’s exposed as a brilliant, corrupt chameleon who seduced both Communists and Capitalists while serving only himself.
September 16, 2012
Fascinating!
November 10, 2015
Very interesting
March 7, 2016
Fascinating!
May 24, 2016
I more skimlmed than read this book. It told me what I wanted to know tho. Oiligarchs seem to have all arisen from some sort of malivalent gunk and cant seem to escape it's influence on them.
November 14, 2007
One of my favorite bios to read. This guy was not the Arm & Hammer everyone thinks.
November 2, 2014
svsfergerg
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews