Pamela Digby Churchill Hayward Harriman was not an obvious choice to be America's ambassador in Paris, and not just because she is neither American- born nor of French heritage. The daughter of a British baron, she has been famous ever since LIFE magazine put her on its cover more than 50 years ago, mainly for the men she has married (Randolph Churchill, Leland Hayward, W. Averell Harriman) or enchanted (Giovanni Agnelli, Edward R. Murrow) and for her peerless charm. But she has always had a fondness for France, where she spent a prewar year using the Sorbonne as a finishing school and the postwar years enjoying the company of such men as Baron Elie de Rothschild, Aly Khan and Agnelli. And she certainly possessed a prime qualification of an ambassador, having diligently raised money for the new President and his party. But most of her friends assumed that the restoration to power of her adopted Democrats meant she would, at 73, embrace the role she had earned as Washington's preeminent hostess and salon keeper. They underestimated her.
This Wednesday Ambassador Harriman will formally present her credentials to French President Francois Mitterrand. Ever since she arrived in Paris four weeks ago, she has been making it very clear that hers will be a high-profile tenure. On the day she landed, after an overnight flight, she was in her office meeting senior counselors, fielding her first courtesy call and having a working dinner with her deputy chief of mission. Jet lag, anyone? The next day she had lunch with an ambassador, gave a speech in honor of a retiring embassy employee, hosted a reception and made her own first courtesy call, to British Ambassador Sir Christopher Mallaby.
And so it went. Briefings, meetings with various departments of her 1,100- member staff, lunches with more ambassadors -- and, in between, keeping up with five newspapers, CNN and the local rebroadcast of the CBS Evening News. The week she arrived, Cabinet members Lloyd Bentsen, Ron Brown and Mickey Kantor came to town for an economic summit -- and to be feted at receptions and dinners given by Harriman. She also threw a luncheon at the embassy residence on the Rue du Faubourg St. Honore for former Secretary of State George Shultz.
Although Harriman will never be known as a deep or reflective thinker, she works earnestly at dispelling her image as a socialite and dilettante, and an invitation to her table does not mean endless rounds of wine and gossip. The Shultz lunch was typical. Douglas Warner, president of Morgan Guaranty Trust Co., discussed the U.S. economy. Shultz spoke of his fears about growing protectionism. He was dying to join an animated exchange between Harriman and former French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing, but they were speaking in rapid-fire French, and he couldn't keep up. "I enjoyed that lunch because the talk was substantive," says Shultz. Then, after a pause, he adds, "Well, it's true she provides the spark and the sparkle -- and the pictures."