Ashley Elizabeth Miller

Pamela Harriman Churchill knew how to command a room. She always had more than one man in the picture, sometimes six.

Her independent spirit—shaped by an early understanding that true love was a fallacy and romance a political tool—attracted powerful men. That, and her connection to Britain’s conservative Prime Minister Winston Churchill, her father-in-law.

Growing up surrounded by adults, Pamela was a precocious child, reminiscent of Henry James’ protagonist in What Maisie Knew. But as a woman, second to men in the social order, she often felt like a societal burden.

To keep people interested in her presence, Pamela would scour for gossip to share with friends. This gift for communication was an immense asset to her later in life as a seducer, informant, connector during the Second World War, working for Churchill.

What she missed in formal schooling, Pamela made up for in charm and wit. She’d learn the ropes of geopolitics quickly—by courting men of international importance, committed to ending the war wrought by Nazi Germany.

Pamela reminds me of Eve Babitz, the misunderstood literary journalist from L.A. Babitz was brushed off as a hedonistic party girl, not the talented reporter and writer she was.

Like Babitz, Pamela’s influence on shaping Britain and U.S. ties during World War II is often dismissed by historians as overstressed, relegating her to the role of a mere plaything for men of political power passing through London.

To dispel the pernicious myth, journalist Sonia Purnell, who’s written extensively on the Churchill lineage, wrote a gripping tell-all on her life called Kingmaker: Pamela Harriman’s Astonishing Life of Power, Seduction, and Intrigue.

Early on, we see young Pamela play an influential role in drawing the U.S. into WWII. She courted men like the American diplomat Averell Harriman, who Pamela would marry decades later. Back then though she opened the lines of communication between Harriman and Churchill. She also influenced America’s perception of the war through long winded relations with CBS journalist Edward Murrow.

Pamela took small lessons from each man she met. For instance, Harriman taught her to see her worth: as an intelligent, beautiful, witty woman—traits he was astonished Pamela’s husband could not see. And from Murrow, a left-leaning reporter from small-town USA, she was taught: her life was one of incredible privilege. She’d been spoiled, he told her. (To familiarize Pamela with the other side of life, Murrow took her to dine at pubs versus swanky dinner clubs.)

Men were schooled to seek out powerful careers, women were taught how to court a husband.

Bred to believe her worth was intrinsically tied to the man she married, Pamela was on the hunt for a husband early.

At the time, her so-called girlfriends, including Kit Kennedy and the Mitford sisters, remember Pamela as “a fat, freckly redhead.” Whether these jabs bothered her or not, Pamela is said to have brushed them off, joking her mother always told her baby fat would fade—staying focused on the only mission that mattered: attracting a man to marry her.

Babitz, too, kept a rolodex of powerful men in her L.A. apartment. Like Pamela, she recognized her worth early, standing on the lawn of her hippie parents’ home in Southern California as men in convertibles passed by, admiring her blossoming bod from a slow speed. (Check out my Nov. book review of Slow Days, Fast Company.)

Both women exuded a cool aura around men. In fact, they thrived in testosterone-filled environments—floating around smoky back rooms, sporting tight skirts, presenting sexual allure, wit, charm, and intelligence—unafraid to be themselves.

Meanwhile, most other women were concerned with being seen as anything other than a good obedient girl, creatures for their husbands to have around their arms at the right parties and birth their babies (preferably sons).

Pamela and Babitz were disillusioned by the fallacy of true love and monogamy.

Even before them, women were paving lanes in a world built for men. In Victorian England, a novelist emerged under the guise of a male pseudonym to publish an immediate bestseller: the first-person account of a poor young governess, Jane Eyre, falling for her much older master, Mr. Rochester.

Like Pamela and Babitz, Jane used wit and intelligence to bypass her predetermined domestic destiny.

Charlotte Brontë’s book, idealistic as it was, became a blueprint for young girls—a story of hope, that they, too, could live beyond their current economic means and aspire to freedom. Its message aligns with the lesson Pamela learned after her first failed marriage: women should not marry a man because he wants to marry her but because she wants to marry him.

Here’s to the independent women who’ve come before.

To the fictional Jane Eyres, the iconic Eve Babitz, and the geopolitical power player Pamela Harriman—here’s to you. You will be remembered as power brokers in my book.