Me vs. Capote vs. the Swans

I love when I serendipitously read the right book at the right time.

I’ve heard interviews with Anderson Cooper about Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty (co-written by Katherine Howe). Friends recommended it. I kept seeing it around. Finally picked it up at a library book sale months ago, hoping to better understand the Gilded Age. And it sat on my shelf for a while, unread.

Until recently!

Coincidentally, as I was wrapping it up, I learned that FEUD: Capote Vs. The Swans was coming out — something I wouldn’t have cared about at all without the back story in Vanderbilt. If I’m being completely honest, I probably wouldn’t have cared at all about that bit in Vanderbilt without The Daughters of Yalta: The Churchills, Roosevelts, and Harrimans: A Story of Love and War, by Catherine Grace Katz. But I digress. Predictably.

I love discovering a mistake so obscure that no one else will notice.

Pamela Harriman is mentioned in the third episode of Capote Vs. The Swans. Friends, that wouldn’t be her name for five years!

Gasp!

If you were ever unsure whether or not I’m a dork, now you know. Also, I fully realize it was probably an intentional decision to use “Harriman” as that’s how she’s known today. But still! I won’t let you take this away from me.

Which brings me to another one of my favorite things:
When something is juicy but also pure chaos such that I need a visual device to organize it.

In this case, I’m relying on an evidence board (also known as a “conspiracy board” or “murder map,” which is more gruesome and less accurate but has some fun alliteration; I was tempted to call it a “booty board”).

Deep breath.

OK, here we go…

Please note: this list is not complete. There were many many other spouses and paramours not mentioned. While I’m citing a few sources here, any mistakes are on me. This is labyrinthine and interconnected and, well, unadulterated chaos. But with lots of adultery.

Married = orange
Affair (or romantic connection), but never married = this greenish color
Related = dark blue
Connection to Saratoga, NY = a yellow color that basically looks like the greenish color, but hopefully you can tell them apart because, as far as I know, none of them were having an affair WITH Saratoga
Saved life = mauve
Colleagues = evergreenish
Main characters in The Daughters of Yalta = purple
In Vanderbilt = hot pink
NY Governors = turquoise
FEUD: Capote vs. The Swans main characters are listed bold and in red below

Pamela Harriman

Best friends with Kathy Harriman, Averell Harriman’s daughter
Began an affair with Averell when she was 21
Married to:
- Randolph Churchill (son of Winston Churchill)
  PS C.Z. Guest’s husband was also related — Winston Frederick Churchill Guest was a cousin (second, I believe)
- Leland Hayward (previously married to Slim Hawks)
- Averell Harriman (after both of their spouses died; Pamela was 51 and Averell was ~80 years old)
  At the time of Truman Capote’s famous ball, she was only 46 … five years away from being Pamela Harriman!
She was also romantically linked to:
- Edward R. Murrow
- John Hay Whitney
  - Grandson of William C. Whitney, who saved Saratoga Racetrack from financial ruin with some of his friends
  - Married to FDR’s ex-daughter-in-law
  - The Hay part of his name? Yeah, his maternal grandfather was John Hay — President Lincoln’s private secretary and Secretary of State to Presidents McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt
- Bill Paley (founder of CBS; John Hay Whitney’s brother-in-law; married to Babe Paley)
- Sir Charles Peter Portal (during the Yalta Conference, Averell Harriman had Portal deliver a love letter to Pamela… who he was into. Awkward.)
- Henry Mortimer (related to Founding Father John Jay) and also his brother …
- Stanley Mortimer (his first wife Babe left him for Bill Paley; ended up marrying Kathy Harriman)
Named ambassador to France by President Clinton

Averell Harriman

Ambassador to Russia during World War II
Brought his daughter Kathy to the Yalta Conference
Served as Governor of New York

Speaking of New York governors …

FDR made the board (John Hay Whitney was married to his ex-daughter-in-law)
Grover Cleveland is popping out of Vanderbilt above for unrelated reasons, but I should point out that he was John Whitney Hay’s grandfather’s boss, when William C. Whitney was Secretary of the Navy
While governor, Harriman signed some stuff into law giving Saratoga advantages with horse racing
SPOILER ALERT: Nelson Rockefeller’s wife Happy Rockefeller makes an appearance in FEUD, but I looked into it a teensy bit. It may not have been her. Or happened like that. Perhaps it was Harriman’s first wife. Or a mix of the two. Who knows. In any case, Happy Rockefeller credited Betty Ford with saving her life and that’s what I’m choosing to focus on here.