President Obama is expected to finally name a new envoy to France when he lands in Normandy for the 70th anniversary of D-Day on June 6 — and a well-placed insider confirms it will be a woman.
A second source says that recent gossip is correct and Madame Ambassador will indeed be Jane Hartley, the pretty, blond co-founder of the economic/political Observatory Group consultancy who raised more than $500,000 for Obama’s 2012 re-election race. She also contributed to the war chests of Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer, Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker.
In March 2012, Hartley and her husband, Evercore Partners CEO Ralph Schlosstein, co-hosted a $35,800-a-head fund-raiser for Obama at their Park Avenue spread.
The choice position in Paris has been vacant since much-loved Ambassador Charles Rivkin returned to the US early last year; he now serves as assistant secretary of state for economic and business affairs.
Obama’s first choice, New York-based hedge fund billionaire Marc Lasry, withdrew his name a year ago after a member of the regular high-stakes poker game he frequented was charged in a mob gambling ring.
The chattering class in Paris was abuzz after a well-placed government source recently leaked that the new ambassador is a “she.”
Some hoped it would be Caroline Kennedy, whose mother, Jacqueline, was so well-received there in 1961 that JFK quipped, “I’m the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris.”
Others thrilled to the idea of Anna Wintour, but the fashion oracle turned it down because she has a more powerful post running Condé Nast.
There was talk that Thelma Golden, the savvy director of the Studio Museum in Harlem, might get the position after the White House invited her to the state dinner for lady-loving French President François Hollande in February. But Golden might not have deep enough pockets.
Ambassadors are expected to entertain lavishly and supply the Champagne with their own money. Not a problem for Hartley.