Welcome to the Court of St James's

There are some patterns of power that Barack Obama just does not want to break. And so it is that he has nominated a representative to the Court of St James's not on the basis of foreign affairs savvy, diplomatic experience or even familiarity with the green and pleasant land. He is sending him to London as a thank you.

The job of US ambassador to Britain is about as swell as it gets and has been reserved by every president for the swellest of their supporters. They get to live in that fine mansion, Winfield House, surrounded by 12 acres on the edge of Regent's Park. Better still, all the actual work of the American Embassy in London, principally tracking what the Foreign Office and Downing Street are up to, is left to the ambassador's career-diplomat underlings.

Louis Susman, 71, whose name was submitted late Wednesday to the US Senate for approval which is all but assured, was always going to be near the top of the pile for presidential gratitude this time around. It is not just that he raised money for Candidate Obama and other Democrat headliners before him. It is also because he began talking up Mr Obama long before most other people had even heard of him.

What is a bit new is Mr Susman's provenance. While he has a holiday home on the exclusive holiday island of Nantucket off the coast of Cape Cod, he is not from East Coast breeding or West Coast wealth. Strictly a Mid-westerner, he is a native of St Louis, Missouri, where he joined one of the city's most prestigious law firms, representing the likes of TWA and August Busch Jr, of Anheuser-Busch fame, and also indulging a love of sport by becoming a director of the hometown darlings of baseball, the St Louis Cardinals.

Even as far back as 1968, Mr Susman – whose popularity in posher Democratic circles is second only to that of his wife, Margie – was working on behalf of party candidates.

That year, he emerged as a key fundraiser for the first US Senate campaign of Thomas Eagleton who came to represent Missouri on the Hill for three terms. He won a place on the Democratic National Committee in 1972 and stayed 10 years.

Since 1989, however, the Susmans have lived on the affluent Gold Coast of Chicago, overlooking Lake Michigan. Louis moved there to join the-then investment banking giant Salomon Brothers as a corporate lawyer. He retired from a successor group, Citigroup Global Markets, where he was vice-chairman, in February.

His talent for raising funds has become the stuff of legend in the Windy City, with politicians and cultural institutions like the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art the main beneficiaries. No wonder that the Chicago Tribune began referring to him as the Vacuum Cleaner and the Hoover. "I don't think anyone enjoys raising money, but for some reason I seem to have a knack," he once admitted to the paper.

He has histories with serial Democrats who at some time had presidential aspirations. He helped drum up cash for Senator Edward Kennedy when he made his failed primary challenge against Jimmy Carter in 1980. Years later, he similarly assisted senators Bill Bradley and Richard Gephardt. This might suggest that Mr Susman has developed another knack: for backing the wrong horse, all the more so if you know that he was in charge of fund-raising for John's Kerry's run for the White House in 2004. That was money that also did not deliver the hoped-for fruit.

In 2006 and 2007, when the field of possible Democratic candidates was taking shape, Mr Susman was wooed by everyone. "If you want to be President of the United States, he is the one you want to call before you even talk it over with your own mother," Carole Marin, a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times once noted.

Mr Susman even flew to Washington to meet with senator Hillary Clinton, who was considered the favourite for the nomination. He declined an invitation to join her team, privately telling friends that she was mistaken in thinking that she could rely on pals from her husband's presidency to make her campaign roll and that she would galvanise the Republicans like no one else.

But then there was that first-term senator from his own Chicago to consider, Barack Obama. Mr Susman signed with with Team Obama in early 2007, but his interest in him went back further.

Barbara Eagleton, the widow of the former Missouri senator, voiced her delight that Mr Susman was London-bound. "I'm really thrilled," she told the St Louis Post-Dispatch. "He certainly deserves it. He loves politics. Banking is his business, but he loves politics."

She then recalled Mr Susman years ago urging her late husband to invite Mr Obama to St Louis to speak to some of his political supporters, even before Mr Obama had been elected to the Illinois state senate, let alone the US Senate in Washington. "I said I'd never heard of him," Mrs Eagleton said. "And he said, 'You will'."

It has also been said that Mr Susman took Senator Kerry aside early on in his campaign to laud Mr Obama as a man with talents large enough one day to land him in the White House.

According to some versions of this tale, Mr Kerry was thus prompted to give Mr Obama a keynote speech slot at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, a moment that not only propelled him on to the national stage politically, but which made his subsequent run for the White House possible.

If that is so, no wonder Mr Obama feels he owes Mr Susman something special. Like a very fancy house and and equally fancy title in the heart of London. And never mind those who thought that with the arrival of Mr Obama in White House, the days of cronyism would be over.

The ambassador's duties

Much of Louis Susman's initial work will be taken with overseeing the move of the US Embassy from Grosvenor Square, in Mayfair, to the less grand Nine Elms site in Wandsworth, south-west London. The old embassy building, which is being converted into a block of 41 flats, was considered too vulnerable after a series of protests highlighted its questionable security apparatus. Within his first few weeks Mr Susman, formally known as Ambassador to the Court of St James's, will meet the Queen for a private audience in Buckingham Palace. Here, he will be tasked with conveying the best wishes of President Obama to Her Majesty.

His predecessors – Robert Tuttle, a Californian car dealer, and William Tuttle, a Texan multimillionaire – were accused of being cronies of George W Bush who did little work. Mr Susman will have to prove his worth if he is to repair the position's reputation.

Mr Susman's deputy in London, likely to be a highly respected economist and career diplomat named Mark Tokola, will shoulder much of the burden in terms of policy detail and the nitty gritty of embassy administration. Mr Susman, meanwhile, will occupy a more ceremonial role, not least by throwing parties at his lavish residence, Winfield House, above, which has the largest private garden in London after Buckingham Palace.

Set in 12-and-a-half acres of grounds in Regent's Park, the neo-Georgian mansion belonged from 1936 to Barbara Hutton, the Woolworths heiress. Earlier owners included the 3rd Marquess of Hertford, father of the founder of the Wallace Collection, American financier Otto H Kahn and newspaper tycoon Viscount Rothermere.

After the house was damaged in a fire, Hutton had it rebuilt according to a design by Leonard Guthrie, an architect recommended by Lord Louis Mountbatten. A cavernous central hall is surrounded by two large drawing rooms, a state dining room, and a family dining room, all of which open on to a terrace.

Amol Rajan