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Clare Boothe Luce | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Luce in 1941 | |
| United States Ambassador toItaly | |
| In office May 4, 1953 – December 27, 1956 | |
| President | Dwight D. Eisenhower |
| Preceded by | Ellsworth Bunker |
| Succeeded by | James David Zellerbach |
| Member of theU.S. House of Representatives fromConnecticut's4th district | |
| In office January 3, 1943 – January 3, 1947 | |
| Preceded by | Le Roy D. Downs |
| Succeeded by | John Lodge |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Ann Clare Boothe (1903-03-10)March 10, 1903 New York City, U.S. |
| Died | October 9, 1987(1987-10-09) (aged 84) Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Political party | Republican |
| Spouses | |
| Children | 1 |
Clare Boothe Luce (née Ann Clare Boothe; March 10, 1903[1][2] – October 9, 1987) was an American writer, politician, diplomat, andconservativepublic intellectual. A versatile author, she is best known for her 1936 hit playThe Women, which had an all-female cast. Her writings extended from drama and screen scenarios to fiction, journalism, and war reportage. She served as aU.S. representative fromConnecticut's 4th congressional district from 1943 to 1947, and asU.S. Ambassador to Italy from 1953 to 1956. She was married toHenry Luce, publisher ofTime,Life,Fortune, andSports Illustrated.
Politically, Luce was a leading conservative in later life and was well known for heranti-communism. In her youth, she briefly aligned herself with the liberalism of PresidentFranklin Roosevelt as a protégé ofBernard Baruch but later became an outspokencritic of Roosevelt.[3] Although she was a strong supporter of theAnglo-American alliance inWorld War II, she remained outspokenly critical ofBritish colonialism in India.[4]
Known as a charismatic and forceful public speaker, especially after herconversion to Catholicism in 1946, she campaigned for every Republican presidential nominee fromWendell Willkie toRonald Reagan.
Luce was born Ann Clare Boothe in New York City on March 10, 1903, the second child of Anna Clara Schneider (also known as Ann Snyder Murphy, Ann Boothe, and Ann Clare Austin) and William Franklin Boothe (also known as "John J. Murphy" and "Jord Murfe").[5] Her parents were not married and would separate in 1912. Her father, a sophisticated man and a brilliant violinist,[6] instilled in his daughter a love of literature, if not of music, but had trouble holding a job and spent years as a traveling salesman. Parts of young Clare's childhood were spent in Memphis andNashville, Tennessee,Chicago, Illinois, andUnion City, New Jersey as well asNew York City.[7] Clare Boothe had an elder brother, David Franklin Boothe.
She attended the cathedral schools inGarden City andTarrytown, New York, graduating first in her class in 1919 at 16.[8] Her ambitious mother's initial plan for her was to become an actress. Clare understudiedMary Pickford onBroadway at age 10, and had her Broadway debut in Mrs. Henry B. Harris' production of "The Dummy" in 1914, a detective comedy. She then had a small part in Thomas Edison's 1915 movie,The Heart of a Waif.[9] After a tour of Europe with her mother and stepfather,Dr. Albert E. Austin, whom Ann Boothe married in 1919, she became interested in thewomen's suffrage movement, and she was hired byAlva Belmont to work for theNational Woman's Party inWashington, D.C. andSeneca Falls, New York.[10]
She wedGeorge Tuttle Brokaw, millionaire heir to a New York clothing fortune, on August 10, 1923, at the age of 20. They had one daughter, Ann Clare Brokaw (1924–1944) who was killed in a car accident. According to Boothe, Brokaw was a hopelessalcoholic, and the marriage ended in divorce on May 20, 1929.[11]
On November 23, 1935, she marriedHenry Luce, the publisher ofTime,Life, andFortune. She thereafter called herself Clare Boothe Luce, a frequently misspelled name that was often confused with that of her exact contemporaryClaire Luce, a stage and film actress. As a professional writer, Luce continued to use her maiden name.
In 1939 she commissionedFrida Kahlo to paint a portrait of the lateDorothy Hale. Kahlo producedThe Suicide Of Dorothy Hale. Luce was appalled and almost destroyed it; however,Isamu Noguchi dissuaded her. Luce later anonymously donated the painting to thePhoenix Art Museum.[12]
On January 11, 1944, her only child, Ann Clare Brokaw, a 19-year-old senior atStanford University, was killed in an automobile accident.[13] As a result of the tragedy, Luce exploredpsychotherapy and religion. After grief counseling with BishopFulton Sheen, she was received into theCatholic Church in 1946.[14] She became an ardent essayist and lecturer in celebration of her faith, and she was ultimately honored by being named aDame of Malta. As a memorial to her daughter, beginning in 1949 she funded the construction of a Catholic church inPalo Alto for use by the Stanford campus ministry. The new Saint Ann Chapel was dedicated in 1951. It was sold by the diocese in 1998 and in 2003 became a church of theAnglican Province of Christ the King.[15]
The marriage between Clare and Henry was difficult. Henry was by any standard extremely successful, but his physical awkwardness, lack of humor, and newsman's discomfort with any conversation that was not strictly factual put him in awe of his beautiful wife's social poise, wit, and fertile imagination.[16] Clare's years as managing editor ofVanity Fair left her with an avid interest in journalism (she suggested the idea ofLife magazine to her husband before it was developed internally).[17] Henry himself was generous in encouraging her to write forLife, but the question of how much coverage she should be accorded inTime, as she grew more famous, was always a careful balancing act for Henry since he did not want to be accused of nepotism.
It has been reported that their marriage was sexually "open".[18] Clare Luce's lovers included AmbassadorJoseph P. Kennedy,Randolph Churchill, GeneralLucian Truscott, GeneralCharles Willoughby,[19] andRoald Dahl.
Joseph P. Kennedy was the father of several United States politicians. Clare Luce at times provided advice to the campaigns ofJohn F. Kennedy, who became the 35th U.S. president.
Dahl, who became a very successful author after the war, was at the time a young RAF fighter pilot, temporarily assigned to Washington. He was part of a plan developed by spymasterSir William Stephenson (code name "Intrepid"), intended to weaken American isolationist thinking by influencing, among others, American journalists and politicians. Dahl was
"...instructed to romance Clare, who was thirteen years his senior, to see if, with the right kind of encouragement, she could warm to the British position."
The very tall (6'6") and athletic Dahl later claimed he found his affair with Clare to be so physically demanding that he had begged the British ambassador to relieve him of the task, but the ambassador told him he must continue.[20]
In the early 1960s, both Luces were friends of philosopher, author, andLSD advocateGerald Heard.[21] They tried LSD one time under his careful supervision. Although taking LSD never turned into a habit for either of the Luces, a friend (and biographer of Clare),Wilfred Sheed, wrote that Clare made use of it at least several times.[22]
The Luces stayed together until Henry's death from a heart attack in 1967. As one of the great "power couples" in American history, they were bonded by their mutual interests and complementary, if contrasting, characters. They treated each other with respect in public, never more so than when he willingly acted as his wife's consort during her years as ambassador to Italy. She was never able to convert him to Catholicism (he was the son of a Presbyterian missionary) but he did not question the sincerity of her faith, often attended Mass with her, and defended her when she was criticized by his fellow Protestants.
In the early years of her widowhood, she retired to the luxurious beach house that she and her husband had planned in Honolulu, but boredom with life in what she called "this fur-lined rut"[23] brought her back toWashington, D.C. for increasingly long periods. She made her final home there in 1983.
Luce publishedStuffed Shirts, a volume of short stories, in 1931.Scribner's Magazine compared the work toEvelyn Waugh'sVile Bodies for its bitter humor.The New York Times found it socially superficial, but praised its "lovely festoons of epigrams" and beguiling stylishness: "What malice there may be in these pages has a felinity that is the purestAngoran."[24] The book's device of characters interlinked from story to story was borrowed fromSherwood Anderson'sWinesburg, Ohio (1919), but it impressedAndre Maurois, who asked Luce's permission to imitate it.[25] Luce also published many magazine articles. She was also a playwright.
After the failure of her initial stage effort, the marital melodramaAbide With Me (1935), she rapidly followed up with a satirical comedy,The Women. Deploying a cast of no fewer than 40 actresses who discussed men in often scorching language, it became a Broadway smash in 1936 and, three years later, a successful Hollywood movie known for its exclusively female cast. Toward the end of her life, Luce claimed that for half a century, she had steadily received royalties from productions ofThe Women all around the world. Later in the 1930s, she wrote two more successful, but less durable plays, also both made into movies:Kiss the Boys Goodbye andMargin for Error. The latter work "presented an all-out attack on theNazis' racist philosophy".[26] Its opening night inPrinceton, New Jersey, on October 14, 1939, was attended byAlbert Einstein andThomas Mann.Otto Preminger directed and starred in both the Broadway production andscreen adaptation.[27]
Much of Luce's famously acid wit ("No good deed goes unpunished",[28] "Widowhood is a fringe benefit of marriage", "A hospital is no place to be sick") can be traced back to the days when, as a wealthy young divorcee in the early 1930s, she became a caption writer atVogue and then, associate editor and managing editor ofVanity Fair. She not only edited the works of such humorists asP. G. Wodehouse andCorey Ford but also contributed many comic pieces of her own, signed and unsigned.
Another branch of Luce's literary career was that ofwar journalism.Europe in the Spring was the result of a four-month tour of Britain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, and France in 1939–1940 as a correspondent forLife magazine. She described the widening battleground of World War II as "a world where men have decided to die together because they are unable to find a way to live together."[29] In his review of Luce's "lively eyewitness report," Charles C. Clayton commended Luce for being "deadly earnest about the significance to America of what happened to Europe in the spring."[30]
In 1941, Luce and her husband touredChina and reported on the status of the country and its war withJapan. Her profile of GeneralDouglas MacArthur was on the cover ofLife on December 8, 1941, the day after the Japanese attackedPearl Harbor. After the United States entered the war, Luce toured military installations in Africa, India, China, andBurma, compiling a further series of reports forLife. She published interviews with GeneralHarold Alexander, commander of British troops in the Middle East,Chiang Kai-shek,Jawaharlal Nehru, and GeneralStilwell, commander of American troops in the China-Burma-India theater.[29]
Being in the right place at the right time and easy access to key commanders made her an influential figure on both sides of the Atlantic. She endured bombing raids and other dangers in Europe and theFar East. She did not hesitate to criticize the unwarlike lifestyle of General SirClaude Auchinleck's Middle East Command. One draft article forLife, noting that the general lived far from the Egyptian front in a houseboat, and mocking RAF pilots as "flying fairies", was discovered by British Customs when she passed throughTrinidad in April 1942. It caused such Allied consternation that she briefly faced house arrest.[31] Coincidentally or not, Auchinleck was fired a few months later byWinston Churchill. Her varied experiences in all the major war theaters qualified her for a seat the following year on the House Military Affairs Committee after she was elected to theUnited States House of Representatives in 1942.[citation needed]
Luce never wrote an autobiography but willed her enormous archive of personal papers to theLibrary of Congress.[32]
In 1942, Luce won a seat in theUnited States House of Representatives as a Republican comprising the whole ofFairfield County, Connecticut, the4th Congressional District. She based her platform on three goals: "One, to win the war. Two, to prosecute that war as loyally and effectively as we can as Republicans. Three, to bring about a better world and a durable peace, with special attention to post-war security and employment here at home."[33] She took up the seat formerly held by her late stepfather,Dr. Albert Austin. An outspoken critic of Roosevelt's foreign policy,[33] Luce was supported by isolationists and conservatives in Congress, and she was appointed early to the prestigious House Military Affairs Committee. Although she was by no means the only female representative on the floor, her beauty, wealth, and penchant for slashing witticisms[peacock prose] caused her to be treated patronizingly by colleagues of both sexes.[34] She made a debut in her maiden speech, coining the phrase "globaloney" to disparage Vice PresidentHenry Wallace's recommendation for airlines of the world to be given free access to US airports.[35] She called for repeal of theChinese Exclusion Act, comparing its "doctrine of race theology" toAdolf Hitler's,[36] advocated aid for war victims abroad, and sided with the administration on issues such as infant-care and maternity appropriations for the wives of enlisted men. Nevertheless, Roosevelt took a dislike to her and campaigned in 1944 to attempt to prevent her re-election, publicly calling her "a sharp-tongued glamor girl of forty."[37] She retaliated by accusing Roosevelt of being "the only American president who ever lied us into a war because he did not have the political courage to lead us into it."[38]
During her second term, Luce was instrumental in the creation of theAtomic Energy Commission[39] and, during the course of two tours of Allied battlefronts in Europe, she campaigned for more support of what she considered to be America's forgotten army in Italy. She was present at the liberation of several Nazi concentration camps in April 1945, and afterV-E Day, she began warning against the rise of internationalCommunism as another form of totalitarianism, likely to lead toWorld War III.[33]
In 1946, she was the co-author of theLuce–Celler Act of 1946, which permitted Indians and Filipinos to immigrate to the US, introducing a quota of 100 immigrants from each country, and allowed them ultimately to become naturalized citizens.[40] In the same year she joined the board of directors of theAmerican China Policy Association (ACPA), and served as its president in 1947.[41]
Luce did not run for re-election in 1946.
Luce returned to politics during the1952 presidential election.
Boothe led a group of women delegates to the1952 Republican National Convention who sought to nominateMargaret Chase Smith in the balloting for thevice presidential nominee. Senator Smith, however, requested not to be considered for vice president.[42] Noting that presidential nomineeDwight D. Eisenhower's supporters had coalesced aroundRichard Nixon for vice president, Luce withdrew her nomination of Smith.[43]
During the general election, Boothe campaigned on behalf of the Eisenhower–Nixon ticket, giving more than 100 speeches on its behalf. Her anti-Communist speeches on thestump, radio, and television were effective in persuading a large number of traditionally Democratic-voting Catholics to switch parties and vote Eisenhower.
Eisenhower rewarded Luce for her contributions to his presidential campaign by appointing her as ambassador to Italy, a post that oversaw 1150 employees, 8 consulates, and 9 information centers. She was confirmed by the Senate in March 1953, the first American woman ever to hold such an important diplomatic post.
Italians reacted skeptically at first to the arrival of a female ambassador in Rome, but Luce soon convinced those of moderate and conservative temper that she favored their civilization and religion. "Her admirers in Italy – and she had millions – fondly referred to her as la Signora, 'the lady'."[44] The country's large Communist minority, however, regarded her as a foreign meddler in Italian affairs. Luce was pictured with Monsignor William A. Hemmick, the first American canon of St. Peter's Basilica, in the biography of Hemmick,Patriot Priest.[45]
She was no stranger toPope Pius XII, who welcomed her as a friend and faithful acolyte.[46] Over the course of several audiences since 1940, Luce had impressed Pius XII as one of the most effective secular preachers of Catholicism in America.[47]
Her principal achievement as ambassador was to play a vital role in negotiating a peaceful solution to theTrieste Crisis of 1953–1954, a border dispute between Italy and Yugoslavia that she saw as potentially escalating into a war between East and West. Her sympathies throughout were with the Christian Democratic government ofGiuseppe Pella, and she was influential on the Mediterranean policy of Secretary of StateJohn Foster Dulles, another anticommunist. Although Luce regarded the abatement of the acute phase of the crisis in December 1953 as a triumph for herself, the main work of settlement, finalized in October 1954, was undertaken by professional representatives of the five concerned powers (Britain, France, the United States, Italy, and Yugoslavia) meeting in London.[48]
As ambassador, Luce consistently overestimated the possibility that the Italian left would mount a governmental coup and turn the country communist unless the democratic center was buttressed with generous American aid. A United States Defense Department historical study declassified in 2016 revealed that during her time as ambassador, Luce oversaw a covert financial support program for centrist Italian governments aimed at weakening theItalian Communist Party's hold on labor unions.[49]
Nurturing an image of her own country as a haven of social peace and prosperity, she threatened to boycott the 1955Venice Film Festival if the American juvenile delinquent filmBlackboard Jungle was shown.[50] Around the same time, she fell seriously ill witharsenic poisoning. Sensational rumors circulated that the ambassador was the target of extermination by agents of theSoviet Union. Medical analysis eventually determined that the poisoning was caused by arsenate of lead in paint dust falling from the stucco that decorated her bedroom ceiling. The episode debilitated Luce physically and mentally, and she resigned her post in December 1956.[51] Upon her departure, Rome'sIl Tempo concluded "She has given a notable example of how well a woman can discharge a political post of grave responsibility."[52]
In 1957, she was awarded theLaetare Medal by theUniversity of Notre Dame, considered the most prestigious award forAmerican Catholics.[53]
A great appreciator of Italianhaute couture, she was a frequent visitor and client of theateliersGattinoni,Ferdinandi,Schuberth, andSorelle Fontana in Rome.
In April 1959, President Eisenhower nominated a recovered Luce to be theUS Ambassador to Brazil. She began to learn enough of thePortuguese language in preparation for the job, but she was by now so conservative that her appointment met with strong opposition from a small number of Democratic senators. Leading the charge wasOregon SenatorWayne Morse. Still, Luce was confirmed by a 79 to 11 vote. Her husband urged her to decline the appointment, noting that it would be difficult for her to work with Morse, who chaired the Senate Subcommittee on Latin American Affairs. Luce eventually sent Eisenhower a letter explaining that she felt that the controversy surrounding her appointment would hinder her abilities to be respected by both her Brazilian and US coworkers. Thus, as she had never left American soil, she never officially took office as ambassador.[54]
AfterFidel Castro led a revolution in Cuba in 1959, Luce and her husband began to sponsor anticommunist groups. This support included funding Cuban exiles in commando speedboat raids against Cuba in the early 1960s.[55][56] In 1963 theFreedom House-initiated organisation,Citizens Committee for a Free Cuba, was set up, which Luce was a member of.[57] She called for U.S. government intervention Cuba, declaring in October 1962, just before theCuban Missile Crisis, that "What is now at stake in the decision for intervention or non-intervention in Cuba is the question not only of American prestige but of American survival".[58] Luce's continuing anticommunism as well as her advocacy of conservatism led her to support SenatorBarry Goldwater ofArizona as the Republican candidate forpresident in 1964.[59] She also considered but rejected a candidacy for theUnited States Senate from New York on theConservative party ticket. That same year, which also saw the political emergence of future friendRonald Reagan, marked the voluntary end of Henry Luce's tenure as editor-in-chief ofTime. The Luces retired together, establishing a winter home in Arizona and planning a final move to Hawaii. Her husband, Henry, died in 1967 before that dream could be realized, but she went ahead with construction of a luxurious beach house in Honolulu, and, for some years, she led an active life in Hawaii high society.
In 1973, PresidentRichard Nixon named her to thePresident's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB). She remained on the board until PresidentJimmy Carter succeeded PresidentGerald Ford in 1977.[60] In 1979, she was the first woman to be awarded theSylvanus Thayer Award by theUnited States Military Academy at West Point.[61] President Reagan reappointed Luce to PFIAB. She served on the board until 1983.
Luce sat on the board of the directors of theAssociation of Former Intelligence Officers, founded in 1975.[62] She was involved with theCommittee on the Present Danger, founded in 1976.[63]
In 1986, Luce was the recipient of the Golden Plate Award of theAmerican Academy of Achievement.[64]
President Reagan awarded her thePresidential Medal of Freedom[65] in 1983. She was the first female member of Congress to receive this award.[66]
Upon presenting her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Reagan said this of Luce:
A novelist, playwright, politician, diplomat, and advisor to Presidents, Clare Boothe Luce has served and enriched her country in many fields. Her brilliance of mind, gracious warmth and great fortitude have propelled her to exceptional heights of accomplishment. As a Congresswoman, Ambassador, and Member of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, Clare Boothe Luce has been a persistent and effective advocate of freedom, both at home and abroad. She has earned the respect of people from all over the world, and the love of her fellow Americans.[67]
Luce died ofbrain cancer on October 9, 1987, at age 84, at herWatergate apartment inWashington, D.C.[68] She is buried atMepkin Abbey,South Carolina, a plantation that she and Henry Luce had once owned and given to a community ofTrappist monks. She lies in a grave adjoining her mother, daughter, and husband.[69]
Revered in her later years as a heroine of the feminist movement, Luce had mixed feelings about the role of women in society. As a congresswoman in 1943, she was invited to co-sponsor a submission of theEqual Rights Amendment, offered by RepresentativeLouis Ludlow of Indiana, but claimed that the invitation got lost in her mail.[70] Luce never ceased to advise women to marry and provide supportive homes for their husbands. (During her ambassadorial years, at a dinner in Luxembourg attended by many European dignitaries, Luce was heard declaiming that all women wanted from men was "babies and security".)[71]
Luce bequeathed a large part of her personal fortune of some $50 million to an academic program, the Clare Boothe Luce Program, designed to encourage the entry of women into technological fields traditionally dominated by men. In 2017, she was inducted into theNational Women's Hall of Fame.[72]
Since 1989, the Clare Boothe Luce Program (CBLP) has become a significant source of private funding support for women in science, mathematics, and engineering. All awards must be used exclusively in the United States (not applicable for travel or study abroad). Student recipients must be U.S. citizens and faculty recipients must be citizens or permanent residents. Thus far, the program has supported more than 1,500 women.
The terms of the bequest require the following criteria:
The program is divided into three distinct categories:
TheClare Boothe Luce Policy Institute (CBLPI) was founded in 1993 by Michelle Easton.[73] The non-profitthink tank seeks to advance American women through conservative ideas and espouses much the same philosophy as that of Clare Boothe Luce, in terms of both foreign and domestic policy.[74] The CBLPI sponsors a program that brings conservative speakers such as conservative commentatorAnn Coulter to college campuses.[75]
TheClare Boothe Luce Award, established in 1991, isthe Heritage Foundation's highest award for distinguished contributions to the conservative movement. Prominent recipients includeRonald Reagan,Margaret Thatcher, andWilliam F. Buckley Jr.[76][77][78]
I tracked down her New York birth certificate, and found that she was born not on April 10, 1903, but on March 10 – and not on Riverside Drive, but in the less genteel environs of West 125th Street.
Signora sono cattolico anch'io
| U.S. House of Representatives | ||
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| Preceded by | Member of theU.S. House of Representatives fromConnecticut's 4th congressional district 1943–1947 | Succeeded by |
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| Preceded by | United States Ambassador to Italy 1953–1956 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by Ellis O. Briggs | United States Ambassador to Brazil 1959–1959 | Succeeded by |
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