Clare Boothe Luce: Difference between revisions

Browse history interactively ← Previous editContent deleted Content addedVisual WikitextInline

Revision as of 19:48, 7 August 2003 editSmith03 (talk \| contribs)20,765 editsmNo edit summary← Previous edit		Latest revision as of 10:33, 16 December 2024 edit undo太西 (talk \| contribs)Extended confirmed users5,217 edits leadTag: Visual edit
(848 intermediate revisions by more than 100 users not shown)
Line 1:		Line 1:
			{{Short description\|American author and politician (1903–1987)}}
	'''Clare Boothe Luce''' (], ] - ], ]). ] member of the ] (]-]), ambassador, playwright and associate editor of ] and ]. Wife of magazine magnate ].
			{{About\|\|the Broadway and movie actress\|Claire Luce}}
			{{Use mdy dates\|date=July 2024}}
			{{more citations needed\|date=October 2024}}

			{{Infobox officeholder
	===External Links===
			\| name = Clare Boothe Luce
	* http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/wcf/wcf0010.html
			\| image = Clare boothe.jpg
	* http://www.creighton.edu/Luce/aboutcbl.html
			\| ambassador_from1 = United States
			\| country1 = Italy
			\| president1 = ]
			\| term_start1 = May 4, 1953
			\| term_end1 = December 27, 1956
			\| predecessor1 = ]
			\| successor1 = ]
			\| state2 = ]
			\| district2 = {{ushr\|CT\|4\|4th}}
			\| term_start2 = January 3, 1943
			\| term_end2 = January 3, 1947
			\| predecessor2 = ]
			\| successor2 = ]
			\| birth_name = Ann Clare Boothe
			\| birth_date = {{Birth date\|1903\|3\|10}}
			\| birth_place = New York City, U.S.
			\| death_date = {{Death date and age\|1987\|10\|9\|1903\|3\|10}}
			\| death_place = Washington, D.C., U.S.
			\| party = ]
			\| spouse = {{ubl\|{{marriage\|]\|1923\|1929\|end=divorced}}\|{{marriage\|]\|1935\|1967\|end=died}}}}
			\| children = 1
			}}
			{{Conservatism US\|politicians}}

			'''Clare Boothe Luce''' ({{née\|'''Ann Clare Boothe'''}}; March 10, 1903<ref name="In Search of Clare Boothe Luce ">{{cite news \| url=https://www.nytimes.com/1988/01/31/magazine/in-search-of-clare-boothe-luce.html?src=pm&pagewanted=4 \| title=In Search of Clare Boothe Luce \| work=] \| date=January 31, 1988 \| access-date=June 19, 2014 \| author=Morris, Sylvia Jukes \| pages=4 of 5 \| quote=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.}}</ref><ref>Clare Boothe Luce's authorized biographer has corrected the misperception, encouraged by Luce herself, that she was born a month later: "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. I told her about the dates and she stared at me. 'Mother always said I was born at Easter. Anyway ... people born under the Aries sign are much more lighthearted and gay than those born under Pisces.'" Sylvia Jukes Morris, "In Search of Clare Boothe Luce", ''The New York Times Magazine'', January 31, 1988</ref> – October 9, 1987)<!-- see talk page re birthdate --> was an American writer, politician, diplomat, and public conservative figure. A versatile author, she is best known for her 1936 hit play '']'', which had an all-female cast. Her writings extended from drama and screen scenarios to fiction, journalism, and war reportage. She served as ] from 1953 to 1956, and as a ] from ] from 1943 to 1947. She was married to ], publisher of '']'', '']'', '']'', and '']''.

			Politically, Luce was a leading conservative in later life and was well known for her ]. In her youth, she briefly aligned herself with the liberalism of President ] as a protégé of ] but later became an outspoken ].<ref>Morris 1997, pp. 191–98.</ref> Although she was a strong supporter of the ] in ], she remained outspokenly critical of ].<ref>Clare Boothe Luce, Address to the India League of America, August 9, 1943, Clare Boothe Luce Papers, Library of Congress (hereafter CBLP-LC).</ref>

			Known as a charismatic and forceful public speaker, especially after her ] in 1946, she campaigned for every Republican presidential candidate from ] to ].

			==Early life==
			Luce was born Ann Clare Boothe in New York City on March 10, 1903, <!-- see talk page re birthdate --> 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").<ref>Morris 1997, pp. 15–32.</ref> Her parents were not married and would separate in 1912. Her father, a sophisticated man and a brilliant violinist,<ref>Morris 1997, pp. 17–18, 152–53.</ref> 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 and ], ], and ] as well as ].<ref>Morris 1997, pp. 29–42.</ref> Clare Boothe had an elder brother, David Franklin Boothe.

			]
			She attended the cathedral schools in ] and ], graduating first in her class in 1919 at 16.<ref>{{cite book \|title=Clare Boothe Luce, Author and Diplomat \|first=Joseph \|last=Lyons \|publisher=] \|year=1989 \|page=26}}</ref> Her ambitious mother's initial plan for her was to become an actress. Clare understudied ] on ] 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''.<ref>Morris 1997, pp. 49–52.</ref> After a tour of Europe with her mother and stepfather, ], whom Ann Boothe married in 1919, she became interested in the ] movement, and she was hired by ] to work for the ] in ] and ].<ref>Morris 1997, pp. 110–14, 120–21.</ref>

			She wed ], 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 hopeless ], and the marriage ended in divorce on May 20, 1929.<ref>Morris 1997, pp. 130–31, 146–48.</ref>

			On November 23, 1935, she married ], the publisher of '']'', '']'', and '']''. She thereafter called herself Clare Boothe Luce, a frequently misspelled name that was often confused with that of her exact contemporary ], a stage and film actress. As a professional writer, Luce continued to use her maiden name.

			In 1939 she commissioned ] to paint a portrait of the late ]. Kahlo produced '']''. Luce was appalled and almost destroyed it; however, ] dissuaded her. Luce later anonymously donated the painting to the ].<ref>{{Cite book \|last=Herrera \|first=Hayden \|title=Frida, a biography of Frida Kahlo \|date=1983 \|publisher=Harper and Row \|isbn=978-0-06-011843-3 \|location=New York \|page=290 (footnote)}}</ref>

			On January 11, 1944, her only child, Ann Clare Brokaw, a 19-year-old senior at ], was killed in an automobile accident.<ref>, ''The New York Times'', January 12, 1944. Accessed August 2, 2009.</ref> As a result of the tragedy, Luce explored ] and religion. After grief counseling with Bishop ], she was received into the ] in 1946.<ref>''The New York Times'', February 17, 1946.</ref> She became an ardent essayist and lecturer in celebration of her faith, and she was ultimately honored by being named a ]. As a memorial to her daughter, beginning in 1949 she funded the construction of a Catholic church in ] 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 the ].<ref name="A Spiritual Home Finds Salvation"> {{Webarchive\|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120402034813/http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2003/julaug/show/heritage.html \|date=April 2, 2012 }}, '']'', July/August 2006. Accessed August 2, 2009. Ann Brokaw graduated cum laude from ] in Middleburg, Virginia at the age of 17 and went to Stanford University as a way to see the western United States. {{cite book \| last = Hatch, Alden \| author-link = Alden R. Hatch \| title = Ambassador Extraordinary \| publisher = Holt and Company \| year = 1956 \| location = New York \| url = https://archive.org/stream/ambassadorextrao017753mbp/ambassadorextrao017753mbp_djvu.txt }} While at Stanford she was a member of the ] sorority.</ref>

			==Marriage to Henry Luce==
			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.<ref>Morris 1997, pp. 284–85, 306–08, 357–64.</ref> Clare's years as managing editor of '']'' left her with an avid interest in journalism (she suggested the idea of ''Life'' magazine to her husband before it was developed internally).<ref>Morris 1997, pp. 283–84, 291.</ref> Henry himself was generous in encouraging her to write for ''Life'', but the question of how much coverage she should be accorded in ''Time'', 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".<ref>Nasah, David 2012 ''Patriarch: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy'' Penguin</ref> Clare Luce's lovers included Ambassador ], ], General ], General ],<ref>Morris, Sylvia Jukes 2014 ''Price of Fame: The Honorable Clare Boothe Luce'' Random House</ref> and ].

			Joseph P. Kennedy was the father of several United States politicians. Clare Luce at times provided advice to the campaigns of ], 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 spymaster ] (code name "Intrepid"), intended to weaken American isolationist thinking by influencing, among others, American journalists and politicians. Dahl was
			{{blockquote\|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.<ref>Jennet Conant. ''The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington''. Simon & Schuster. New York. 2008. pp. 120–121</ref>

			In the early 1960s, both Luces were friends of philosopher, author, and ] advocate ].<ref>{{cite web\|url=http://www.geraldheard.com/bio2.htm\|title=Gerald Heard – The official Gerald Heard Website\|access-date=January 18, 2014\|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130928144720/http://geraldheard.com/bio2.htm\|archive-date=September 28, 2013\|url-status=dead}}</ref> 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), ], wrote that Clare made use of it at least several times.<ref>Sheed, Wilfred 1982 ''Clare Boothe Luce''. Berkley: New York, p. 125</ref>

			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"<ref>Sylvia Jukes Morris, "In Search of Clare Boothe Luce", ''The New York Times Magazine'', January 31, 1988.</ref> brought her back to ] for increasingly long periods. She made her final home there in 1983.

			==Writing career==
			]'']]
			Luce published ''Stuffed Shirts'', a volume of short stories, in 1931. '']'' compared the work to ]'s ''Vile Bodies'' for its bitter humor. '']'' 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 purest ]."<ref>Morris 1997, pp. 188–89.</ref> The book's device of characters interlinked from story to story was borrowed from ]'s '']'' (1919), but it impressed ], who asked Luce's permission to imitate it.<ref>Morris 1997, p. 182.</ref> Luce also published many magazine articles. She was also a playwright.

			After the failure of her initial stage effort, the marital melodrama ''Abide With Me'' (1935), she rapidly followed up with a satirical comedy, '']''. 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 of ''The 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'' and '']''. The latter work "presented an all-out attack on the ]' racist philosophy".<ref>Lyons (1989), ''Clare Boothe Luce, Author and Diplomat'', p. 61.</ref> Its opening night in ], on October 14, 1939, was attended by ] and ]. ] directed and starred in both the Broadway production and ].<ref>Morris 1997, pp. 351–55, 368.</ref>

			Much of Luce's famously acid wit ("No good deed goes unpunished",<ref>The famous quip was first quoted in print by Luce's social secretary ] in ''Roman Candle'' (Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1956), 129: "When I would entreat her to engage in resolving a specific case, she replied, 'No good deed goes unpunished, Tish, remember that.{{'"}} Oscar Wilde, Billy Wilder, and Andrew W. Mellon have also been cited as sources, but without written evidence.</ref> "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 at '']'' and then, associate editor and managing editor of ]. She not only edited the works of such humorists as ] and ] but also contributed many comic pieces of her own, signed and unsigned.

			] and ] welcome Clare Boothe Luce, April 1942.]]
			Another branch of Luce's literary career was that of ]. ''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 for ''Life'' 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."<ref name=Front >{{cite web\|title=Women Come to Front: Journalist, Photographers and Broadcaster During WWII\|date=July 27, 2010\|url=https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/wcf/wcf0010.html\|publisher=Library of Congress\|access-date=May 30, 2012}}</ref>

			In 1941, Luce and her husband toured ] and reported on the status of the country and its war with ]. Her profile of General ] was on the cover of '']'' on December 8, 1941, the day after the Japanese attacked ]. After the United States entered the war, Luce toured military installations in Africa, India, China, and ], compiling a further series of reports for ''Life''. She published interviews with General ], commander of British troops in the Middle East, ], ], and General ], commander of American troops in the China-Burma-India theater.<ref name="Front"/>

			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 the ]. She did not hesitate to criticize the unwarlike lifestyle of General Sir ]'s Middle East Command. One draft article for ''Life'', 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 through ] in April 1942. It caused such Allied consternation that she briefly faced house arrest.<ref>Morris 1997, p. 458.</ref> Coincidentally or not, Auchinleck was fired a few months later by ]. 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 the ] in 1942.{{citation needed\|date=January 2019}}

			Luce never wrote an autobiography but willed her enormous archive of personal papers to the ].<ref>Library of Congress, https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/eadmss.ms003044</ref>

			==Political career==

			===House of Representatives===

			In 1942, Luce won a seat in the ] as a Republican comprising the whole of ], the ]. 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."<ref name=Clerk>{{cite web\|title=Clare Boothe Luce, Representative, 1943–1947, Republican from Connecticut\|url=http://womenincongress.house.gov/member-profiles/profile.html?intID=147#foot36\|publisher=Office of the Clerk U.S. Capitol, Room H154\|access-date=May 29, 2012\|url-status=dead\|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120618031235/http://womenincongress.house.gov/member-profiles/profile.html?intID=147#foot36\|archive-date=June 18, 2012}}</ref> She took up the seat formerly held by her late stepfather, ]. An outspoken critic of Roosevelt's foreign policy,<ref name="Clerk"/> 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 inline\|date=November 2024}} caused her to be treated patronizingly by colleagues of both sexes.<ref>William Miller, ''Fishbait'' (New York, 1977), 67; Clare Boothe Luce to Pearl S. Buck, July 20, 1959, Clare Boothe Luce Papers, Library of Congress</ref> She made a debut in her maiden speech, coining the phrase "globaloney" to disparage Vice President ]'s recommendation for airlines of the world to be given free access to US airports.<ref>"America in the Post-War Air World", speech by Clare Boothe Luce, Congresswoman from Connecticut, delivered in the House of Representatives, Washington D.C., February 9, 1943. ''Vital Speeches of the Day'', 1943, 331–36.</ref> She called for repeal of the ], comparing its "doctrine of race theology" to ]'s,<ref>''Palm Beach Post'', July 7, 1943.</ref> 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."<ref>New York ''Sun'', November 8, 1944.</ref> 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."<ref>''The New York Times'', October 14, 1944.</ref>

			During her second term, Luce was instrumental in the creation of the ]<ref name=CBLgrants>{{cite web\|title=Clare Boothe Luce\|url=http://www.hluce.org/cblprogram.aspx\|publisher=The Henry Luce Foundation, Inc\|access-date=May 29, 2012\|url-status=dead\|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120518025520/http://www.hluce.org/cblprogram.aspx\|archive-date=May 18, 2012}}</ref> 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 after ], she began warning against the rise of international ] as another form of totalitarianism, likely to lead to ].<ref name="Clerk"/>

			In 1946, she was the co-author of the ], 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.<ref>Harold A. Gould, Sikhs, Swamis, Students and Spies: The India Lobby in the United States, 1900–1946, Sage Publications, 2006, pp. 393–431.</ref>

			Luce did not run for re-election in 1946.

			===Endorsements in the 1952 presidential election===
			Luce returned to politics during the ].

			Boothe led a group of women delegates to the ] who sought to nominate ] in the balloting for ] nominee. Mrs. Smith, however, requested not to be proposed at the convention as a vice presidential delegate.<ref>{{cite web \|last1=Brandon \|first1=Dorothy \|title=Mrs. Conkey Has Doubts India Edwards Can Win \|url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/433416894 \|via=Newspapers.com \|url-access=subscription \|publisher=The Boston Daily Globe \|access-date=26 July 2024 \|language=en \|date=July 17, 1952}}</ref> Noting that presidential nominee ]'s supporters had coalesced around ] for vice president, Luce withdrew her nomination of Smith for the convention's vice presidential balloting.<ref>{{cite web \|title=Clare Luce Drops Plan To Nominate Margaret C. Smith \|url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/140080981 \|via=Newspapers.com \|publisher=St. Louis Post-Dispatch \|access-date=3 November 2024 \|language=en \|date=July 12, 1952}}</ref>

			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 the ], radio, and television were effective in persuading a large number of traditionally Democratic-voting Catholics to switch parties and vote Eisenhower.

			===Ambassador to Italy===
			]
			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'."<ref>{{cite book \|title=CBL, Author and Diplomat \|first=Joseph \|last=Lyons \|page=91}}</ref> 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''.<ref>{{cite web \| url=https://www.worldwar1centennial.org/index.php/commemorate/family-ties/stories-of-service/6118-william-anthony-hemmick.html \| title=William Anthony Hemmick - World War I Centennial }}</ref>

			She was no stranger to ], who welcomed her as a friend and faithful acolyte.<ref>A popular joke of the time alleged that Luce urged Pius XII to be tougher on communism in defense of the Church, prompting the Pontiff to reply, "You know, Mrs. Ambassador, I am a Catholic too." {{cite news\|title=La salvaguardia della Sistina. Stiano tranquilli i consiglieri troppo zelanti.\|first=Antonio\|last=Paolucci\|url=http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1344894\|newspaper=L'Osservatore Romano\|publisher=www.chiesa.espressonline.it\|date=September 13–14, 2010\|access-date=September 14, 2011\|language=it\|trans-title=Sistine chapel safeguard. Too zealous counselors be quiet.\|quote=Signora sono cattolico anch'io}}</ref> 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.<ref>Fr. Wilfred Thibodeau to Clare Boothe Luce, August 12, 1949, Luce Papers, Library of Congress. In 1957, Luce was awarded the Laertare Medal as an outstanding Catholic layperson. She also received honorary degrees from both Fordham and Temple universities.</ref>

			Her principal achievement as ambassador was to play a vital role in negotiating a peaceful solution to the ] 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 of ], and she was influential on the Mediterranean policy of Secretary of State ], 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.<ref>Osvaldo Croci, "The Trieste Crisis, 1953", Ph.D. thesis, McGill University, 1991.</ref>

			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 the ]'s hold on labor unions.<ref>{{cite web\|title=CIA Covert Aid to Italy Averaged $5 Million Annually from Late 1940s to Early 1960s, Study Finds\|editor=Dr. Ronald D. Landa\|publisher=]\|url=https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/intelligence/2017-02-07/cia-covert-aid-italy-averaged-5-million-annually-late-1940s\|access-date=August 17, 2018\|date=February 7, 2017}}</ref>

			Nurturing an image of her own country as a haven of social peace and prosperity, she threatened to boycott the 1955 ] if the American juvenile delinquent film '']'' was shown.<ref>{{cite news\|title=Envoy Stops Showing of Blackboard Jungle\|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=eoYQAAAAIBAJ&pg=1675,4368572&dq=clare+boothe+luce+blackboard+jungle&hl=en\|newspaper=The Age\|date=August 29, 1955}}</ref> Around the same time, she fell seriously ill with ]. Sensational rumors circulated that the ambassador was the target of extermination by agents of the ]. 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.<ref>, '']'', July 23, 1956.</ref> Upon her departure, Rome's '']'' concluded "She has given a notable example of how well a woman can discharge a political post of grave responsibility."<ref>{{cite book \|title=Clare Boothe Luce: Renaissance Woman \|first=Daniel \|last=Alef}}</ref>

			In 1957, she was awarded the ] by the ], considered the most prestigious award for ].<ref>{{cite web \|title=Recipients \|url=https://laetare.nd.edu/recipients/#info1957\|website=The Laetare Medal\|publisher=University of Notre Dame \|access-date=July 31, 2020}}</ref>

			A great appreciator of Italian ], she was a frequent visitor and client of the ] ], ], ], and ] in Rome.

			===Ambassador to Brazil nomination===

			In April 1959, President Eisenhower nominated a recovered Luce to be the ]. She began to learn enough of the ] 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 was ] Senator ]. 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.<ref>{{Cite web \|date=June 19, 1986 \|title=The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project Women Ambassadors Series AMBASSADOR CLARE BOOTHE LUCE \|url=https://adst.org/OH%20TOCs/Luce,%20Clare%20Boothe.toc.pdf \|url-status=live \|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240627032630/https://adst.org/OH%20TOCs/Luce,%20Clare%20Boothe.toc.pdf \|archive-date=June 27, 2024 \|access-date=July 25, 2024 \|website=Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training}}</ref>

			===Political life after office===

			After ] 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.<ref>]. ''Not in Your Lifetime'', (New York: Marlowe & Company, 1998), p. 322. {{ISBN\|1-56924-739-0}}</ref><ref>Fonzi, Gaeton. ''The Last Investigation'', (New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 1993), pp. 53–54. {{ISBN\|1-56025-052-6}}</ref> Luce's continuing anticommunism as well as her advocacy of conservatism led her to support Senator ] of ] as the Republican candidate for president in 1964. She also considered but rejected a candidacy for the ] from New York on the ] ticket. That same year, which also saw the political emergence of future friend ], marked the voluntary end of Henry Luce's tenure as editor-in-chief of ''Time''. 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, President ] named her to the ] (PFIAB). She remained on the board until President ] succeeded President ] in 1977. By then, she had put down roots in Washington, D.C., that would become permanent in her last years. In 1979, she was the first woman to be awarded the ] by the ] at West Point.

			President Reagan reappointed Luce to PFIAB. She served on the board until 1983.

			In 1986, Luce was the recipient of the Golden Plate Award of the ].<ref>{{cite web\|title= Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of Achievement \|website=www.achievement.org\|publisher=]\|url=https://achievement.org/our-history/golden-plate-awards/#public-service}}</ref>

			===Presidential Medal of Freedom===
			President Reagan awarded her the ]<ref name=CBLPI>{{cite web\|title=Writer, Diplomat Clare Boothe Luce\|url=http://www.cblpi.org/about/clare.cfm\|publisher=Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute\|access-date=May 29, 2012\|url-status=dead\|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120421172618/http://www.cblpi.org/about/clare.cfm\|archive-date=April 21, 2012}}</ref> in 1983. She was the first female member of Congress to receive this award.<ref name=Homan2011>{{cite web\|last=Homan\|first=Paul\|title=Women in Government: Clare Boothe Luce\|url=http://www.govloop.com/profiles/blogs/women-in-government-clare-boothe-luce\|access-date=May 29, 2012\|date=October 5, 2011}}</ref>

			Upon presenting her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Reagan said this of Luce:
			{{blockquote\|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.<ref name=UTexas1983>{{cite web\|title=Remarks at the Presentation Ceremony for the Presidential Medal of Freedom\|url=http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1983/22383c.htm\|publisher=University of Texas\|access-date=May 29, 2012\|location=East Room at the White House\|date=February 23, 1983\|archive-date=October 11, 2009\|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091011053642/http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1983/22383c.htm\|url-status=dead}}</ref>}}

			==Death==
			Luce died of ] on October 9, 1987, at age 84, at her ] apartment in ]<ref>{{Cite news \|date=October 9, 1987 \|title=Clare Boothe Luce, one of America's most versatile and... \|language=en \|work=United Press International \|url=https://www.upi.com/Archives/1987/10/09/Clare-Boothe-Luce-one-of-Americas-most-versatile-and/7882560750400/ \|access-date=October 7, 2021}}</ref> She is buried at ], ], a plantation that she and Henry Luce had once owned and given to a community of ] monks. She lies in a grave adjoining her mother, daughter, and husband.<ref>{{Cite magazine \|last=Brenner \|first=Marie \|date=March 1988 \|title=Fast and Luce \|url=https://www.vanityfair.com/news/1988/03/clare-boothe-luce-profile \|magazine=Vanity Fair \|language=en-US \|issue=March \|issn=0733-8899}}</ref>

			==Legacy==

			===Feminism===

			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 the ], offered by Representative ] of Indiana, but claimed that the invitation got lost in her mail.<ref>Bridgeport ''Herald'', February 28, 1943.</ref> 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".)<ref>C. L. Sulzberger, ''A Long Row of Candles'' (Macmillan, New York, 1969), 916.</ref> Yet, her own professional career as a successful editor, writer, playwright, reporter, legislator, and diplomat showed how a woman of humble origins and no college education could raise herself to an escalating series of public heights. 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. Because of her determination{{peacock inline\|date=November 2024}} and unwillingness to let her gender stand in the way of her personal and professional achievements, Luce is considered to be an influential role model by many women. Starting from humble beginnings, Luce never allowed her initial poverty or her male counterparts' lack of respect to keep her from achieving as much as if not more than many of the men surrounding her.{{citation needed\|date=June 2016}} In 2017, she was inducted into the ].<ref>{{cite web\|url=http://www.localsyr.com/news/local-news/ten-women-added-to-national-womens-hall-of-fame-in-seneca-falls/812712663 \|title=Ten women added to National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca \|publisher=Localsyr.com \|date=September 17, 2017 \|access-date=September 28, 2017}}</ref>

			===Clare Boothe Luce Program===

			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:
			# at least fifty percent of the awards go to Roman Catholic colleges, universities, and one high school (])
			# grants are made only to four-year degree-granting institutions, not directly to individuals

			The program is divided into three distinct categories:
			# undergraduate scholarships and research awards
			# graduate and post-doctoral fellowships
			# tenure-track appointment support at the assistant or associate professorship level<ref name="CBLgrants"/>

			===Conservatism===

			The ] (CBLPI) was founded in 1993 by Michelle Easton.<ref>{{cite web\|url=http://www.cblpi.org/about/\|title=About – Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute\|website=cblpi.org\|access-date=August 30, 2009\|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090831065424/http://www.cblpi.org/about/\|archive-date=August 31, 2009\|url-status=dead}}</ref> The non-profit ] 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.<ref>{{cite web\|url=http://www.cblpi.org/issues/\|title=Issues – Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute\|website=cblpi.org\|url-status=dead\|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130826231934/http://www.cblpi.org/issues/\|archive-date=August 26, 2013}}</ref> The CBLPI sponsors a program that brings conservative speakers such as conservative commentator ] to college campuses.<ref>{{Cite book\|title=Righting Feminism: Conservative Women and American Politics\|url=https://archive.org/details/rightingfeminism00schr\|url-access=limited\|last=Schreiber\|first=Ronnee\|publisher=Oxford University Press\|year=2008\|page=\|isbn=978-0-19-533181-3}}</ref>

			The ], established in 1991, is ]'s highest award for distinguished contributions to the conservative movement. Prominent recipients include ], ], and ]<ref name=Rankin>{{cite news\|title=Heritage of conservatism is ongoing after 25 years\|first=Margaret\|last=Rankin \|newspaper=] \|date=December 12, 1997}}</ref><ref name=BBC>{{cite news\|title=Thatcher praises Blair's support for US\|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/2560767.stm\|newspaper=BBC News\|date=December 10, 2002\|access-date=February 16, 2011}}</ref><ref name=Buckley>{{cite web\|url=http://www.nationalreview.com/author/79808/bio\|title=William F. Buckley Jr\|date=May 18, 2006\|publisher=National Review Online\|access-date=February 16, 2011}}</ref>

			==Publications==
			;Plays
			* 1935 '']''
			* 1936 '']''
			* 1938 '']''
			* 1939 '']''
			* 1951 ''Child of the Morning''
			* 1970 ''Slam the Door Softly''

			;Screen Stories
			* 1949 '']''

			;Books
			* 1931 ''Stuffed Shirts''
			* 1940 ''Europe in the Spring''
			* 1952 ''Saints for Now'' (editor)

			==See also==
			{{Portal\|Biography\|Politics}}
			* ]
			* ]

			==Notes==
			{{Reflist}}

			==References==
			{{external media\| float = right\| video1 = , ]\| video2 = , ]\| video3 = , ]}}
			* {{cite book \|last=Morris \|first=Sylvia Jukes \|author-link=Sylvia Jukes Morris \|title=Rage for Fame: The Ascent of Clare Boothe Luce \|publisher=Random House \|location=New York \|year=1997 \|isbn=978-0394575551 \|url=https://archive.org/details/rageforfameascen00morr }}
			* {{cite book \|last=Morris \|first=Sylvia Jukes \|title=Price of Fame: The Honorable Clare Boothe Luce \|publisher=Random House \|location=New York \|year=2014 \|isbn=978-0679457114 \|url=https://archive.org/details/priceoffamehonor0000morr }}
			* {{cite book\|last=Shadegg \|first=Stephen \|author-link=Stephen Shadegg\| title=Clare Boothe Luce: A Biography \|url=https://archive.org/details/clarebootheluceb00shad \|url-access=registration \|publisher=Simon & Schuster \|location=New York \|year=1970 \|isbn=978-0671206727}}
			* {{cite book \|last=Sheed \|first=Wilfred \|author-link=Wilfrid Sheed \|title=Clare Boothe Luce \|publisher=E. P. Dutton Publishers \|location=New York \|year=1982 \|isbn=978-0525030553 \|url=https://archive.org/details/clarebootheluce00shee }}
			* Hamilton, Pamela (2021). Lady Be Good<ref>{{Cite book \|last=Hamilton \|first=Pamela \|title=Lady Be Good \|publisher=Koehler Books \|year=2021 \|isbn=978-1646632725 \|edition=1st \|location=New York \|pages=16–265 \|language=English}}</ref>

			==External links==
			{{Wikiquote}}
			{{Commons category}}
			* {{CongBio\|l000497}}
			* {{IMDb name\|0524403}}
			* {{IBDB name}}
			* {{C-SPAN\|24703}}
			**
			**
			**
			*
			*
			*
			* {{Internet Archive film clip\|id=gov.archives.arc.95940\|description="Longines Chronoscope with Clare Boothe Luce"}}
			* {{Internet Archive film clip\|id=gov.archives.arc.95791\|description="Longines Chronoscope with Clare Boothe Luce (October 24, 1952)"}}

			{{s-start}}
			{{s-par\|us-hs}}
			{{succession box \| title=Member of the ] from ] \| before=]\| after=]\|years=1943–1947}}
			{{s-dip}}
			{{succession box\|title=]\|before=]\|after=]\|years=1953–1956}}
			{{succession box\|title=]\|before=Ellis O. Briggs\| after=]\|years=1959–1959}}
			{{s-end}}
			{{National Women's Hall of Fame}}
			{{Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame}}
			{{US Ambassadors to Italy}}
			{{US Ambassadors to Brazil}}
			{{Authority control}}

			{{DEFAULTSORT:Luce, Clare Boothe}}
			]
			]
			]
			]
			]
			]
			]
			]
			]
			]
			]
			]
			]
			]
			]
			]
			]
			]
			]
			]
			]
			]
			]
			]
			]
			]
			]
			]
			]
			]
			]
			]
			]

Latest revision as of 10:33, 16 December 2024

American author and politician (1903–1987) For the Broadway and movie actress, see Claire Luce.

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
Find sources: "Clare Boothe Luce" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (October 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Clare Boothe Luce


United States Ambassador to Italy
In office May 4, 1953 – December 27, 1956
President	Dwight D. Eisenhower
Preceded by	Ellsworth Bunker
Succeeded by	James David Zellerbach
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Connecticut's 4th 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	George Tuttle Brokaw (m. 1923; div. 1929) Henry Luce (m. 1935; died 1967)
Children	1

Conservatism in the United States
This article is part of a series on

Schools Compassionate Fiscal Fusion Liberal Libertarian Moderate Movement Neo- Paleo- Postliberal Populist Progressive Social Straussian Traditionalist
Principles American exceptionalism American nationalism Anti-communism Christian nationalism Civil religion Classical liberalism Communitarianism Constitutionalism Culture of life Pro-life Familialism Family values Federalism States' rights Gender essentialism Judeo-Christian values Individualism Law and order Limited government Meritocracy Natural aristocracy Militarism Peace through strength Moral absolutism Natural law Ordered liberty Patriotism Property rights Republicanism Right to bear arms Rule of law Supply-side economics Tradition
History Loyalists Southern chivalry Solid South New Humanism Southern Agrarians Old Right Conservative Manifesto Conservative coalition America First Committee McCarthyism United States in the 1950s Goldwater campaign New Right Reagan era Reagan Doctrine Reaganomics Neo- vs. paleoconservatism Redeemers Republican Revolution Tea Party movement Trump era First term Second term
Intellectuals Adams Anton Babbitt Bacevich Bell Bellow Berger Bloom Boorstin Bradford Buckley Burgess Burnham Calhoun Carl Chambers Conquest Deneen Eastman Eliot Francis Genovese Gottfried Hanson Hazony Himmelfarb Hoppe Hurston Jaffa Kendall Kimball Kirk Kirkpatrick Kreeft Kristol Kuehnelt-Leddihn Lasch Lind Lovecraft Loury Lukacs Mansfield Mencken Meyer Molnar Murray Nisbet Pangle Ransom Rieff Santayana Schaeffer Sowell Strauss Viereck Voegelin Weaver Weyl Wolfe
Politicians Abbott (Greg) Adams (John) Adams (John Quincy) Bolton Buchanan (Pat) Bush (George H. W.) Bush (George W.) Calhoun Cheney (Dick) Clay Cleveland Coolidge Cruz DeSantis Dirksen Eisenhower Gingrich Goldwater Harding Helms Hoover (Herbert) Huckabee Lincoln Lodge Luce McCain McCarthy (Joseph) McConnell McKinley Nixon Palin Paul (Rand) Paul (Ron) Pence Pierce Randolph Reagan Romney Roosevelt Rubio Rumsfeld Ryan Sanders (Sarah) Santorum Sherman Taft (Robert) Taft (William) Taylor Thurmond Trump Vance Wallace (George) Wolfowitz
Jurists Alito Barrett Bork Burger Colson Frelinghuysen George Goldsmith Gorsuch Harlan II Kavanaugh Kennedy Luttig Meese O'Connor Parker Rehnquist Roberts Sanford Scalia Sessions Sutherland Taft (William) Thomas (Clarence) Vermeule Whittaker
Commentators Ahmari Beck Bongino Breitbart Buchanan (Pat) Buckley Caldwell Carlson Cass Chodorov Coulter D'Souza Derbyshire DiLorenzo Douthat Dreher Elder Fleming Goldberg Grant Griffin Van den Haag Hannity Hart Hegseth Herberg Hoover (Margaret) Ingraham Jones Kelly Kirk Knowles Krauthammer Lahren Levin Limbaugh Loomer Mac Donald Metaxas Neuhaus Ngo North Novak O'Reilly Owens Podhoretz Pool Portnoy Prager Robertson Shapiro Shlaes Sullivan Walsh Watters Whittle Will Wintrich Woods
Activists Abramoff Agostinelli Ahmanson Andreessen Atwater Bannon Bennett Bezmenov Blum Bozell Cohn Coors Dans Dobson Dolan Drudge Falwell Feulner Gabriel Horowitz Kauffman Krikorian Kirk Kristol LaHaye Lindbergh Leo McEntee Mercer (Rebekah) Mercer (Robert) Miller Murdoch Musk Political views O'Keefe Park Phillips Prager Reed Regnery Roberts Rove Rufo Rusher Scaife Schlafly (Andrew) Schlafly (Phyllis) Stone Starbuck Thiel Viguerie Thomas (Ginni) Washington Weyrich Wood Yenor
Literature The Federalist Papers (1788) Democracy in America (1835–1840) Notes on Democracy (1926) I'll Take My Stand (1930) Our Enemy, the State (1935) The Managerial Revolution (1941) Ideas Have Consequences (1948) God and Man at Yale (1951) The Conservative Mind (1953) The Conscience of a Conservative (1960) A Choice Not an Echo (1964) Losing Ground (1984) A Conflict of Visions (1987) The Closing of the American Mind (1987) The Bell Curve (1994) The Revolt of the Elites (1995) The Death of the West (2001) The Blank Slate (2002) Black Rednecks and White Liberals (2005) Hillbilly Elegy (2017) The Benedict Option (2017) Why Liberalism Failed (2018)
Concerns Abortion American decline Cancel Culture Culture war Multiculturalism "Disparate impact" controversy CRT controversy DEI controversy Griggs v. Duke Power Co. Higher ed. bubble Go woke, go broke ESG "Woke capitalism" Homeschooling Immigration reduction Illegal immigration Immigration and crime Border crisis Intelligence and public policy Constitutional interpretations Originalism Textualism Managerial state Mudsill theory Second Amendment Sub-replacement fertility Unitary executive
PartiesActive American Party American Independent Party Conservative Party of New York State Constitution Party Republican Party Defunct Anti-Masonic Party Constitutional Union Party Democratic Party (historically, factions) Boll weevils Bourbon Democrats Conservative Democrats Dixiecrats Reagan Democrats Southern Democrats Rhode Island Suffrage Party Federalist Party National Republican Party Native American Party Whig Party
Think tanks Acton Institute AdTI AEI CSP Center for the National Interest Claremont Institute CEI CSPC EPPC FRI Gatestone Institute Heartland Institute The Heritage Foundation Heritage Action Mandate for Leadership Project 2025 Hoover Institution Hudson Institute ISI James Madison Program Leadership Institute Manhattan Institute Mises Institute PRI Project for the New American Century (Defunct) Ripon Society R Street Institute Rockford Institute SPN Sutherland Institute Tax Foundation Witherspoon Institute
Media Newspapers Chicago Tribune The Epoch Times New Hampshire Union Leader The Jewish Voice The New York Observer New York Post The Remnant The Wall Street Journal (editorial board) The Washington Times Journals American Affairs The American Conservative The American Spectator American Thinker City Journal Claremont Review of Books Commentary Compact Chronicles The Dispatch First Things The Imaginative Conservative Jewish World Review Modern Age National Affairs The National Interest National Review The New American The New Atlantis The New Criterion Policy Review (defunct) Public Discourse Southern Partisan Spectator USA Tablet Taki's Magazine Telos Washington Examiner The Weekly Standard (defunct) TV channels CBN Fox Business Fox News Newsmax TV One America News Network VOZ Websites Babylon Bee Breitbart News The Bulwark Campus Reform The Center Square Conservative Review Daily Caller Daily Signal Daily Wire Discover the Networks The Federalist FrontPage Magazine Front Porch Republic Gateway Pundit Hot Air Human Events Independent Journal Review InfoWars Jihad Watch LifeZette NewsBusters PJ Media Rare RedState The Dispatch Townhall Twitchy Washington Examiner The Washington Free Beacon The Western Journal WorldNetDaily Other Blaze Media Encounter Books Evie Magazine The First Imprimis The Political Cesspool Passage Publishing PragerU RealClearPolitics Red Scare Regnery Publishing RSBN The Rubin Report Sinclair Broadcast Group
Other organizations Economics ATR Club for Growth FreedomWorks (defunct) NFIB NTU Tea Party Patriots USCC Gun rights GOA NAGR NRA Second Amendment Caucus Identity politics ACT! CWA Council of Conservative Citizens GAG IWF LCR Moms for Liberty Nativist CIS FAIR Immigration Restriction League NumbersUSA Oath Keepers Three Percenters Religion ADF Court cases ACLJ AFA The American TFP Chalcedon Foundation CCA Christian Voice Eagle Forum FCR The Fellowship FFC Focus on the Family Foundation for Moral Law Liberty Counsel Moral Majority (defunct) NOM NRLC PTMC Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America Thomas More Law Center Watchdog groups AIM Econ Journal Watch Franklin News Foundation JW MRC O'Keefe Media Group Project Veritas (defunct) Youth/student groups NJC TPUSA Young Americans for Freedom Young America's Foundation YAL Miscellaneous The 85 Fund AHI ACU Bradley Foundation TCC CNP CPAC Freedom Caucus Hillsdale College IFF JBS John M. Olin Foundation Liberty Fund LU NAS Philadelphia Society Regent University RSC Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal TPPF Other AFL Atlas Network CN ConservAmerica Donors Trust FedSoc Gab Gettr NCPAC PJI Parler Republican Main Street Partnership The Right Stuff SACR YRNF Ziklag
Movements Asian and Pacific Islander Black Christian right Reconstructionism Classical education movement Paideia Dark Enlightenment Female Green Hispanic and Latino LGBT Libertarian republicans Militia movement Monarchism Mormon White Horse Prophecy Theodemocracy Parental rights movement Fathers' rights Patriot movement Christian Radical right Reactionary feminism Right-libertarianism Paleolibertarianism Secessionism Neo-Confederates in Texas Trumpism Never Trump
Related Agenda 47 America First Bibliography of US conservatism Conservative talk radio Dunning School GOP factions History of US conservatism Modern timeline List of American conservatives NatCon Colloquialisms "Barstool conservatism" "Cuckservative" "Don't immanentize the eschaton!" Republicans pounce RINO "South Park Republican"
Conservatism portal United States portal
v t e

Clare Boothe Luce (née Ann Clare Boothe; March 10, 1903 – October 9, 1987) was an American writer, politician, diplomat, and public conservative figure. A versatile author, she is best known for her 1936 hit play The Women, which had an all-female cast. Her writings extended from drama and screen scenarios to fiction, journalism, and war reportage. She served as U.S. Ambassador to Italy from 1953 to 1956, and as a U.S. Representative from Connecticut from 1943 to 1947. She was married to Henry Luce, publisher of Time, Life, Fortune, and Sports Illustrated.

Politically, Luce was a leading conservative in later life and was well known for her anti-communism. In her youth, she briefly aligned herself with the liberalism of President Franklin Roosevelt as a protégé of Bernard Baruch but later became an outspoken critic of Roosevelt. Although she was a strong supporter of the Anglo-American alliance in World War II, she remained outspokenly critical of British colonialism in India.

Known as a charismatic and forceful public speaker, especially after her conversion to Catholicism in 1946, she campaigned for every Republican presidential candidate from Wendell Willkie to Ronald Reagan.

Early life

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"). Her parents were not married and would separate in 1912. Her father, a sophisticated man and a brilliant violinist, 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 and Nashville, Tennessee, Chicago, Illinois, and Union City, New Jersey as well as New York City. Clare Boothe had an elder brother, David Franklin Boothe.

She attended the cathedral schools in Garden City and Tarrytown, New York, graduating first in her class in 1919 at 16. Her ambitious mother's initial plan for her was to become an actress. Clare understudied Mary Pickford on Broadway 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. After a tour of Europe with her mother and stepfather, Dr. Albert E. Austin, whom Ann Boothe married in 1919, she became interested in the women's suffrage movement, and she was hired by Alva Belmont to work for the National Woman's Party in Washington, D.C. and Seneca Falls, New York.

She wed George 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 hopeless alcoholic, and the marriage ended in divorce on May 20, 1929.

On November 23, 1935, she married Henry Luce, the publisher of Time, Life, and Fortune. She thereafter called herself Clare Boothe Luce, a frequently misspelled name that was often confused with that of her exact contemporary Claire Luce, a stage and film actress. As a professional writer, Luce continued to use her maiden name.

In 1939 she commissioned Frida Kahlo to paint a portrait of the late Dorothy Hale. Kahlo produced The Suicide Of Dorothy Hale. Luce was appalled and almost destroyed it; however, Isamu Noguchi dissuaded her. Luce later anonymously donated the painting to the Phoenix Art Museum.

On January 11, 1944, her only child, Ann Clare Brokaw, a 19-year-old senior at Stanford University, was killed in an automobile accident. As a result of the tragedy, Luce explored psychotherapy and religion. After grief counseling with Bishop Fulton Sheen, she was received into the Catholic Church in 1946. She became an ardent essayist and lecturer in celebration of her faith, and she was ultimately honored by being named a Dame of Malta. As a memorial to her daughter, beginning in 1949 she funded the construction of a Catholic church in Palo 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 the Anglican Province of Christ the King.

Marriage to Henry Luce

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. Clare's years as managing editor of Vanity Fair left her with an avid interest in journalism (she suggested the idea of Life magazine to her husband before it was developed internally). Henry himself was generous in encouraging her to write for Life, but the question of how much coverage she should be accorded in Time, 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". Clare Luce's lovers included Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy, Randolph Churchill, General Lucian Truscott, General Charles Willoughby, and Roald Dahl.

Joseph P. Kennedy was the father of several United States politicians. Clare Luce at times provided advice to the campaigns of John 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 spymaster Sir 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.

In the early 1960s, both Luces were friends of philosopher, author, and LSD advocate Gerald Heard. 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.

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" brought her back to Washington, D.C. for increasingly long periods. She made her final home there in 1983.

Writing career

Luce published Stuffed Shirts, a volume of short stories, in 1931. Scribner's Magazine compared the work to Evelyn Waugh's Vile 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 purest Angoran." The book's device of characters interlinked from story to story was borrowed from Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio (1919), but it impressed Andre Maurois, who asked Luce's permission to imitate it. Luce also published many magazine articles. She was also a playwright.

After the failure of her initial stage effort, the marital melodrama Abide 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 of The 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 and Margin for Error. The latter work "presented an all-out attack on the Nazis' racist philosophy". Its opening night in Princeton, New Jersey, on October 14, 1939, was attended by Albert Einstein and Thomas Mann. Otto Preminger directed and starred in both the Broadway production and screen adaptation.

Much of Luce's famously acid wit ("No good deed goes unpunished", "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 at Vogue and then, associate editor and managing editor of Vanity Fair. She not only edited the works of such humorists as P. G. Wodehouse and Corey Ford but also contributed many comic pieces of her own, signed and unsigned.

Another branch of Luce's literary career was that of war 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 for Life 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."

In 1941, Luce and her husband toured China and reported on the status of the country and its war with Japan. Her profile of General Douglas MacArthur was on the cover of Life on December 8, 1941, the day after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. After the United States entered the war, Luce toured military installations in Africa, India, China, and Burma, compiling a further series of reports for Life. She published interviews with General Harold Alexander, commander of British troops in the Middle East, Chiang Kai-shek, Jawaharlal Nehru, and General Stilwell, commander of American troops in the China-Burma-India theater.

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 the Far East. She did not hesitate to criticize the unwarlike lifestyle of General Sir Claude Auchinleck's Middle East Command. One draft article for Life, 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 through Trinidad in April 1942. It caused such Allied consternation that she briefly faced house arrest. Coincidentally or not, Auchinleck was fired a few months later by Winston 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 the United States House of Representatives in 1942.

Luce never wrote an autobiography but willed her enormous archive of personal papers to the Library of Congress.

Political career

House of Representatives

In 1942, Luce won a seat in the United States House of Representatives as a Republican comprising the whole of Fairfield County, Connecticut, the 4th 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." She took up the seat formerly held by her late stepfather, Dr. Albert Austin. An outspoken critic of Roosevelt's foreign policy, 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 caused her to be treated patronizingly by colleagues of both sexes. She made a debut in her maiden speech, coining the phrase "globaloney" to disparage Vice President Henry Wallace's recommendation for airlines of the world to be given free access to US airports. She called for repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act, comparing its "doctrine of race theology" to Adolf Hitler's, 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." 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."

During her second term, Luce was instrumental in the creation of the Atomic Energy Commission 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 after V-E Day, she began warning against the rise of international Communism as another form of totalitarianism, likely to lead to World War III.

In 1946, she was the co-author of the Luce–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.

Luce did not run for re-election in 1946.

Endorsements in the 1952 presidential election

Luce returned to politics during the 1952 presidential election.

Boothe led a group of women delegates to the 1952 Republican National Convention who sought to nominate Margaret Chase Smith in the balloting for vice presidential nominee. Mrs. Smith, however, requested not to be proposed at the convention as a vice presidential delegate. Noting that presidential nominee Dwight D. Eisenhower's supporters had coalesced around Richard Nixon for vice president, Luce withdrew her nomination of Smith for the convention's vice presidential balloting.

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 the stump, radio, and television were effective in persuading a large number of traditionally Democratic-voting Catholics to switch parties and vote Eisenhower.

Ambassador to Italy

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'." 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.

She was no stranger to Pope Pius XII, who welcomed her as a friend and faithful acolyte. 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.

Her principal achievement as ambassador was to play a vital role in negotiating a peaceful solution to the Trieste 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 of Giuseppe Pella, and she was influential on the Mediterranean policy of Secretary of State John 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.

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 the Italian Communist Party's hold on labor unions.

Nurturing an image of her own country as a haven of social peace and prosperity, she threatened to boycott the 1955 Venice Film Festival if the American juvenile delinquent film Blackboard Jungle was shown. Around the same time, she fell seriously ill with arsenic poisoning. Sensational rumors circulated that the ambassador was the target of extermination by agents of the Soviet 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. Upon her departure, Rome's Il Tempo concluded "She has given a notable example of how well a woman can discharge a political post of grave responsibility."

In 1957, she was awarded the Laetare Medal by the University of Notre Dame, considered the most prestigious award for American Catholics.

A great appreciator of Italian haute couture, she was a frequent visitor and client of the ateliers Gattinoni, Ferdinandi, Schuberth, and Sorelle Fontana in Rome.

Ambassador to Brazil nomination

In April 1959, President Eisenhower nominated a recovered Luce to be the US Ambassador to Brazil. She began to learn enough of the Portuguese 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 was Oregon Senator Wayne 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.

Political life after office

After Fidel 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. Luce's continuing anticommunism as well as her advocacy of conservatism led her to support Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona as the Republican candidate for president in 1964. She also considered but rejected a candidacy for the United States Senate from New York on the Conservative party ticket. That same year, which also saw the political emergence of future friend Ronald Reagan, marked the voluntary end of Henry Luce's tenure as editor-in-chief of Time. 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, President Richard Nixon named her to the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB). She remained on the board until President Jimmy Carter succeeded President Gerald Ford in 1977. By then, she had put down roots in Washington, D.C., that would become permanent in her last years. In 1979, she was the first woman to be awarded the Sylvanus Thayer Award by the United States Military Academy at West Point.

President Reagan reappointed Luce to PFIAB. She served on the board until 1983.

In 1986, Luce was the recipient of the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.

Presidential Medal of Freedom

President Reagan awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1983. She was the first female member of Congress to receive this award.

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.

Death

Luce died of brain cancer on October 9, 1987, at age 84, at her Watergate apartment in Washington, D.C. She is buried at Mepkin Abbey, South Carolina, a plantation that she and Henry Luce had once owned and given to a community of Trappist monks. She lies in a grave adjoining her mother, daughter, and husband.

Legacy

Feminism

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 the Equal Rights Amendment, offered by Representative Louis Ludlow of Indiana, but claimed that the invitation got lost in her mail. 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".) Yet, her own professional career as a successful editor, writer, playwright, reporter, legislator, and diplomat showed how a woman of humble origins and no college education could raise herself to an escalating series of public heights. 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. Because of her determination and unwillingness to let her gender stand in the way of her personal and professional achievements, Luce is considered to be an influential role model by many women. Starting from humble beginnings, Luce never allowed her initial poverty or her male counterparts' lack of respect to keep her from achieving as much as if not more than many of the men surrounding her. In 2017, she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.

Clare Boothe Luce Program

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:

at least fifty percent of the awards go to Roman Catholic colleges, universities, and one high school (Villanova Preparatory School)
grants are made only to four-year degree-granting institutions, not directly to individuals

The program is divided into three distinct categories:

undergraduate scholarships and research awards
graduate and post-doctoral fellowships
tenure-track appointment support at the assistant or associate professorship level

Conservatism

The Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute (CBLPI) was founded in 1993 by Michelle Easton. The non-profit think 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. The CBLPI sponsors a program that brings conservative speakers such as conservative commentator Ann Coulter to college campuses.

The Clare Boothe Luce Award, established in 1991, is The Heritage Foundation's highest award for distinguished contributions to the conservative movement. Prominent recipients include Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and William F. Buckley Jr.

Publications

Plays

1935 Abide with Me
1936 The Women
1938 Kiss the Boys Goodbye
1939 Margin for Error
1951 Child of the Morning
1970 Slam the Door Softly

Screen Stories

1949 Come to the Stable

Books

1931 Stuffed Shirts
1940 Europe in the Spring
1952 Saints for Now (editor)

Notes

Morris, Sylvia Jukes (January 31, 1988). "In Search of Clare Boothe Luce". The New York Times Magazine. pp. 4 of 5. Retrieved June 19, 2014. 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.
Clare Boothe Luce's authorized biographer has corrected the misperception, encouraged by Luce herself, that she was born a month later: "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. I told her about the dates and she stared at me. 'Mother always said I was born at Easter. Anyway ... people born under the Aries sign are much more lighthearted and gay than those born under Pisces.'" Sylvia Jukes Morris, "In Search of Clare Boothe Luce", The New York Times Magazine, January 31, 1988
Morris 1997, pp. 191–98.
Clare Boothe Luce, Address to the India League of America, August 9, 1943, Clare Boothe Luce Papers, Library of Congress (hereafter CBLP-LC).
Morris 1997, pp. 15–32.
Morris 1997, pp. 17–18, 152–53.
Morris 1997, pp. 29–42.
Lyons, Joseph (1989). Clare Boothe Luce, Author and Diplomat. Chelsea House. p. 26.
Morris 1997, pp. 49–52.
Morris 1997, pp. 110–14, 120–21.
Morris 1997, pp. 130–31, 146–48.
Herrera, Hayden (1983). Frida, a biography of Frida Kahlo. New York: Harper and Row. p. 290 (footnote). ISBN 978-0-06-011843-3.
"Ann Brokaw Dies in Auto Collision", The New York Times, January 12, 1944. Accessed August 2, 2009.
The New York Times, February 17, 1946.
"A Spiritual Home Finds Salvation" Archived April 2, 2012, at the Wayback Machine, Stanford Magazine, July/August 2006. Accessed August 2, 2009. Ann Brokaw graduated cum laude from Foxcroft School in Middleburg, Virginia at the age of 17 and went to Stanford University as a way to see the western United States. Hatch, Alden (1956). Ambassador Extraordinary. New York: Holt and Company. While at Stanford she was a member of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority.
Morris 1997, pp. 284–85, 306–08, 357–64.
Morris 1997, pp. 283–84, 291.
Nasah, David 2012 Patriarch: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy Penguin
Morris, Sylvia Jukes 2014 Price of Fame: The Honorable Clare Boothe Luce Random House
Jennet Conant. The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington. Simon & Schuster. New York. 2008. pp. 120–121
"Gerald Heard – The official Gerald Heard Website". Archived from the original on September 28, 2013. Retrieved January 18, 2014.
Sheed, Wilfred 1982 Clare Boothe Luce. Berkley: New York, p. 125
Sylvia Jukes Morris, "In Search of Clare Boothe Luce", The New York Times Magazine, January 31, 1988.
Morris 1997, pp. 188–89.
Morris 1997, p. 182.
Lyons (1989), Clare Boothe Luce, Author and Diplomat, p. 61.
Morris 1997, pp. 351–55, 368.
The famous quip was first quoted in print by Luce's social secretary Letitia Baldrige in Roman Candle (Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1956), 129: "When I would entreat her to engage in resolving a specific case, she replied, 'No good deed goes unpunished, Tish, remember that.'" Oscar Wilde, Billy Wilder, and Andrew W. Mellon have also been cited as sources, but without written evidence.
^ "Women Come to Front: Journalist, Photographers and Broadcaster During WWII". Library of Congress. July 27, 2010. Retrieved May 30, 2012.
Morris 1997, p. 458.
Library of Congress, https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/eadmss.ms003044
^ "Clare Boothe Luce, Representative, 1943–1947, Republican from Connecticut". Office of the Clerk U.S. Capitol, Room H154. Archived from the original on June 18, 2012. Retrieved May 29, 2012.
William Miller, Fishbait (New York, 1977), 67; Clare Boothe Luce to Pearl S. Buck, July 20, 1959, Clare Boothe Luce Papers, Library of Congress
"America in the Post-War Air World", speech by Clare Boothe Luce, Congresswoman from Connecticut, delivered in the House of Representatives, Washington D.C., February 9, 1943. Vital Speeches of the Day, 1943, 331–36.
Palm Beach Post, July 7, 1943.
New York Sun, November 8, 1944.
The New York Times, October 14, 1944.
^ "Clare Boothe Luce". The Henry Luce Foundation, Inc. Archived from the original on May 18, 2012. Retrieved May 29, 2012.
Harold A. Gould, Sikhs, Swamis, Students and Spies: The India Lobby in the United States, 1900–1946, Sage Publications, 2006, pp. 393–431.
Brandon, Dorothy (July 17, 1952). "Mrs. Conkey Has Doubts India Edwards Can Win". The Boston Daily Globe. Retrieved July 26, 2024 – via Newspapers.com.
"Clare Luce Drops Plan To Nominate Margaret C. Smith". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. July 12, 1952. Retrieved November 3, 2024 – via Newspapers.com.
Lyons, Joseph. CBL, Author and Diplomat. p. 91.
"William Anthony Hemmick - World War I Centennial".
A popular joke of the time alleged that Luce urged Pius XII to be tougher on communism in defense of the Church, prompting the Pontiff to reply, "You know, Mrs. Ambassador, I am a Catholic too." Paolucci, Antonio (September 13–14, 2010). "La salvaguardia della Sistina. Stiano tranquilli i consiglieri troppo zelanti" [Sistine chapel safeguard. Too zealous counselors be quiet.]. L'Osservatore Romano (in Italian). www.chiesa.espressonline.it. Retrieved September 14, 2011. Signora sono cattolico anch'io
Fr. Wilfred Thibodeau to Clare Boothe Luce, August 12, 1949, Luce Papers, Library of Congress. In 1957, Luce was awarded the Laertare Medal as an outstanding Catholic layperson. She also received honorary degrees from both Fordham and Temple universities.
Osvaldo Croci, "The Trieste Crisis, 1953", Ph.D. thesis, McGill University, 1991.
Dr. Ronald D. Landa, ed. (February 7, 2017). "CIA Covert Aid to Italy Averaged $5 Million Annually from Late 1940s to Early 1960s, Study Finds". National Security Archive. Retrieved August 17, 2018.
"Envoy Stops Showing of Blackboard Jungle". The Age. August 29, 1955.
"Foreign Relations: Arsenic for the Ambassador", Time, July 23, 1956.
Alef, Daniel. Clare Boothe Luce: Renaissance Woman.
"Recipients". The Laetare Medal. University of Notre Dame. Retrieved July 31, 2020.
"The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project Women Ambassadors Series AMBASSADOR CLARE BOOTHE LUCE" (PDF). Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training. June 19, 1986. Archived (PDF) from the original on June 27, 2024. Retrieved July 25, 2024.
Summers, Anthony. Not in Your Lifetime, (New York: Marlowe & Company, 1998), p. 322. ISBN 1-56924-739-0
Fonzi, Gaeton. The Last Investigation, (New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 1993), pp. 53–54. ISBN 1-56025-052-6
"Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of Achievement". www.achievement.org. American Academy of Achievement.
"Writer, Diplomat Clare Boothe Luce". Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute. Archived from the original on April 21, 2012. Retrieved May 29, 2012.
Homan, Paul (October 5, 2011). "Women in Government: Clare Boothe Luce". Retrieved May 29, 2012.
"Remarks at the Presentation Ceremony for the Presidential Medal of Freedom". East Room at the White House: University of Texas. February 23, 1983. Archived from the original on October 11, 2009. Retrieved May 29, 2012.
"Clare Boothe Luce, one of America's most versatile and..." United Press International. October 9, 1987. Retrieved October 7, 2021.
Brenner, Marie (March 1988). "Fast and Luce". Vanity Fair. No. March. ISSN 0733-8899.
Bridgeport Herald, February 28, 1943.
C. L. Sulzberger, A Long Row of Candles (Macmillan, New York, 1969), 916.
"Ten women added to National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca". Localsyr.com. September 17, 2017. Retrieved September 28, 2017.
"About – Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute". cblpi.org. Archived from the original on August 31, 2009. Retrieved August 30, 2009.
"Issues – Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute". cblpi.org. Archived from the original on August 26, 2013.
Schreiber, Ronnee (2008). Righting Feminism: Conservative Women and American Politics. Oxford University Press. p. 22. ISBN 978-0-19-533181-3.
Rankin, Margaret (December 12, 1997). "Heritage of conservatism is ongoing after 25 years". The Washington Times.
"Thatcher praises Blair's support for US". BBC News. December 10, 2002. Retrieved February 16, 2011.
"William F. Buckley Jr". National Review Online. May 18, 2006. Retrieved February 16, 2011.

References

External videos
Booknotes interview with Sylvia Jukes Morris on Rage For Fame: The Ascent of Clare Boothe Luce, July 27, 1997, C-SPAN
Q&A interview with Morris on Price of Fame: The Honorable Clare Boothe Luce, August 3, 2014, C-SPAN
Presentation by Morris on Price of Fame, July 22, 2014, C-SPAN

Morris, Sylvia Jukes (1997). Rage for Fame: The Ascent of Clare Boothe Luce. New York: Random House. ISBN 978-0394575551.
Morris, Sylvia Jukes (2014). Price of Fame: The Honorable Clare Boothe Luce. New York: Random House. ISBN 978-0679457114.
Shadegg, Stephen (1970). Clare Boothe Luce: A Biography. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0671206727.
Sheed, Wilfred (1982). Clare Boothe Luce. New York: E. P. Dutton Publishers. ISBN 978-0525030553.
Hamilton, Pamela (2021). Lady Be Good

External links

United States Congress. "Clare Boothe Luce (id: l000497)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
Clare Boothe Luce at IMDb
Clare Boothe Luce at the Internet Broadway Database
Appearances on C-SPAN
Library of Congress website
Henry Luce profile
Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute website
A film clip "Longines Chronoscope with Clare Boothe Luce" is available for viewing at the Internet Archive
A film clip "Longines Chronoscope with Clare Boothe Luce (October 24, 1952)" is available for viewing at the Internet Archive

U.S. House of Representatives
Preceded byLe Roy D. Downs	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Connecticut's 4th congressional district 1943–1947	Succeeded byJohn D. Lodge
Diplomatic posts
Preceded byEllsworth Bunker	United States Ambassador to Italy 1953–1956	Succeeded byJames David Zellerbach
Preceded byEllis O. Briggs	United States Ambassador to Brazil 1959–1959	Succeeded byJohn M. Cabot

Inductees to the National Women's Hall of Fame

1970–1979

1973	Jane Addams Marian Anderson Susan B. Anthony Clara Barton Mary McLeod Bethune Elizabeth Blackwell Pearl S. Buck Rachel Carson Mary Cassatt Emily Dickinson Amelia Earhart Alice Hamilton Helen Hayes Helen Keller Eleanor Roosevelt Florence Sabin Margaret Chase Smith Elizabeth Cady Stanton Helen Brooke Taussig Harriet Tubman
1976	Abigail Adams Margaret Mead Mildred "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias
1979	Dorothea Dix Juliette Gordon Low Alice Paul Elizabeth Bayley Seton

1980–1989

1981	Margaret Sanger Sojourner Truth
1982	Carrie Chapman Catt Frances Perkins
1983	Belva Lockwood Lucretia Mott
1984	Mary "Mother" Harris Jones Bessie Smith
1986	Barbara McClintock Lucy Stone Harriet Beecher Stowe
1988	Gwendolyn Brooks Willa Cather Sally Ride Mary Risteau Ida B. Wells-Barnett

1990–1999

1990	Margaret Bourke-White Barbara Jordan Billie Jean King Florence B. Seibert
1991	Gertrude Belle Elion
1993	Ethel Percy Andrus Antoinette Blackwell Emily Blackwell Shirley Chisholm Jacqueline Cochran Ruth Colvin Marian Wright Edelman Alice Evans Betty Friedan Ella Grasso Martha Wright Griffiths Fannie Lou Hamer Dorothy Height Dolores Huerta Mary Putnam Jacobi Mae Jemison Mary Lyon Mary Mahoney Wilma Mankiller Constance Baker Motley Georgia O'Keeffe Annie Oakley Rosa Parks Esther Peterson Jeannette Rankin Ellen Swallow Richards Elaine Roulet Katherine Siva Saubel Gloria Steinem Helen Stephens Lillian Wald Madam C. J. Walker Faye Wattleton Rosalyn S. Yalow Gloria Yerkovich
1994	Bella Abzug Ella Baker Myra Bradwell Annie Jump Cannon Jane Cunningham Croly Catherine East Geraldine Ferraro Charlotte Perkins Gilman Grace Hopper Helen LaKelly Hunt Zora Neale Hurston Anne Hutchinson Frances Wisebart Jacobs Susette La Flesche Louise McManus Maria Mitchell Antonia Novello Linda Richards Wilma Rudolph Betty Bone Schiess Muriel Siebert Nettie Stevens Oprah Winfrey Sarah Winnemucca Fanny Wright
1995	Virginia Apgar Ann Bancroft Amelia Bloomer Mary Breckinridge Eileen Collins Elizabeth Hanford Dole Anne Dallas Dudley Mary Baker Eddy Ella Fitzgerald Margaret Fuller Matilda Joslyn Gage Lillian Moller Gilbreth Nannerl O. Keohane Maggie Kuhn Sandra Day O'Connor Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin Pat Schroeder Hannah Greenebaum Solomon
1996	Louisa May Alcott Charlotte Anne Bunch Frances Xavier Cabrini Mary A. Hallaren Oveta Culp Hobby Wilhelmina Cole Holladay Anne Morrow Lindbergh Maria Goeppert Mayer Ernestine Louise Potowski Rose Maria Tallchief Edith Wharton
1998	Madeleine Albright Maya Angelou Nellie Bly Lydia Moss Bradley Mary Steichen Calderone Mary Ann Shadd Cary Joan Ganz Cooney Gerty Cori Sarah Grimké Julia Ward Howe Shirley Ann Jackson Shannon Lucid Katharine Dexter McCormick Rozanne L. Ridgway Edith Nourse Rogers Felice Schwartz Eunice Kennedy Shriver Beverly Sills Florence Wald Angelina Grimké Weld Chien-Shiung Wu

2000–2009

2000	Faye Glenn Abdellah Emma Smith DeVoe Marjory Stoneman Douglas Mary Dyer Sylvia A. Earle Crystal Eastman Jeanne Holm Leontine T. Kelly Frances Oldham Kelsey Kate Mullany Janet Reno Anna Howard Shaw Sophia Smith Ida Tarbell Wilma L. Vaught Mary Edwards Walker Annie Dodge Wauneka Eudora Welty Frances E. Willard
2001	Dorothy H. Andersen Lucille Ball Rosalynn Carter Lydia Maria Child Bessie Coleman Dorothy Day Marian de Forest Althea Gibson Beatrice A. Hicks Barbara Holdridge Harriet Williams Russell Strong Emily Howell Warner Victoria Woodhull
2002	Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis Ruth Bader Ginsburg Katharine Graham Bertha Holt Mary Engle Pennington Mercy Otis Warren
2003	Linda G. Alvarado Donna de Varona Gertrude Ederle Martha Matilda Harper Patricia Roberts Harris Stephanie L. Kwolek Dorothea Lange Mildred Robbins Leet Patsy Takemoto Mink Sacagawea Anne Sullivan Sheila E. Widnall
2005	Florence E. Allen Ruth Fulton Benedict Betty Bumpers Hillary Clinton Rita Rossi Colwell Mother Marianne Cope Maya Y. Lin Patricia A. Locke Blanche Stuart Scott Mary Burnett Talbert
2007	Eleanor K. Baum Julia Child Martha Coffin Pelham Wright Swanee Hunt Winona LaDuke Elisabeth Kübler-Ross Judith L. Pipher Catherine Filene Shouse Henrietta Szold
2009	Louise Bourgeois Mildred Cohn Karen DeCrow Susan Kelly-Dreiss Allie B. Latimer Emma Lazarus Ruth Patrick Rebecca Talbot Perkins Susan Solomon Kate Stoneman

2010–2019

2011	St. Katharine Drexel Dorothy Harrison Eustis Loretta C. Ford Abby Kelley Foster Helen Murray Free Billie Holiday Coretta Scott King Lilly Ledbetter Barbara A. Mikulski Donna E. Shalala Kathrine Switzer
2013	Betty Ford Ina May Gaskin Julie Krone Kate Millett Nancy Pelosi Mary Joseph Rogers Bernice Sandler Anna Schwartz Emma Willard
2015	Tenley Albright Nancy Brinker Martha Graham Marcia Greenberger Barbara Iglewski Jean Kilbourne Carlotta Walls LaNier Philippa Marrack Mary Harriman Rumsey Eleanor Smeal
2017	Matilda Cuomo Temple Grandin Lorraine Hansberry Victoria Jackson Sherry Lansing Clare Boothe Luce Aimee Mullins Carol Mutter Janet Rowley Alice Waters
2019	Gloria Allred Angela Davis Sarah Deer Jane Fonda Nicole Malachowski Rose O'Neill Louise Slaughter Sonia Sotomayor Laurie Spiegel Flossie Wong-Staal

2020–2029

2020	Aretha Franklin Barbara Hillary Barbara Rose Johns Henrietta Lacks Toni Morrison Mary Church Terrell
2022	Octavia E. Butler Judy Chicago Rebecca S. Halstead Mia Hamm Joy Harjo Emily Howland Katherine Johnson Indra Nooyi Michelle Obama
2024	Patricia Bath Ruby Bridges Elouise P. Cobell Kimberlé Crenshaw Peggy McIntosh Judith Plaskow Loretta Ross Sandy Stone Anna Wessels Williams Serena Williams

Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame

1990s

1994	Mary Jobe Akeley Anni Albers Marian Anderson Beatrice Fox Auerbach Emma Fielding Baker Evelyn Longman Batchelder Catharine Beecher Jody Cohen Prudence Crandall Katharine Seymour Day Fidelia Fielding Charlotte Perkins Gilman Dorothy Goodwin Ella Grasso Estelle Griswold Mary Hall Alice Hamilton Katharine Hepburn Katharine Martha Houghton Hepburn Isabella Beecher Hooker Emeline Roberts Jones Barbara B. Kennelly Clare Boothe Luce Rachel Taylor Milton Alice Paul Ellen Ash Peters Ann Petry Sarah Porter Theodate Pope Riddle Edna Negron Rosario Margaret Rudkin Susan Saint James Lydia Sigourney Virginia Thrall Smith Smiths of Glastonbury Hilda Crosby Standish Harriet Beecher Stowe Gladys Tantaquidgeon Betty Tianti Hannah Bunce Watson Chase G. Woodhouse
1995	Helen M. Feeney Caroline Hewins Donna Lopiano María Colón Sánchez
1996	Edythe J. Gaines Madeleine L'Engle Susanne Langer
1997	Elizabeth Hart Jarvis Colt Annie Dillard Margo Rose Laura Wheeler Waring
1998	Dorrit Hoffleit Constance Baker Motley Rosa Ponselle Lillian Vernon Mabel Osgood Wright
1999	Jane Hamilton-Merritt Sophie Tucker Ann Uccello Florence Wald

2000s

2000	Emily Barringer Adrianne Baughns-Wallace Mary Goodrich Jenson
2001	Laura Nyro Catherine Roraback Maria Miller Stewart
2002	Florence Griswold Eileen Kraus Miriam Therese Winter
2003	Dotha Bushnell Hillyer Clarice McLean
2005	Martha Coolidge Helen Frankenthaler Rosalind Russell
2006	Helen Keller Mary Townsend Seymour Anne Stanback
2007	Dorothy Hamill Joan Joyce Glenna Collett-Vare
2008	Jewel Plummer Cobb Patricia Goldman-Rakic Barbara McClintock Joan A. Steitz
2009	Martha Minerva Franklin Carolyn M. Mazure Helen L. Smits

2010s

2010	Anne M. Mulcahy Martha Parsons Maggie Wilderotter
2011	Isabelle M. Kelley Denise Nappier Patricia Wald
2012	Anne Garrels Annie Leibovitz Faith Middleton
2013	Rosa DeLauro Barbara Franklin Linda Lorimer Augusta Lewis Troup
2014	Beatrix Farrand Jennifer Lawton Marian Salzman
2015	Margaret Bourke-White Carolyn Miles Indra Nooyi
2016	Rebecca Lobo Jane Pauley Joyce Yerwood
2017	Kristen Griest Ruth A. Lucas Regina Rush-Kittle
2018	Lucia Chase Anika Noni Rose Tina Weymouth
2019	Marian Chertow Nell Newman Martha Langevin Elizabeth George Plouffe

2020s

2020	Josephine Bennett Frances Ellen Burr Catherine Flanagan Sarah Lee Brown Fleming Clara Hill (suffragist) Elsie Hill Helena Hill Emily Pierson
2021	Enola G. Aird Patricia Baker Donna Berman Khalilah L. Brown-Dean Glynda C. Carr Callie Gale Heilmann Jerimarie Liesegang Kica Matos Marilyn Ondrasik Pamela Selders Teresa C. Younger
2022	Cora Lee Bentley Radcliffe Jennifer Rizzotti Lhakpa Sherpa Suzy Whaley
2023	Lisa Cortés Laura Cruickshank Carla Squatrito Regina Winters-Toussaint
2024	Sara Bronin Melissa Bernstein Barbara Summers

v t e United States ambassadors to Italy
Kingdom of the Two Sicilies
Chargé d'Affaires	Nelson Throop Boulware Polk Rowan Morris
Minister Resident	Owen Chandler
Kingdom of Sardinia
Chargé d'Affaires	Rogers Baber Wickliffe Niles Kinney Daniel
Minister Resident	Daniel
Kingdom of Italy
Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary	Marsh Astor Stallo Porter Potter
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary	MacVeagh Draper Meyer White Griscom Leishman O'Brien Page Johnson Child Fletcher Garrett Long W. Phillips Wadsworth (chargé d'affaires) Kirk
Italian Republic
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary	Dunn Bunker Luce Zellerbach Reinhardt Ackley Martin Volpe Gardner Rabb Secchia Bartholomew Foglietta Sembler Spogli Thorne J. Phillips Eisenberg Markell

v t e United States ambassadors to Brazil
Chargé d'Affaires	Raguet Tudor Brown Hunter
Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary	Hunter Proffit Wise Tod Schenck Trousdale Meade Webb Monroe (Chargé d'Affaires ad interim) Blow Partridge Hilliard Osborn Jarvis Adams Conger T. Thompson Conger Bryan D. Thompson
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary	D. Thompson Griscom Dudley Morgan Gibson Caffery Berle Pawley Johnson Kemper Dunn Briggs Cabot Gordon Tuthill Elbrick Rountree Crimmins Sayre Motley Asencio Shlaudman Melton Levitsky Harrington Orozco (Chargé d'Affaires ad interim) Hrinak Danilovich Chicola (Chargé d'Affaires ad interim) Sobel Shannon Ayalde McKinley Chapman Bagley

Hamilton, Pamela (2021). Lady Be Good (1st ed.). New York: Koehler Books. pp. 16–265. ISBN 978-1646632725.

Categories: