CLARE BOOTHE LUCE
Talented, wealthy, beautiful, and controversial, Clare Boothe Luce (1903-1987)
is best remembered as a congresswoman (1942-1946), ambassador, playwright,
socialite, and spouse of magazine magnate Henry R. Luce of Time-Life-Fortune.
Less familiar is Luce's wartime journalism, which included a book, Europe
in the Spring (1940) and many on-location articles for Life.
Though she covered a wide range of World War II battlefronts, Luce considered
her war reportage merely "time off" from her true vocation as playwright.
Nonetheless, Luce endured the discomforts, frustrations, and dangers encountered
by even the most seasoned war correspondent. Besides experiencing bombing
raids in Europe and the Far East, she faced house arrest in Trinidad by
British Customs when a draft Life article about poor military
preparedness in Libya proved too accurate for Allied comfort. Luce's unsettling
observations led longtime friend Winston Churchill to revamp Middle Eastern
military policy.
Luce's initial encounter with the war in 1940 produced Europe
in the Spring, her first non- fiction book. Anxious to convince
fellow Americans of the dangers of isolationism, Luce wrote a vivid, anecdotal
account of her four-month visit to "a world where men have decided to
die together because they are unable to find a way to live together."
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Luce's Career Launched
at Vanity Fair
[Clare
Boothe Luce], c. 1935
Clare Boothe Luce Collection,
Prints and Photographs Division
(98)
LC-USZ62-133415 |
Poster for Anti-Nazi
Film
Margin for Error,
Hollywood: Twentieth Century Fox
Film Corporation, 1943
Prints and Photographs Division (99)
LC-DIG- ppmsca-05803 |
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"I Decided To Go to Europe and See About the War"
[image not available online]
Clare Boothe Luce,
Europe in the Spring,
Alfred A. Knopf, 1940, title page
General Collections (102)
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Trip to Pacific War
Zone
George Rodger,
[General Chiang Kai-Shek
and Madame Chiang welcome Clare Boothe Luce],
April 1942
Clare Boothe Luce Collection,
Prints and Photographs Division (104)
LC-USZ62-133411 |
Luce Interview with
General Stilwell
George Rodger,
[General "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell arrives at his Maymyo
headquarters and speaks with Clare Boothe Luce and Captain Fred
Eldridge],
April 7, 1942
Clare Boothe Luce Collection,
Prints and Photographs Division (105)
LC-USZ62-133416 |
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"My insides had not
stopped quivering. . . ."
George Rodger, [Clare
Boothe Luce photographing casualties in Maymyo, Burma], April 8, 1942
Clare Boothe Luce Collection,
Prints and Photographs Division
(106)
LC-USZ62-133414 |
Japanese Attack on
Maymyo, Burma
Clare Boothe Luce,
[Wounded Burmese],
April 8, 1942
Clare Boothe Luce Collection,
Prints and Photographs Division (107)
LC-USZ62-133417 |
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Profile of General MacArthur
Clare Boothe,
"MacArthur of the Far East,"
Life, December 8, 1941,
pp. 122-123
General Collections (108) |
Luce with Philippine
President Quezon
[Luce with Manuel Quezon and
Admiral Thomas Hart],
October 1941
Clare Boothe Luce Collection,
Prints and Photographs Division (111)
LC-USZ62-133410 |
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Luce's Burma Article
Clare Boothe,
"Burma Mission,"
Life, June 15, 1942,
pp. 94-95
General Collections (112) |
World Leaders in Luce's Circle
[Clare Boothe Luce with Jacques Phillipe Leclerc]
c. 1944
Clare Boothe Luce Collection,
Prints and Photographs Division (113)
LC-USZ62-133412 |
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World Leaders in Luce's Circle
[Clare Boothe Luce with George S. Patton, Jr.]
c. 1944
Clare Boothe Luce Collection,
Prints and Photographs Division (118)
LC-DIG-ppmsca-05802 |
Censorship in the
Name of Security
[Clare Boothe Luce
in Cairo],
June 1942
Clare Boothe Luce Collection,
Prints and Photographs Division (115)
LC-USZ62-133413 |
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