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."

	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
"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)
	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
	"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
	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
	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
	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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Accredited Women Correspondents During World War II - Credits

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