Clare Boothe Luce

Ann Clare Boothe Luce (March 10, 1903 – October 9, 1987) was an author, playwright, and diplomat from New York City who represented Connecticut's 4th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives for two terms. She is mostly known for her tenure as U.S. Ambassador to Italy under the Eisenhower Administration, where she was an outspoken anti-Communist.

Political career

U.S. House of Representatives

In the 1942 midterms, Luce sought a U.S. House seat in Connecticut, running against incumbent Democrat Le Roy D. Downs. She won the GOP nomination despite criticisms from intraparty opponents that she was a "carpetbagger," and campaigned with the following platform:

“

To win the war. To prosecute that war as loyally and effectively as we can as Republicans. To bring about a better world and a durable peace, with special attention to postwar security and employment here at home.

”

Although an internationalist unlike many isolationists who had dominated the GOP for a long period, Luce campaigned against Downs in the general election as a "rubber stamp" for the Roosevelt Administration. Gaining traction from an endorsement by unsuccessful Republican presidential nominee Wendell Willkie, she defeated Downs by five percentage points. A socialist candidate in the race siphoned away 15,000 votes, likely having been the primary reason for Luce's victory, which afterwards the representative-elect declared:

“

I have campaigned for fighting a hard war—not a soft war. Therefore this election proves how the American people want to fight this war. They want to fight it efficiently and without bungling. They want to fight it in an honorable, all-out, plain-spoken partnership with our Allies.

”

Although she supported the "general outlines" of FDR's foreign policy, she sharply criticized his single-person decision making, asserting that the U.S. was becoming:

“

...a dictatorial bumbledom.

”

In the 1944 election cycle, Luce assailed Roosevelt for "lying" the United States into World War II and not having previously taken further actions to combat fascism globally. In her concurrent re-election bid, she once again benefiting from a Socialist Party candidate drawing support away from her Democrat opponent.

References

External links

• Profile at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress