Price of Fame
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4. In the hierarchy of diplomatic assignments in 1952, Rome was comparable in importance to London, Paris, Madrid, and Bonn, though probably not as crucial politically as Moscow. There had been other American female Ambassadors to less vital places such as Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, and Luxembourg, but CBL was the first to rate a top posting.
5. According to an Italian cabinet minister during CBL’s tenure, the arch-Presbyterian Dulles did not initially approve Eisenhower’s choice. “[He] practically solicited our government’s ‘nonagreement’ to her appointment.” Giulio Andreotti, The U.S.A. Up Close: From the Atlantic Pact to Bush (New York, 1992), 22–23.
6. CBL to HRL, Nov. 28, 1952, SJMP.
7. Margaret Case, “Maggie’s Diary, June 3rd–September 15th, 1953,” unpublished typescript in SJMP, 86.
8. Smith, Eisenhower, 557–60. The President-elect had been briefed on the Korean War by the Joint Chiefs. They advised going on indefinitely holding the current line, or committing more forces to achieve an outright military success. Ike rejected both scenarios, since he planned to spend three days on the battlefront assessing the situation for himself. Among those accompanying him were General Omar Bradley, Attorney General Herbert Brownell, Jr., Secretary of Defense Charles Wilson, and the now indispensable C. D. Jackson, who had transferred from HRL’s staff as a senior White House aide. Admiral Arthur Radford was to join him en route, and at the front he hoped to see his son John, an army major.
9. John Billings to HRL in Jakarta, Dec. 10, 1952. Billings had discovered that HRL had not received a package of letters from CBL, which probably included her Nov. 28 one, detailing her meeting with Eisenhower. They were described as “three fat letters … carefully scotch-taped so I wouldn’t steam ’em open.” John Billings diary, Dec. 1, 1952.
10. Carlos Chávez to CBL, Dec. 17, 1952, CCP.
11. HRL was in a celebratory mood, having paid $500,000 to excerpt Harry Truman’s memoirs in Life—half the price the President had hoped for.
12. CBL to Father James, Jan. 25, 1953, CBLP.
32. GAL FOR THE JOB
1. Howard Teichmann to CBL, Sept. 24, 1973, CBLP. Teichmann was working with Kaufman at the time of the intrusion.
2. John Billings diary, Jan. 21, 1953, JBP.
3. Ibid., Jan. 6, 1953, JBP.
4. The New York Times, Jan. 21, 1953.
5. Women’s Wear, Jan. 21, 1953.
6. Look magazine, May 18, 1954.
7. Michael Stern interview, Feb. 2, 1988.
8. The New York Times, Jan. 30, 1953.
9. New York News, Feb. 24, 1953.
10. McCall’s, “Without Portfolio,” Mar. 1961. Dorothy Farmer and HRL moved to protect CBL from further misidentification, telling the head of Time-Life’s Rome bureau to make sure reporters had the correct orthography of her name, and so avoid asking for the wrong articles and pictures from the morgues. Dorothy Farmer to Tom Dozier, Jan. 27, 1953; Dozier to Mrs. Farmer, Mar. 4, 1953, CBLP.
11. Mr. and Mrs. William Esty to Senator Herman Lehman, Feb. 15, 1953, and Rose A. Connor to Lehman, Mar. 29, 1953, HLP.
12. Luigi Criscuolo to Senator Alexander Wiley, Feb. 21, 1953, HLP. Al Grover discovered that CBL’s appointment was unpopular in social circles in Madrid and London, to the extent that he felt compelled to slap “some mean sarcasm[s]” down. When CBL, apparently unaware of this, asked John Billings to help her answer “two thousand letters” of congratulation, he found the actual number to be nearer fifty. John Billings diary, Mar. 10 and Feb. 19, 1953, JBP.
13. Evelyn Waugh to CBL, Jan. 22, 1953, CBLP.
14. John Billings diary, Feb. 14, 1953, JBP.
15. The New York Times, Feb. 18, 1953.
16. CBL, “Eisenhower Administration,” 75; Smith, Eisenhower, 552.
17. New York Herald Tribune, Mar. 4, 1953. “They never called me ‘Ambassador,’ ” CBL recalled in 1968, “because you know the difficulty, ambasciatore is masculine, ambasciatrice means the wife of an Ambassador, so they always called me … Signora.” CBL, “Eisenhower Administration,” 50. CBL misremembered. In fact, ambasciatrice is also used by Italians to denote a female ambassador.
18. Paul Ginsborg, A History of Contemporary Italy: Society and Politics 1943–1988 (New York, 2003), 103, 143.
19. Gerald Miller to SJM, Nov. 18, 1983, SJMP. Miller’s written account of his relationship with CBL was of immeasurable help in communicating the intricacies and nuances of Italian politics and American diplomacy in the 1950s.
20. On Mar. 11, 1948, the United States paid $151,000 for the Villa Taverna and $601,757 for the grounds, for a total of $732,757. Time Inc. memo, 1953, TIA.
21. Gretta Palmer, “The Lady and the Lion—in One,” Catholic Digest, April 1953; The New York Times, Apr. 12, 1953; SJM notes taken during a visit to Rome with CBL in 1982, and interviews with embassy specialists Rex Hallman and Virginia Woofter, Apr. 18, 1985, SJMP. John Billings diary, Apr. 4, 1953, JBP.
22. The New York Times, Mar. 27, 1953.
23. CBL, “The Foreign Service as an Arm of U.S. Policy,” transcript in Department of State Bulletin, May 11, 1953, 679–80.
24. The New York Times, Apr. 11, 1953.
25. Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena A. Hickok, Ladies of Courage (New York, 1954), 230. Hickok also commented: “No appointment of a woman to a high government position was ever greeted with less enthusiasm by members of her own sex.” Ibid., 231.
26. Nevada State Journal, Apr. 14, 1953.
27. Ibid., Apr. 11, 1953.
28. CBL to Wilfrid J. Thibodeau, Apr. 13, 1953, SJMP.
29. Thibodeau to SJM, June 19, 1983, SJMP.
33. LA LUCE
1. CBL interview, Oct. 30, 1983.
2. Elisabeth Moore interview, Nov, 22, 1983; CBL to Dorothy Farmer, Apr. 17, 1953, ACP.
3. In 1968, CBL listed her other fourteen missions as to (1) get Italy into the UN; (2) lessen American aid; (3) install a U.S. nuclear-capable division in Italy to defend the Ljubljana Gap; (4) get Italy to fulfill its minimal NATO commitment; (5) repatriate three American gangsters of dubious U.S. citizenship; (6) achieve an Italian ban on the production of heroin; (7) improve the lot of U.S. naval, air, and army forces stationed in Italy; (8) promote U.S.-Italian cultural relations; (9) increase Italian emigration to the United States while settling refugees from Iron Curtain countries in Italy; (10) perform full spectrum of consular functions; (11) assist U.S. congressional and other delegations; (12) improve relations with international agencies; (13) facilitate evacuations of U.S. nationals in emergencies; (14) make Italy an effective ally of U.S. in its “worldwide political, economic, and military struggle.” CBL, “Eisenhower Administration,” 32ff.
4. CBL to Wilfrid J. Thibodeau, Apr. 17, 1953, SJMP.
5. CBL to Dorothy Farmer, Apr. 17, 1953, ACP.
6. Carlos Chávez to CBL, Mar. 30, 1953, CCP.
7. CBL to Chávez, Apr. 20, 1953, CCP. CBL hinted that when Chávez had completed the score, she might arrange for a performance elsewhere in Italy, or in New York.
8. INCOM footage, Apr. 22, 1953, Archivio Storico Luce, http://www.archivioluce.com; Time, May 1, 1953.
9. Elbridge Durbrow interview, Dec. 12, 1983; AP and UPI dispatches, Apr. 22, 1953.
10. The New York Times, Apr. 23, 1953.
11. CBL to SJM in Rome, May 1985, SJMP; The New York Times, Apr. 23, 1953.
12. Long Beach Independent, Apr. 23, 1953.
13. “Villa La Pariola—Rome” [Villa Taverna], State Department booklet, U.S. State Department; Elisabeth Moore interview, Nov. 22, 1983.
14. CBL to SJM on joint tour of the Villa Taverna, May 25, 1985, SJMP.
15. Ibid. Durbrow told Alden Hatch that when CBL first saw the Villa Taverna, it was “as bare as a car barn.” Hatch interviews, AHP.
16. Elisabeth Moore interview, Nov. 22, 1983. Soon CBL wore earplugs to cut out the animal noises. Baldrige, A Lady, 97.
17. Bernard Baruch to CBL, Jan. 24, 1953, CBLP.
18. Gerald Miller to
SJM, Nov. 18, 1983, SJMP.
19. CBL to Joseph W. Martin, Jr., July 23, 1953, CBLP.
20. John Shea interview, Jan. 12, 1982.
21. Elbridge Durbrow interview, Dec. 12, 1983. Clare later heard from Ellsworth Bunker that Durbrow had expressed much the same sentiment to Foreign Service officials in the Palazzo Chigi. CBL, “Eisenhower Administration,” 25. Bunker also told CBL “that at a certain point the conniving was so outrageous that he himself called together the whole staff and said, ‘I do not wish anyone in this embassy to say anything that reflects on the capacities or the fitness of Mrs. Luce to be ambassador here. She is a friend of mine.… She is an able woman, and if I hear any more of it, I shall ask any officer indulging in it to be removed.’ ” Ibid.
22. AP and UPI dispatches, Apr. 23, 1953.
23. Ibid.
24. W. Stabler to Elbridge Durbrow, Apr. 20, 1953, CBLP-NA; UPI dispatch, Apr. 24, 1953; Life, “Ambassador Luce Takes Over,” May 11, 1953.
25. Hatch, Ambassador, 211.
26. Luigi Barzini, “Ambassador Luce, As Italians See Her,” Harper’s Magazine, July 1955. CBL’s translation of the motto was less cautionary than Talleyrand’s original words, Et surtout pas de zèle (“And above all, no zeal”).
27. Andreotti, The U.S.A. Up Close, 11.
28. Marco Rimanelli, “Italy’s Diplomacy and the West: From Allied Occupation in World War II to Equality in NATO, 1940s–50s,” http://fch.fiu.edu/FCH-1999/Rimanelli-1999.htm; Morris, Rage, 370–71.
29. In March 1954, De Gasperi “almost wept” when he told a New York Times correspondent that CBL’s efforts to encourage the Italian Right were misguided. “It is difficult to form a government with the Monarchists as your ambassador wants.… You cannot expect us democrats who fought fascism to join with fascism.” C. L. Sulzberger, A Long Row of Candles: Memoirs and Diaries, 1934–1954 (New York, 1969), 980.
30. CBL did not reveal that the State Department was doubtful Tagliotti could pull off such a reactionary coup.
31. Rimanelli, “Italy’s Diplomacy”; Ginsborg, History of Contemporary Italy, 148, 200, 157.
32. Betty Carney Taussig, A Warrior for Freedom (Manhattan, Kans., 1955), 17.
33. Art Buchwald, “Europe’s Lighter Side,” New York Herald Tribune, May 17, 1953.
34. New York Daily News, May 5, 1953.
35. Ibid.
36. Hatch, Ambassador, 212.
37. The New York Times, May 5, 1953.
38. CBL to Joseph W. Martin, Jr., Apr. 30, 1953, CBLP-NA.
39. See, e.g., CBL to State Department, Feb. 23, 1956, CBLP-NA.
40. Gerald Miller to SJM, Nov. 18, 1983, SJMP.
41. Osvaldo Croci, “The Trieste Crisis,” PhD thesis, McGill University (Montreal, 1991), 126.
42. Ibid., 151–152.
43. Ibid., 86–87.
44. Ibid., 206.
45. Ibid., 153.
46. Ibid.
47. Shadegg, Clare Boothe Luce, 240.
48. Ibid.
49. Hatch, Ambassador, 214; Elbridge Durbrow interview, Dec. 12, 1983.
50. The New York Times, May 13, 1953.
51. Il Paese, May 10, 1953.
52. The Reporter, May 26, 1953.
53. CBL to Joseph Martin, Jr., July 27, 1953, CBLP; CBL, “Eisenhower Administration,” 30–31.
54. Milan address, May 28, 1953, CBL Speeches, CBLP.
55. The New York Times, May 30, 1953; Shadegg, Clare Boothe Luce, 243.
56. The New York Times, May 30, 1953; Hatch, Ambassador, 217.
57. Quoted in Hud Stoddard’s Time Inc. memo, July 28, 1953, JBP.
58. CBL to John Foster Dulles, July 7, 1953, CBLP-NA.
59. Croci, “Trieste Crisis,” 205.
60. John Billings diary, June 1, 1953.
61. Case, “Maggie’s Diary,” 85, SJMP.
62. Ginsborg, History of Contemporary Italy, 143.
63. CBL to State Department, June 26, 1953, CBLP-NA.
64. Case, “Maggie’s Diary,” 17, SJMP. CBL read Foot’s remarks in the Tribune during a trip to Florence in mid-June.
65. The New York Times, June 15, 1953, and Jan. 30, 1954.
66. CBL to State Department, June 26, 1953, CBLP-NA. In a “melancholy” meeting with CBL on June 20, a weary-looking De Gasperi echoed this fear. “He said that if new elections were … precipitated in the present uncertain international situation, Italy might then go Communist.” CBL, memorandum of conversation, June 20, 1953, CBLP-NA. The Prime Minister and CBL doubtless had in mind the riots of three days before in sixty East German cities, when tens of thousands of demonstrators calling for free elections were brutally supressed by Soviet tanks. M. Steven Fish, “After Stalin’s Death: The Anglo-American Debate over a New Cold War,” Diplomatic History 10, no. 4 (Fall 1986), 339–40.
67. De Gasperi told CBL that “all sections of Italian opinion from Communist Left to Monarchist Right [had] advocated clemency” for the Rosenbergs. CBL memo, June 20, 1953, CBLP-NA; Case, “Maggie’s Diary,” 47, SJMP.
34. CRISIS AT SEA
1. Croci, “Trieste Crisis,” 114–15. “She worked very diligently, but she never was fluent in Italian.” Elbridge Durbrow interview, Dec. 12, 1983.
2. CBL to Wilfrid J. Thibodeau, May 3, 1956, SJMP; Cardinal Montini to CBL, March 11, 1953, CBLP.
3. Case, “Maggie’s Diary,” 32, SJMP.
4. Later, the number of personal letters dropped to an average of two hundred a week.
5. Hatch, Ambassador, 221.
6. Baldrige, A Lady, 87–88.
7. Italian for “excuse me” and “please”; Baldrige, A Lady, 95.
8. Ibid., 92.
9. Time, May 25, 1953, reported that Stokowski successfully conducted Menotti’s opera in Florence.
10. Sir Victor Sassoon to CBL, Jan. 2, 1954, CBLP.
11. CBL to Chávez, May 29, 1953, CCP.
12. Case, “Maggie’s Diary,” 47–49, SJMP; Minneapolis Star, Aug. 18, 1953. Joking with the columnist Art Buchwald, CBL said, “The three things Americans who visit Rome want to see are the Holy Father, the Colosseum, and the American Ambassador.” New York Herald Tribune, ca. Sept. 20, 1955, SJMP.
13. John Billings diary, June 9 and 17, 1953; Baldrige, Roman Candles, 34. Also see “Art File,” CBLP.
14. John Billings diary, June 9 and 17, 1953; Baldrige, A Lady, 92.
15. John Billings diary, June 9 and 17, 1953. HRL added that he might consider buying the Tribune, but only if its owner, Mrs. Helen Reid, came to him with a proposition.
16. HRL to CBL, June 10, 1953, CBLP.
17. Croci, “Trieste Crisis,” 189.
18. Time, Oct. 19, 1953.
19. Case, “Maggie’s Diary,” 70, SJMP.
20. Ibid., 67–68, SJMP.
21. The discussion concerned an urgent summons Durbrow had received to meet with Pella the following morning. Case, “Maggie’s Diary,” 74, SJMP.
22. Ibid., 73, SJMP.
23. Ibid., 74, SJMP; Croci, “Trieste Crisis,” 195–96.
24. Case, “Maggie’s Diary,” 74, SJMP.
25. Durbrow to State Department, Aug. 29, 1953, NASD; Croci, “Trieste Crisis,” 194.
26. Ibid., 196.
27. The New York Times, Aug. 30, 1953.
28. Case, “Maggie’s Diary,” 75, SJMP.
29. Ibid., 75–76, SJMP; Morris, Rage for Fame, 86. In his diary, Coward described the Niki as a “ghastly” Edwardian yacht. Fourteen years later, he wrote that women in power were a “menace.… Imagine the chaos that would ensue if our destinies were ruled, even temporarily, by Nancy Astor or Clare Booth [sic] Luce! Beatrice Lillie would be infinitely less perilous. Some day I must really settle down to writing a biography of that arch-idiot Joan of Arc.” Payne and Morley, Noël Coward Diaries, 645–46.
35. PATIENCE AND COURAGE
1. Case, “Maggie’s Diary,” 77, SJMP; Croci, “Trieste Crisis,” 198–99.
2. Alfred M. Gruenther to Eisenhower, Sept. 5, 1953, NASD.
3. CBL to State Department, Sept. 4, 1953, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, vol. VIII (Washington, D.C., 1983), 248–50. Series title hereafter FRUS.
4. Ibid.; Case, “Maggie’s Diary,” 78, SJMP.
5. CBL memo to SD, Sept. 4, 1953, CBLP-NA.
6. Croci, “Trieste Crisis,” 199.
7. Ibid., 202.
8. CBL to State Department, Sept. 4, 1953, FRUS, vol. VIII, 250–52.
9. Ibid., 252, 259.
10. CBL to C. D. Jackson, June 30 and Sept. 7, 1953, CBLP-NA. CBL had originally drafted the verse just after the Italian election in June, but refrained from sending it then because she felt Eisenhower had enough problems in Korea. Postscript to ibid.
11. Croci, “Trieste Crisis,” 209.
12. Ibid., 205.
13. The New York Times, Sept. 6, 1953.
14. CBL to State Department, Sept. 4, 1953, FRUS, vol. VIII, 262–63.
15. Croce, “Trieste Crisis,” 214, 216.
16. CBL to State Department, Sept. 5, 1953, CBLP-NA.
17. Croci, “Trieste Crisis,” 200.
18. Case, “Maggie’s Diary,” 80, SJMP.
19. Unidentified British newspaper clipping, datelined Sept. 6, 1953, Trove Digitized Newspapers.
20. Sulzberger, Candles, 592.
21. Ibid., 851.
22. Ibid.; Croci, “Trieste Crisis,” 203.
23. Hatch, Ambassador, 227.
24. Case, “Maggie’s Diary,” 81, SJMP.
25. Ibid. The State Department instructed CBL not to fly to Washington for consultations, as she was urgently needed to continue negotiating with Pella in Rome. FRUS, vol. VIII, 270–72.
26. CBL to State Department, Sept. 9, 1953.
27. Case, “Maggie’s Diary,” 82–83, SJMP.
28. Croci, “Trieste Crisis,” 213.
29. Case, “Maggie’s Diary,” 82–84, SJMP.
30. Ibid., 84–85, SJMP. Not only was CBL “deeply comprehensive,” Guareschi added, but she also had “a great heart. It isn’t a compliment we pay her: it is a dutiful acknowledgment.”