>> nexium booktv encore booknotes. sylvia jukes morris talk about her book, "rage for fame" the ascent of clare boothe luce in 1997 on booknotes. her book traces the life of clare boothe luce from her birth to successful race for congress and all of her successes and ambitions in between. c-span: sylvia jukes morris, your book, "rage for fame: the ascent of clare boothe luce"--where did you get the title? >> guest: well, you know, sometimes, as with chapter headings, i didn't know what to call a chapter until i'd written it. and one day i was reading clare's yearbook when she was a child at st. mary's school in garden city, and she was about 14 years old, and in the yearbook, there was a picture of her, and underneath she had written, 'a rage for fame attends both great and small.' i thought, 'well, that's pretty smart for a 14-year-old.' but then i thought, 'well, maybe she got it from somewhere,' so i did some research and i found it

was from an 18th century english poet. it was an ode, and the last two lines were, 'a rage for fame attends both great and small; better be damned than not be named at all.' and i realized that from a small girl, she had realized she wanted to be famous. so i thought that "rage for fame" is just a perfect title because her whole life after that was to that end. c-span: when was this picture taken? >> guest: that picture was taken about 1942, just after she'd been elected to congress by the famous canadian photographer kosch--joseph kosch. c-span: how old was she here? >> guest: she was only about 39. c-span: and how long did she serve in congress? >> guest: she served in congress for two terms--four years altogether. c-span: when did you first meet her? >> guest: i first met her in the fall of 1980 at her house in washington, but it was really a strange meeting because i had

already conceived the idea of doing a biography of her. when i--just out of the blue, this invitation came from a hostess in washington, and i was in new york at the time. and i said, 'well, it's a long way to come for a dinner party. who's coming?' i think you might ask. she said, 'oh, clare luce.' and i had just had the idea of the biography, so i thought, 'well, should i go and meet this person because i may not like her or i may like her too much and'--either way, it's not a good frame of mind to write a biography. you have to be somewhat--you have to like but not to be in love with and you certainly, like, have not to hate. but anyway, i went there, and the hostess said, 'well, she won't take any notice of you because she's only interested in men.' so she sat me at ma--at her table and i was across from her, and she sat next to the military historian, actually, alistair horne, who's just come out with a new book, i--i see. and sh--all the whole evening, she just concentrated on talking to him about the

m--about military things because that was her--one of her loves. but then at the end of the evening, i was standing at the top of the staircase where she had to--to leave, and she put her hands on my shoulder and i thought she'd mistaken me for the hostess because, you know--and she said, 'oh, good night, you sweet thing,' and then just swept out. and it was shortly after that that i wrote to her and asked her if i could do the book. c-span: where did you first get the idea to do a book about her? >> guest: i was reading a file that i keep on people that interest me and a--a--some papers fell out, and it was an article, a new york times piece that was written in 1973 when "the women"--her play "the women" was revived on broadway. and it was an extremely good interview with her, and it made her sound just totally fascinating. and i thought, 'wow, this is a very'--and, of course, i am an english immigrant, so i'm not as familiar with clare boothe

luce--i wasn't then--as--as you are. and i thought, 'this would be a great subject,' and took it from there. c-span: give us a brief overview of what things she did in her life. >> guest: well, she had very little education, as you probably have discovered, and she left school at 16 and married, at 20, a very wealthy fifth avenue millionaire and found that he--he drank a lot. they had one child. and after six years of marriage, she was divorced. and then she found herself extremely restless and bored and even depressed--went to a psychiatrist for a while. that didn't seem to fix it. so she deci--she met conde nast at a dinner party one night and asked him for a job on vogue or vanity fair or one of his magazines, and he said, 'oh, no, you society women--i'll give you a job and then come winter you'll be off to palm beach.'

but she wouldn't take no for an answer, so she simply took herself down to the grabar building, where--which housed vogue in those days, found an empty desk and sat down and began to write captions for vogue articles. at the end of the week, when the pay man came around with the paychecks, there wasn't anything for her. so she said, 'oh, well, you know, when the editor gets back from europe'--she was seeing the--the--the--the french collections in paris--'i'm sure i'll be put on the list.' so when the editor came back and saw her sitting there, she thought conde nast had hired her, and he saw her there, he thought the editor had hired her. and that's how she got the job on vogue. c-span: what was next? >> guest: then she became a feature writer. and right next door to vogue was th--were the offices of vanity fair, and the editor then--editor in chief was a man called frank crowninshield, extremely cultivated bostonian, and he used to go snooping in the vogue offices looking for talent for

his own magazine, and that's how he found dorothy parker. and then he quickly sniffed out clare luce and he--clare brokaw in those days--and lured her away. and she g--she--she started to work for him, and she learned a great deal from her--the then-managing editor, a man called donald freeman, who was just a little younger than she was, and he fell madly in love with her, but he taught her all he knew. and she began to write stories of her own, as well as doing editing chores. and then when he was killed in a car crash--maybe a suicide over love for her, we're not quite sure--she we--she became managing editor. so really, she got the job in vogue late 1930 and--early--sorry, late 1929 and the move to vanity fair at the end of that year, and by 19--late 1932, she was managing editor. c-span: how long did she keep the job?

>> guest: it's extraordinary. well, i--in her usual way, you know, she mastered a job very quickly and then got quickly bored and wanted to move on to something new. she loved to learn. so after a couple of years--less, actually--about 18 months as managing editor--she took a leave of absence and said she wanted to try her hand at writing plays. so she went south and stayed at a resort which you may know called the cloister in georgia, and eugene o'neill lived just along the beach from the hotel. she got herself a dinner invitation so she could compare herself with the great dramatist to see if he really was smarter or--than she was, and i don't think she found herself wanting, and so stayed down there for about three months writing plays. and then when she went back to new york, still didn't have a finished work, so she took a job

as a foreign correspondent on a--not a foreign correspondent, but a--really more of a travel writer with hearst and other syndicated newspapers, and worked on that for a few months until she met henry luce. c-span: how did she meet henry luce, and who was he? >> guest: henry luce was the publisher then of time and fortune magazines, and they met at a dinner party, and he was extremely rude to her on their first encounter. he had a very quick conversation about picture magazines, which were still not really a big thing here but they--they were in europe, and he was thinking of emulating them. and she, while she was at vanity fair, had tried to make vanity fair into a picture magazine, but conde nast had lost a lot of money in the crash and he didn't have the finances. but she still had the idea that it would be a great thing to do. she talked to luce about that, and then suddenly he took out his pocket watch, looked at it and said it was time to go, snapped it shut and clicked his heels and walked away.

and she thought he was the rudest man. he picked her brains and just left her standing. but when they met the next time, which was at a birthday party for cole porter--it was actually not his birthday, it was the opening night of "anything goes," i think. it was to celebrate "anything goes," his new musical that--elsa maxwell gave his party. elsa remembered it as being his birthday, but i found that it wasn't. and--and again, she saw him coming across the room carrying champagne glasses--one was for his wife. and she said, 'oh, mr. luce, is o--is one of those for me?' and at that mo--moment, the lights went down because the floor show was coming on, and so she said, 'why don't you sit down.' so he sat down, and they talked and talked and talked very intensely. and then he invited her down to the lobby--this was the waldorf-astoria hotel--and he just admitted that he'd fallen in love--it was a coup de foudre, it was like a stroke of lightning--and that she was now the one woman in his life and that he would call on her next

thursday afternoon to see what they were going to do about it. c-span: and he was married at the time. >> guest: he was married with two small children, yes. c-span: you talked with the son of henry luce, henry luce iii. is he still alive? >> guest: yes. yes, he's still alive and was most cooperative. c-span: how old a man is he? >> guest: and he's now about 71, 72 years old. c-span: has he been active in the magazines at all? >> guest: yes, he worked on the magazines. he's now on the board because he now runs the henry luce foundation. but he headed the london bureau for a while and he helped build the new rockefeller center offices and so on. c-span: what did he think of his father? >> guest: oh, i think he loved him dearly and admired him greatly but felt--they weren't close because he was so busy. his father was always so busy and traveling so much. and, of course, after the divorce, he stayed with his mother and he didn't see very much of his father and--which i think was a great pity because he admired him so much.

c-span: at the time that henry luce told clare boothe--brokaw, i guess, at the time... >> guest: yes. c-span: ... that he was in love with her and--did he say he was going to marry her? >> guest: well, at first, he wanted to have a little experiment, that they would see each other quietly for a year, but--he didn't want any scandal because he didn't want to disturb his little menage, you know. he didn't want any kind of--and, of course, he didn't want scandals attached to his magazines either. but clare didn't want that, and she said, 'you know, i don't think that's appropriate for us. we're both well-known figures in new york society, and we--there's no way we could keep it secret anyway. i think you should go away and take care of your affairs, and meanwhile, i'll go to europe for several months. and then if you then resolve that you still want to marry, then come to me.' c-span: how important was--i guess he was called harry luce... >> guest: yes. c-span: ... at that time in this country. and what--what--again, what year are we talking about? >> guest: we're talking now about 1934-'35. they actually married at the end

of '35. he was not yet quite as powerful as he later became in the--in the '50s, but certainly was getting that way where what was said in time magazine was almost more important than what was said in washington and in the white house even because the magazine was so widely circulated and widely read and was a real opinion-maker. yeah. c-span: and they married--what date? >> guest: they married in november of 1935, and it was just after the opening of her first broadway play, which was roundly panned, even by time magazine, and f--and folded very quickly. and it was based vaguely on her first marriage to the alcoholic husband george brokaw. but it was too much of a melodrama. if she had really dealt with it as the semitragedy that it was, i think she would have had a powerful play, but she wasn't quite expert enough yet and not quite ready to, i think, expose her own life in--in literature and fiction.

c-span: how was the marriage between the two viewed in this country? >> guest: well, his magazine editors didn't care for it because they were very possessive of him, and he'd always been very hard-working and very collegial with them--rolling up his sleeves with them to put the magazines to bed--and suddenly he's married to this enchanting woman, brilliant woman, with whom he was totally besotted. and so he would want to take the 5:00 train home to connecticut every night so he could be with her and take long vacations with her. and at one point two of his editors took them both out to dinner and said, 'harry, you know, you used to be here till 10:00 at night on the magazines. now you want to be home on the 5:00 train. there's no way you can run your magazines this way.' and she very--who had hoped that they were going to offer her a job on one of the magazines at this dinner party, in tears, fled the room saying, you know,

'he could edit all his magazines with one hand tied behind his back,' and rushed off, and then decided she was going to be a playwright, took herself off to the greenbrier hotel in west virginia and wrote "the women" in three days, which was her biggest broadway hit. yeah. c-span: you were saying the book "the woman"--"the women" is still available? >> guest: "the women" was made into a very successful movie by--directed by george cukor, you know, who was first on "gone with the wind" and many other--"philadelphia story," many other hit films. and it's still shown on television quite often, that film, and in art--art movie houses, and the play has never made her, she said at the end of her life, less than $7,000 a year ever since she wrote it over 50 years ago. whe--funny, when i went with her to london for the 50th anniversary of production of "the women," they put it on at the old vic theater and we went there together for the rehearsals before it--opening night.

and one night we were having dinner at carriages and--after the rehearsal and she said, 'you know, there are very few plays that are put on after 50 years,' and then there was a pause, and she said, 'well, possibly shakespeare.' but it's true. i... c-span: let me read the last line of your acknowledgements. 'finally, i wish to thank my husband, edmund morris, for whipping me, figuratively speaking, whenever i got overwhelmed, discouraged or just plain tired during the many years i have spent on this project,' the total number of years on this project for you? >> guest: fifteen altogether, because the book turned actually into two volumes, and i have to write a second book now, for which all the work is done. but while she was alive, it was very distracting because i traveled a lot with her. i went to hawaii to stay with her. i looked through her personal papers there, and then after she died more papers came to light, and i had to wait for the will

to be probated for them to be released. it was a very long business. and then they didn't have room at the library of congress to house them and they weren't cataloged, and it just dragged on and on. that's why it took so long, really. c-span: we talked to your husband about his book that he's been working on on the biography of ronald reagan and--but he talked about you. i want to--this is only 30 seconds. i want you to see this and tell us more about what he's talking about in this. >> guest: yes. mr. edmund morris (author): (from videotape) i once thought of showing it to him when he came here, but my wife learned that that's not a good idea. she's done exactly the same thing for clare boothe luce, who lived 84 years, and she once made the mistake of showing clare the complete sequence of her life, with all these little tabs popping up. and i remember mrs. luce reacting with shock and she

turned away from it. she didn't like to see the physical totality of her life spaced out in cards. and when you think about it, you can understand why. c-span: why would we understand if we saw it? >> guest: well, it was vast, you know, and a--a life in--when it's laid out in cards, it--it sort of waxes and wanes. it starts small, then in the fullness of her career the cards got, you know, longer and longer and spa--taking up more and more space; and then, of course, toward the end, a diminishment in old age. but she went almost by instinct and picked out the card--the set of cards labeled, 'relationship with h.r.l.,' henry robinson luce. it was very uncanny. c-span: wait, wait, how old is she in this picture in the back of the book? >> guest: there she's 20 years old, just married to--about to marry geor--george brokaw. c-span: go back to the--also in the acknowledgements, you--you talk about that the library of congress has 462,000 items, 312 linear feet. >> guest: yes.

c-span: how did they get her papers, and what's a part of all those papers at the library of congress? >> guest: yes. her--her--her collection at the library of congress turned out to be larger than most presidential collections that the library holds because, i think, as we said, "rage for fame"--she knew she was going to be famous from--from childhood. and so she kept every scrap of paper that was sent to her and copies of all the letters that she sent out. so it's prodigious, this collection. and at the time, where they first--when it first went to the library, it went there, really, as a result of a flood. while she was ambassador to italy, her ridgefield, connecticut, house had a flood in the basement where her papers were kept, and her secretary said, 'you know, we've learned from this. it's not safe because we've lost a few valuable things.' so it was then decided that since she'd been a former congresswoman, her papers should go on deposit to the library of congress. so the public part of her papers then went there, not including the diplomatic papers, because they were at the state department. but her--she kept her personal papers until i came along, and

finally, she did agree to give those to the library as well. c-span: what year did she die? >> guest: she died in 1987. c-span: where was she when she died? >> guest: at the watergate apartments, where she--where she had actually two or three apartments. she had--she had two apartments that she knocked together for her living quarters. she rented apartment across the hall for her own personal office, and she had another office there for her secretaries. c-span: did she and harry luce stay together for their entire life? >> guest: yes. he died m--much earlier than she did, of course. he died almost 20 years earlier. and they stayed together even though their marriage, in terms of the physical intimacy of it, came to an end after the first couple of years. he put her on such a pedestal that he lost his potency vis-a-vis her after the first two years because he just idolized her t--so much. she was a goddess. c-span: how many times did she get elected to congress?

>> guest: twice. c-span: from where? >> guest: from fairfield county, connecticut. c-span: what party? >> guest: the republican party. c-span: and did she have an ideology that she was known for? >> guest: at that time, of course, it was wartime and she was a good deal more liberal in her voting than people now give her credit for. you know, she was very pro the gi bill, she was very pro liberalizing the immigration laws. and she was much more democratic in her way of thin--democratic party, i mean, in her way of thinking in those days than i think she subsequently became before she became, you know, the great anti-communist that she's now known for and a big fiscal conservative that sh... c-span: after she was a member of congress--and i know this goes beyond where--this book ends in 1942... >> guest: yes. c-span: what other jobs did she have in politics? >> guest: in politics, really, none; in diplomacy, yes. she was appointed by eisenhower

as ambassador to italy, to rome, in 1953, and she was the first woman to have a major diplomatic post of that kind. there had been women ambassadors but only to minor posts--luxembourg, norway, things like that. c-span: when was she--did she have any other jobs besides the ambassadorship to rome? >> guest: she always kept up her journalistic career. she was a war correspondent for life magazine before she went to congress and then she always kept her hand in at writing political columns for the rest of her life, actually. even in the end, she... c-span: when was she the best known in the united states? >> guest: when? c-span: when? >> guest: why, when she was ambassador, i think. she was, i think, the most admired woman in america next to eleanor roosevelt and the most admired in the world, i think, next to eleanor and the queen of england. c-span: one of the notes, by the way, in the book is that you say your greatest debt is to daniel boorstin, who is the former librarian of congress, and his wife, ruth.

and in piece i was--i read in the washington times, it says that n--he's not commented on this book and that the parties they had for you, he never came to any of those parties. is there anything to that story? >> guest: no, he... c-span: is he not--does he not like this? >> guest: he--he hadn't read the book because he hadn't yet received the complimentary copy that i'd sent. in fact, i had a note from ruth just yesterday saying the book did come and thank you very much. they couldn't make the parties because they travel a great deal and they just simply couldn't come to them. so--and some of them were in new york, too, so... c-span: so the impression that he didn't like the book wasn't accurate? >> guest: no, because he hasn't read it yet. he only received it a couple of days ago, so... c-span: le--let me ask you about... >> guest: i think he will like it, actually... c-span: yeah. >> guest: ... because it's very--it's based on the papers

of--you know, it's not very much there that's my own views. it's mainly from her diaries, from her letters and so on. c-span: how--how many days of her life did you spend with her, do you think? >> guest: how many days of her life? c-span: did you spend with her? >> guest: oh, well, in terms of years, i met in--i met her in 1980. she died in '87. so for those seven years we were together very, very often, particularly after she moved back to washington, after she sold the house in hawaii in about '84. c-span: but did you see her every day, every week? >> guest: oh, every week at least, yes. c-span: a--and... >> guest: yes. i would go over, she would come to my house for dinner, i would go to her house. we went together--we spent time in--one summer in newport. we traveled through canada, london. c-span: how close were you? >> guest: we were extremely close. in fact, we were getting too close at one point and i had to sort of step back a little because i was in danger of losing my objectivity, i think. you know, when you know so much about someone that you can complete their sentences--she'd say, 'oh, that ye--was the year i went to london and i stayed at the'--and i would say, 'oh, the victoria hotel?' 'yes, the victoria hotel.' and i got to know more than she could remember herself a lot of the time because i had researched her more recently. and at the end, when we were at carriages in that same trip to london, we were having dinner,

she suddenly out of the blue asked me who i felt closest to. and before i could reply she said, 'because i feel closest to you because you know everything.' c-span: did you like her? >> guest: yes. i had--i liked her a lot and i admired her very much. she had this incredible sense of humor, that no matter--you know, sometimes she would be a bit of a monologuist--at dinner parties she'd get a little boring with her political views, but she was so funny that whatever she did, you know, she had this redeeming humor. c-span: as you know, you keep reading in your book of the many affairs that she had. >> guest: yes. c-span: and what i did was write down every person that i came across in the book that she had an affair with and i thought it might be an interesting way to talk about that kind of relationship and why. and the first one on the list--and there's no reason or rhyme to this--dr. rosenbleuth. >> guest: that was not actually an affair. dr. rosenbleuth, like many men wh--on first meeting her, were thoroughly

enchanted by her. she was--and that's very hard for me, too, because i only knew her as an old woman. so i had to struggle constantly to imagine what the impact was of this glorious creature who was not only stunning-looking, but also a superior intelligence and charm and wit. so men were totally taken with her. and the doctor that she consulted in the early '30s was no exception. and he, too, was married, with young children and there was no question, i think, of divorce. but he did love her, i think, till the day he died, but there was no affair, not to my knowledge. c-span: randolph churchill. >> guest: randolph churchill was a sh--a small fling; he was much younger than she was. they met when she went to stay one weekend at his father's country house in kent, when she was then having an affair with the financier bernard baruch, and he called her in paris and said, 'mr. churchill invites you to join us for the

weekend.' and the person who met her at the ai--at the station was randolph churchill. and he then was about 22 years old and like an adonis; he was a--a stunning man and also a romantic turn of mind, as she was. and there's one funny story. do we have time for it? when i was in hawaii researching the book--her personal papers with her, she had invited my husband to come, too. and he said, 'well, i can't come because i have to work on my volume two--two of theodore roosevelt.' so she said, 'well, i'll give you a room to work in. you won't be disturbed.' so he said, 'all right.' so he came. but it turned out that that house was right on the ocean, and all of the doors were louver doors and all the windows were slatted. so even though he was in his own little room, when we were in the library and the winds were blowing through and all the windows were open, he could hear us talking. and one day she came in and

started to tell me about that weekend at--at churchill's country house. when she went to bed that night, as--she was just on the point of falling asleep when her bedroom door opened and somebody came in in the dark, and she heard them crossing the room, and they tripped over the coal scuttle. and she put on the light quickly and she said, 'well, it was bernard baruch, and i was expecting randolph.' my poor husband next door--he was trying to write about the interstate commerce act of 1906, and he just could not concentrate. it was like that for the whole three weeks when we were there. c-span: you mentioned bernard baruch. that went on longer than the randolph churchill affair. >> guest: yes. the bernard baruch affair, as such, didn't go on; the li--the friendship was lifelong until he died in his 90s. hey were always friends. c-span: stop--let me just--i'll mention--who was bernard baruch? >> guest: oh, i'm sorry. bernard baruch was c--a so-called speculator.

he's a man who knew wall street who became something of an--of an adviser on economics to presidents--presidents wilson and president roosevelt and hoover and various others. but she fell in love with him because he was much older. she'd h--she'd lost her father when she was very young, so he was something of a father figure as well as a mentor. he taught her about politics and economics. and also he was not obtainable. so anybody who was not attainable for clare became the one that wa--was most desired. so although they had a small fling in the--in the early '30s, it didn't go on for very long because he was so much older than she was. c-span: and he was married. >> guest: and he was married, and he had grown children. and he was not in love with her either. he said to a friend--a mutual friend who passed the word on that although he was fond of clare his heart was not involved. c-span: joseph kennedy.

>> guest: so--so that was devastating to her. i think there's no actual documentary evidence of an affair, but since he had so many with other women--and she did, in one of her diary entries in--in--when she was staying in a paris hotel once say that he was in her room all morning, and she kept meeting him on trans-atlantic crossings when she was alone without harry. and she saw him in rome and in london many, many times when harry wasn't there. i think that it's probably correct to say that there was something of a--a short fling. c-span: in the middle of all that, though, you also say that she met john f. kennedy, the son of joseph kennedy, and it had something to do with her daughter. >> guest: yes. her daughter was not actually a debutante, but she came out at the time that john kennedy was making the rounds, you know, escorting young ladies about new york and, in fact, took out her daughter on several occasions. but ann always got the feeling

that her beaus were really more interested in her mother, who was--just had so much more charm and was better looking, too. c-span: who was sir charles? >> guest: sir charles was general charles willoughby, who was intelligence chief to general douglas macarthur in the philippines. and clare was always interested in military men and particularly if they had anything to do with spying. and since he was the intelligence chief, she was incredibly drawn to him. he was also rather taciturn--the strong, silent type and tall and striking looking, and she said to me that he was the mo--one man that she might have liked to run away with. but it turned out that willoughby never came back after the end of the war. he elected to go to japan to bring democracy to the japanese with--with macarthur. c-span: how did they meet? >> guest: they met when she went as a correspondent for life to the philippines. c-span: and was she married at

the time? >> guest: she was married to harry at the time. this was in the early '40s before she became a congresswoman. c-span: and how much of a relationship did she have with the colonel--or the general? >> guest: well, you see, they were apart for most of the war. she went back to--she met him with harry on her first visit. after coming back from china, they stopped off in the philippines; that's when they met. and then she got an assignment from life to go back, and that's where the affair really got under way. and then it was an affair mainly by mail until he came back stateside to report on something to the ad--the administration during the war in the mid-'40s. and they saw each other a couple of times only. and it was--so it was mainly an affair by mail. c-span: david sarnoff. >> guest: david sarnoff was not a consummated affair i don't think. it was just some--some--some--he expressed a little interest, made a little pass at her at

some point. c-span: who was he? >> guest: well, he was then, of course, the head of rca. c-span: and how did they meet? >> guest: and they met when baruch took her to his apartment one night where david sarnoff was going to show an a--early experiment in television. so she was one of the first people to see one of the first televisions and bernard baruch. c-span: so someone she was having an affair with, bernard baruch, took her to another man who got interested in her. and did--did he let her know that? >> guest: sarnoff? c-span: yes. >> guest: oh, i think he took her home and probably made a pass, you know, but it didn't go very far. i don't think it was an affair. c-span: and then you say both--conde nast and his wife both had an interest in her. >> guest: conde nast, according to another character in the book called mark sullivan, who is a historian columnist--he said that nast was in love with her--with clare. and clare said that, in fact, nast wanted to divorce his wife and marry her, but she was not interested in conde nast. c-span: what about it... >> guest: she was not attracted to him at all. c-span: what was--who was conde nast? >> guest: conde nast, of course, owned vogue, vanity fair and house & garden magazines.

and he was her boss, of course, in both those magazines, vogue and vanity fair. and she saw him frequently and socialized with him a lot. and he was madly attracted to her, but she--she just simply wasn't attracted to--to him. c-span: what about--d--was there a pass made by his wife leslie? >> guest: yes, his wife was apparently sapphic, and she went both ways. and she did make a--a pass at clare, yeah. c-span: bill gaston. >> guest: bill gaston was the husband of a woman who's probably not remembered too well now but was well-known at the time because she starred in one of the most successful theatrical extravaganzas of all time, a play called "the miracle," which was directed by the austrian producer max reinhardt. and this "miracle" went on tour for six or seven years in europe and america. and the two stars of it were a woman called rosamund pinchot and a woman called lady diana

cooper. and clare always said that she was offered the part that eventually went to diana cooper in that play. and the other part went to rosamund pinchot, whose husband, bill gaston, was a tremendous womanizer. and clare rented his house on--guess what?-- crotch island one summer, and he kept coming and going, and he wouldn't let her--he wouldn't let her have any peace. c-span: you said in that summer on crotch island, there were a lot of affairs, a lot of different men. >> guest: a lot of different men. c-span: how did you find all this out, by the way? >> guest: i found--well, she kept a diary of that summer. so it was all documented that first of all came william harlan hale, one of her young recruits on the magazine who was going to be one of those young promising writers of the early '30s who knew katherine anne porter and had written. c-span: and she was,

like--what?--30 and he was, like, 22. >> guest: yes. clare in 1932 was 29, and he was about 22 years old. and he was the first arrival on crotch island. they all stayed four or five days. and then when he left, mark sullivan, the much older man who was more baruch's age, came to stay. i don't think that was necessarily a consummated relationship but certainly not for one to--trying on his part. and then came a--a young major in the army, a young man called cary skerritt. and then, of course, bill gaston was in and out, because it was his house that she'd rented. and when she got back to town, of course, it was bernard baruch and her mentor of vanity fair, donald freeman, who was the man who taught her everything about writing. c-span: now did you ever sit down with her and ask her about all this and--and how she kept

it--how she k--kept the lines drawn and kept track of it all? >> guest: yes. she was actually much more interesting talking about harry's peccadillos than about her own. but some of them she would admit to, and the major ones were baruch and, of course, harry and hale and g--general willoughby. those were the f--the major ones. i think the others she thought were just trivial relationships, nothing serious. c-span: well, you know, related to today, i mean that's--you--we--we can't pick up a paper today without reading about these today as people are still here and alive. >> guest: mm. c-span: did anybody know about all these back in those days? >> guest: it's amazing to me that her name was always out of the scandal sheets. she never had a breath of scandal really attached to her name. i think privately people were rather scathing of her, particularly the men who were jealous of her at time inc., the edit--some of the editors. but on the whole, clare was not a name that got into the papers except to do with her work. she became a celebrity because she was such an achiever. c-span: playwright, reporter...

>> guest: foreign correspondent, reporter, yes... c-span: ... congresswoman... >> guest: ... novelist, too. she wrote--she wrote a series of short stories which read like a novel but they're actually interrelated stories called "stuffed shirts." that was her first published book. she wrote a serious work of history about the phony war called "europe in the spring." and she wrote three big broadway hits, every single one a hit and every one made into a movie, which was--"the women" was--came first, then one called "kiss the boys good-bye," 1938, and then in 1939, a play called "margin for error," which had otto preminger playing a nazi consul who was protected by a jewish new york policeman. c-span: at... >> guest: and... c-span: what was her life like at the end? >> guest: at the end of her life, she was lonely--extremely lonely because, you know, if you're 84 years old, a lot of your close friends have died already.

and she had difficulty concentrating, too. and also she'd achieved so much, i think--she'd proved so much that it was hard for her to just churn out articles, even though she was capable of it. she gave speeches almost to the end, still was getting $5,000, $10,000 per speech. c-span: who were her friends at the end? >> guest: she was extremely fond of bill buckley. in fact, she adored him. they had a very nice correspondence. on occasion, she would write for his magazine, national review. and she went on "firing line"--his program on pub--on public television. she always kept up her friends in the intelligence community and in--in the military. and she had close women friends in newport, chicago, new york. and they're not names that you'll particularly know; they weren't well known except in society.

and she had a variety of friends, and she liked young people, too. she--she befriended henry luce's grandchildren, would take them on her travels and encourage them in their enterprises, just... c-span: what did she die of? >> guest: well, it's ironic because she had a brain tumor. and my husband used to joke with her because, quite often, she'd have these little ailments and we'd be there when the doctor would come. and he'd test her wrist, you know, take her pulse, test her heart, tap her stomach and everything. and then he'd say, 'well, i can't find anything.' and she would look at the ceiling and say, 'well, i think that after i die, they'll say, "there was absolutely nothing wrong with her." and edmund used to tease her; he said, 'when you die,' he said, 'they'll have to beat your brains to death with a stick,' because she was so sharp always, so quick. and then she got this brain tumor and, of course, he felt terrible that he'd said that.

but she just... c-span: once she got it, how long did she live? >> guest: mercifully, it was quick. it was diagnosed about february of 1987, and she died in october. c-span: were you there when she died? >> guest: no, because she wasn't up really to seeing anyone at the end. and i didn't really want to because i wanted to keep that--you know, i had to write about her alive, and it was terribly painful to--for me to see her like that. i was some--i was at the last dinner party that she gave, which was in july. c-span: who was there? >> guest: quite a lot of washington news people: charles krauthammer, morton kondracke; pat buchanan was there and their wives; and henry luce iii was there; her--her stepson; my husband, myself. just a small group, a couple of tables. c-span: what was your--your reaction when she died and you had all this material and all that time you spent with her and a book to write? >> guest: yes. when i picked up the phone and

the secretary said, 'sylvia, clare died last night,' i had that feeling you sometimes have with--and your heart goes, like, thud in your heart. it was a real thud. and then, although i rushed over to the apartment straight away and was at all the funeral services and went--went down to the burial, which was on her southern plantation in south carolina, which is now a trappist monastery--she's buried there under the great live oaks by the cooper river--i found afterwards the next three months or so, i had kept dreaming about her a lot. i had strange dreams, and one was particularly weird because it was her--she was like a stripper in a vaudeville show wear--wearing a bright blue--it was a technicolor dream which, i think, is strange, because i think most people dream in black and white--it was a blue spangled dress. and although she actually didn't take off her clothes, i knew it was--they were--were kicking their legs and so on. it was a strip show. but it was an old clare; it was

an old face with a sort of blond wig and very long black eyelashes and a deep gash of a red mouth. and i realized that what this dream symbolized probably was that, in a way, i was going to expose clare in my writings. i was going to write about her most intimate life. and it was very troubling, probably, in my stree--in my sleep. and i find that i was grieving, and the grieving wouldn't end; it just went on and on. for several months, i dreamt about her constantly. and i suppose it was because i loved her, you know; i'd come to love her, even though i tried to distance myself from her. c-span: what do you think she would really think of your book? >> guest: i ask myself that because on a trip once--i went with her once on--bill casey, you remember, the head of the fbi--was it fbi or cia? c-span: cia. >> guest: i think ... (unintelligible)--cia, yes. we went to--to the--he w--he was

to make the winston churchill fulton, missouri, speech, you know, at westminster college. and she asked me to go, because she was going to introduce him. so we were on this little propellor plane there, and she was talking about my book in the plane and--oh, she said, 'oh, i'm going to leave you this in my will.' and i said, 'you can't leave me anything in your will.' 'oh, why not?' she said. 'let the chips fall where they may.' i said, 'because it wouldn't be appropriate, you know? it would look like a bribe.' so she knew--she let me see absolutely every scrap of paper,

and i think she took comfort in the fact that i did know her at the end, and i knew everything about her and that i liked her in spite of everything, you know? and some of the things she did were--as anybody who gets on in life, they have to do pretty ruthless things and pretty inconsur--siderate and selfish things. but nevertheless, i think she would admire the fact that i--i laid it all out there in an honest and fair way, and i tried to be balanced. and it's not hagiography; at the same time, it's not one of these hatchet jobs i... c-span: what does hagiography mean? >> guest: the study of saints. and she knew she was no saint. c-span: by the way, did she leave you any money in her will? >> guest: no... (unintelligible). c-span: did she--did she die a wealthy woman? >> guest: what she left, actually, was she left her tapes and records to my husband because he--there was one thing about clare: she was very competitive with everyone, and she was always better at everything than everyone. she was a great athlete. she was a great golfer. she could shoot. she could swim. she could hunt. she could ride. and she was always better at it than everybody else. but the only thing she was not good at--and it's ironic, because her father was a musician--was music. she was tone-deaf. she couldn't carry a tune at all. but in old age, she started to listen to records, and she

accumulated quite a collection of records. and she would listen to them in her room when she was trying to get to sleep, because she was a terrible insomniac. and i think, in the end, it was a gesture toward my husband, you know, that she had tried to master the thing that he is good at, because he wanted to be a concert pianist. i don't know whether you know that, but edmund never knew whether he wanted to be a writer or a pianist. so it was her little way of saying at the end to edmund, 'i did come to appreciate your field, too.' c-span: where did you meet edmund morris? >> guest: we met in london. i actually had been in america for a couple of years traveling, working, going to mexico, the west coast. and then i would get back to new york, find i had no money left, so i'd have to stay a little longer. and in that time, i didn't know it, but i kind of became an

american. so when i went back to london thinking, 'oh, i have family in england and i was going home,' i realized as soon as i set foot off the plane that i'd become an american, and i wasn't going to settle there. but i forced myself to stay; i took a job teaching in london, and i took--i rented a room in a little house. and edmund was in advertising then; he worked in advertising. and he used to--in exchange for being able to play this lady's piano every lunchtime so he could practice, he agreed to do some light household chores for this lady. ..

>> >> and i said i am going back if i can raise the fare. we came back with one suitcase between us. >> what year did you get

married? >> 66 i mean 68. and we came to a house and we talked year has been any were working the way of this book at the same time. but you have a town house sell looks out over the capital? >> we were coming to washington to work on our books. it was expensive and we spent nearly $100 in one week. and then we thought we would never have equity if we keep doing this. so i put a small down payment on the condominium. so we had little fantasies about it was ever favorite house on the hill.

and then we got the book on ronald reagan. we were in new york one day and a big hurricane came. 1985. and we got a call to ask if we could put her up and she could spend the night. and she said by the way they're selling that house that you like. i do the owners so i called up and said they interested they said when you come back to washington comeback. she had a party at the time. so we walked through and got to the top floor and behind the dome is the capital and i said i have to have this. so we bought it. 1986.

>>host. >>cspan: he has written how many books? >>. >>guest: his was called great events that change the world it had 30 chapters from the vikings to the moon shot dead we divided between as. and then we had three and a half thousand words each we would like to go into greater depth so that is how we did it. >>cspan: your first book? >>guest: it came about that he wrote a screenplay once it was called the dew from new york. and we were researching a screenplay for "the new york times" article one north dakota.

and somebody gave him a contract for a book was to be a short biography for roosevelt. so that was just volume one. i said who is this lady? it is the second wife edith. not much is known about her and i said she intrigues me. the was not much known about her. so i wrote a proposal and the publisher was interested i got the contract right away so i got the book to take her life for her death. >>cspan: both have the same publisher? >> at that time it was a subsidiary of putnam but now we're both at random house.

>>cspan: the same publisher, both writers everything working at the same time in the same house. what you think of this life? >> it is a nice life but it is insecure. in the sense that you're only as secure as the book you were working on and you don't know if it will do well or not. and fortunately we don't have children because i think it would be too precarious. >>cspan: who is paula deen? >>guest: at the time and is finishing the book my sister was six. i just felt very close to her at that point because i dedicated the last book to edmund. site dedicated it to her. >>cspan: how will she now? >> she is fine. she lives on a farm.

>>cspan: the second volume is coming up when is that do? >> in a couple of years and they should write that much more quickly because i have all the research done for that. >>cspan: you talk about claires mother. who was she? >> a fascinating lady. she was the kind of character on the page she took over i had a terrible struggle to keep her off the page because she was such a character. claiborne of the lower west side to laboring butcher and he never moved out. and she was gorgeously beautiful. and she wanted out of the

ghetto and a sister died of meningitis type of disease she used to hang around a wine bar. one day she met a very dynamic man more than twice her age named franklin do with. and they began an affair. she was 88 years old and he was in his 40's. and she became pregnant at 18 years old. and david, clare boothe luce brother and the baby was born the following year and there were still not very. i don't think they ever buried he did not get a divorce and 1907 when the child was four years old.

i never found any marriage certificates chicago and new york beverage they lived. never found one. but she could not have reburied in new york state because in those days you could not marry if you were the guilty party in the divorce action which he was. by the time he was free to marry their relationship was on the rocks and shortly after word clare's mother left him returnee he's leaving him in chicago. but the fact telling them he had died and clare corrupt thinking that her father was dead. >>cspan: how did she die? >> she died in the accident. she was in miami shoes to go

there every winter with her boyfriend he finance his education joel jacobs. extremely wealthy man through the keystone to hire a company. she would not marry him because in those days there was snobbery about burying somebody jewish. and wanted to be raised in the episcopal faith. she married eventually a doctor but the little man from the tire company kept coming around. they both like the races and light gambling.

she was driving and could not stop and when to bypass the station and the trade was coming hit her perfect was severed at the ankle. and she was thrown and killed almost instantly. >>host:. >>cspan: where was this picture taken? >> this was taken it was taken by a photographer in 1941. by the famous designer valentino. and she is wearing jewels

and the featured article and this actually never ran in the article. the the outstretched hand was the subtitle was the ascent of clare boothe luce because i have arrived. and at the height of her beauty and fame. >>cspan: of the two-part series "rage for fame" all about clare boothe luce. thank you very much.

>> ronald reagan had several beginnings weather radio broadcaster in iowa or a successful hollywood actors serving as a spokesman for the general electric company posted a number-one rated television program or becoming governor of california and seeking the presidency. each of these ads a specific piece to our understanding of the man and his character. we continue to learn more about him as we will be today. our guest author thomas reed was present at more than one of these beginnings and in this book "the reagan enigma" shares his personal archives for their