The Publisher (71 page)

Luce’s new interest in the law was also intimately connected to his intense (and often thwarted) effort to combat Communism. Having failed to persuade three presidents to launch an aggressive military and political assault against Communism, he began to tie the great contest between America and the Soviet Union to the law. The Soviet Union, he argued, “stood for nothing” and honored no principles. Soviet laws were meaningless because, like Holmes’s philosophy, they had no basis in morality or faith. But a true regime of laws, Luce believed, could transform the Communist world, or at least reveal its emptiness to other nations. “A great global inquiry into law would expose the evils of the Soviet system,” he argued. American law, if it could “mean something which is written somewhere in the hearts of all men,” could represent “the principles by which we exist as a nation” and could become a powerful tool in the battle against Communism. It could “harness together our vast military might and our political and ideal purposes.”
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What had begun as some random browsing in legal texts turned quickly into a preoccupation and a crusade. Luce began to seek invitations to give speeches on the law almost anywhere he could find an audience—at meetings of the American Bar Association, the Connecticut Bar Association, the Indiana Bar Association, the Missouri Bar Association, the Shelby, Tennessee, Bar Association, St. Louis University. But even as the sites of his speeches appeared to become more and more provincial, the content of his thinking was becoming more and more global. International law, he came to believe, could be the great force that would spread democracy and capitalism into a benighted world. It would be the tool by which the goals of the “American Century” might still be realized, the vehicle that would allow the United States to achieve its great mission in the world.
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Luce was always eager to tap the knowledge of scholars and intellectuals, and his interest in the law helped him develop a long and rewarding relationship with the aging William Ernest Hocking, a philosopher who had taught for many years at Harvard before retiring in 1943. Hocking was attractive to Luce because of their shared belief in the role of faith in the laws of the world, and also because of Hocking’s conviction that philosophy was not just an academic pursuit but also a tool for shaping public affairs. As a young man Hocking had been a disciple of William James, the great Harvard philosopher who helped build the concept of “pragmatism” into a robust theory that shaped the worldview of much of a generation. But Hocking gradually returned to a form of idealism. Although he never wholly repudiated pragmatism, he qualified his commitment to it, beginning with his influential 1912 book
The Meaning of God in Human Experience
. It argued for the importance of faith in human affairs—not a faith dictated by Scripture or theological institutions, and not a faith derived from revelation, but rather a faith rooted in human experience—and especially in those affirming aspects of human experience that he believed reflected God’s invisible presence. Luce’s faith was somewhat more formal, and certainly less examined, than Hocking’s. But Hocking was, Luce believed, a valuable and confirming ally in the battle against materialism and in the struggle to draw faith into the public world. In the early 1950s Luce began requesting Hocking’s “guidance” as he developed his new interest in the law. He was still somewhat insecure about his plunge into the field, and he uncharacteristically expressed doubt and vulnerability. “Perhaps even I have overrated The Law,” he worried. He feared that he had been “guilty” of “not caring enough about ‘the people.’” And he asked Hocking for suggestions of “a little reading on the law as the necessary basis of the good society … a ‘refresher’ on a course I never took!” Hocking responded with a rambling list of suggested readings, words of encouragement, and scattered observations on the relationship between law and theology. But Luce was not really asking for advice on how to educate himself. He was seeking for ammunition in his already settled view of the role the law must play. Hocking, in the end, served more as a cheerleader of Luce’s efforts than as a true mentor. Rather than test Luce’s beliefs, he offered such encouraging but unilluminating notes as “in your notable speech on law, you justly criticised our foreign policy for giving too little attention to Law.” But Hocking’s approval was important to Luce, and their relationship helped give him confidence in the course he was pursuing.
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But Luce’s sights were set higher than Hocking, and higher than the various bar associations to which he presented his new commitment to the law. His real goal was to draw national and world leaders into his orbit and to persuade them to embrace his own emerging beliefs. He began a far-flung correspondence with university presidents, members of Congress, and foreign leaders. But most of all he set out to influence the Eisenhower administration. Having failed to persuade the president and the secretary of state to take a more aggressive military position in Asia, he sought to draw them into a commitment to law as the basis of foreign policy. It turned out to be a difficult task, particularly when he was dealing with Dulles. To Dulles the “rule of law” was a pleasant aspiration with no practical role in the struggle against Communism. He never explicitly rejected Luce’s ideas. “You can’t have security without law,” Dulles said supportively (and vaguely) in a 1957 meeting. But he went on to remind Luce of how difficult extending law into international relations would be. “The World Court is unemployed,” he noted. “There are lots of arbitration agreements lying around but they are never used…. Between us and the Communists is an unbridgeable gulf in the matter of Law.” On another occasion he warned that “there is still a strong reluctance on the part of nations … to submit their disputes to abitrament [
sic
] of justice.” And later still Dulles wrote discouragingly, “I am touching on the subject of international law in my address at the UN. But there are so many other matters of greater interest and greater urgency that I fear it will not make much impression.”
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To promote his ideas more effectively, he helped organize a committee of “petitioners” that included Charles Rhyne, president of the American Bar Association, Ross Malone, its president-elect, and Erwin Griswold, the former dean of Harvard Law School and former solicitor general of the United States. Together they urged Dulles to deliver the “main address at the Annual Meeting of the American Bar Association” in August 1958, to appoint a “Presidential Commission” to “advance the cause of world peace through law,” and most of all to embrace a “hopeful interest in the subject.” The group met with Dulles in July and encountered a notable lack of enthusiasm. “Mr. Dulles’s reaction, to begin with, was negative,” Luce recorded. “He had been trying to do all this before his visitors were born.” People would “think it was a shortcut to peace whereas actually implementing these world-law proposals could take 100 years.”
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Luce continued to hope for Dulles’s support, and Dulles periodically encouraged him. Every now and then Dulles included in a speech or a public document a reference to the importance of the law; and although
it was almost never accompanied by any concrete policy or action, it helped prevent any serious strains in the relationship. Eisenhower, who had only slightly more commitment to the value of international law than Dulles did, also made rhetorical gestures to Luce and his colleagues—gestures that Luce eagerly embraced no matter how modest they were. During the Hungarian Revolution in 1956 Eisenhower denounced the “lawlessness” of the Soviet Union’s invasion of a theoretically sovereign nation. Luce was exultant. “You took this occasion to hold up the banner of Law as it has not been held up in a generation,” he wrote the president. But Eisenhower’s public embraces of the “rule of law” were rare; and although he was less inclined than Dulles to express his reservations, he too had doubts about the viability of Luce’s cause. Everyone agreed, Eisenhower wrote, that “a great world-wide push to enthrone law over force” would help settle “the world’s differences.” But beyond this broad principle, the president continued (echoing Dulles), “I am most uncertain of the meaning you intend to convey….[I]t is manifest that the world is not yet ready to adopt and observe the principles of international law.” The promotion of law, Eisenhower added, should not be the task of government but should be “largely a private one carried on through the Bar Associations.” And so he spurned a proposal from Luce and Rhyne to create a “presidential commission on the rule of law.” Instead Eisenhower gave encouragement to an initiative that moved the issue of law out of the White House and into academia—an initiative sparked by the departure from the administration of one of Eisenhower’s most influential aides, Arthur Larson.
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Larson was chief speechwriter to the president, a position he used to help articulate a moderate vision of public policy that came to be known as “modern Republicanism.” But by 1958 the president’s interest in moderation was fading, and Larson began looking for a position outside government. Rhyne, a trustee of Duke University, proposed (with Luce’s eager support) the creation there of a center for international law, which Rhyne invited Larson to lead. Larson resigned from the White House (carrying with him the nominal position of “consultant” to the president on “the advancement of the rule of law”). Luce was pleased that the movement for what he now called “world peace through law” was represented by a significant institution, and he supported Larson’s efforts to bring more publicity to the cause, which Larson did very effectively. During his directorship of the Duke center, Larson attracted an impressive array of public officials and international leaders to speak or participate in conferences (Luce among them); he published articles and books on international law; and he helped raise the profile of international law
and its possible value to global politics. But the creation of Larson’s center was also an excuse for the administration to marginalize this inconvenient movement, in which Eisenhower and Dulles had little real faith.
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Among the most important concrete proposals to emerge from Luce’s efforts was the repeal of the so-called Connally Amendment, a provision in the 1945 treaty by which the United States had joined the International Court of Justice. The Democratic senator Tom Connally of Texas, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, had opposed any transfer of sovereignty to an international organization, and as a result of his amendment, the treaty gave the court no jurisdiction over “domestic” issues within the United States. The American government would alone decide what was “domestic” and what was not. To Luce and other champions of international law, the amendment was a major obstacle to what Larson called the “world rule of law,” and the Duke center worked strenuously on behalf of its repeal—but to no avail. In the end Luce’s quixotic crusade produced no new laws and no new policy, although it did contribute to making international law more a part of the nation’s public discourse. He continued to hope for a revolution through law for years. “The year 1965,” he wrote fifteen years after he began his efforts, “could be the year the Rule of Law idea really surfaces into public consciousness.”
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Luce’s commitment to Eisenhower—and his willingness to overlook disagreements with him—was greatly strengthened by the president’s decision to name Clare the American ambassador to Italy early in 1953. For Eisenhower the appointment was a way to repay a Republican stalwart (Clare) and an important supporter (Harry) and to cement his relationship with a powerful media empire. It undoubtedly helped Clare’s case that she was a famous convert to Catholicism and thus an appropriate liaison with the Vatican.
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For Harry the appointment made possible a richer and more direct engagement with affairs of state than he had ever had before, while at the same time allowing him to remain in control of his magazines. In the four years in which Clare was ambassador, Harry spent almost half of his time in Rome, working partly in a Time Inc. office he had created for himself in the city, and partly in the embassy, where he was an unofficial adviser to Clare and an active participant in almost all public events.
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Clare’s appointment to Italy was not universally popular, in the
United States or in Italy, and it encountered some resistance from the State Department. Clare believed that Dulles himself was opposed to her candidacy. Harry constantly reassured her that everything would work out, even as he was quietly battling the obstacles that still stood in her way. Clare, in the meantime, became more and more agitated, convinced that there was a conspiracy to deny her the job, and fearful of the humiliation if—after extensive press coverage—the nomination was withdrawn. At the same time, as she often was in times of stress, she became preoccupied with her age (fifty in 1953). “I feel so old these days,” she wrote in her diary in a low moment in January. “I no longer feel that the clothes enhance my beauty, rather they conceal the fact it is—as it must—wasting away.” But her despair did not last long. Early in February the president announced Clare’s nomination. The Senate confirmed it in early March, and Clare—after a round of lavish farewell parties—arrived in Rome in late April, accompanied by Harry and a retinue of friends and relatives.
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Harry stayed with Clare in the embassy (in separate bedrooms as always) for her first seven weeks in Rome before he returned to New York. But he came back regularly for long periods of time—on average twenty weeks a year over the four years of her term. It was a rare period of peace and commitment in their marriage. “My deepest concern was always HRL’s
togetherness
with me on this!” she wrote in February 1953. “I now feel the deepest faith in his loyalty, and his sympathy and aid!” The ambassadorship brought them into a genuine partnership, something that had eluded them during the first eighteen years of their marriage. It was Harry who had negotiated with the president and the State Department for Clare’s assignment to Rome. He had declined on her behalf offers that she be appointed secretary of labor or ambassador to Mexico. He donated five thousand dollars a month to the embassy to facilitate Clare’s entertaining, and paid for extensive renovations to the ambassador’s elegant but decaying residence. He brought his assistant Kip Finch to Rome with his family to serve his and Clare’s needs. When Harry was in Rome he was omnipresent in the life of the embassy—a constant prod to the foreign-service officers to show the deference they owed the ambassador, a stickler for protocol, and a host at lunches and meetings that Clare could not attend. He was, one colleague said, “an extraordinarily good ‘ambassador’s wife.’” While Clare entertained dinner guests before the huge living room fireplace in the ambassador’s residence, “he circled the outer fringes of the party making sure everyone else had a drink, had seen the Rouaults and the Churchills” (paintings
that had once hung in their apartment in New York). In no other setting in his life had he been so solicitous a host.
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