CLARE BOOTHE LUCE - TYPED LETTER SIGNED 10/18/1942 - HFSID 321191

CLARE BOOTHE LUCE
War-dated letter on her Congressional campaign letterhead, noncommittal on the question of a "Second Front" in 1942.
Typed Letter signed: "Clare Boothe Luce", 1 page, 5½x8½. Greenwich, Connecticut, 1942 October 18. On Clare Boothe Luce for Congress letterhead to William Agar, New York City, in full: "No, I didn't receive a telegram over your signature about a Citizens' Committee for the Second Front. I shall follow your instructions in the matter if it does come, however. The political aspects of the second front question in this country are most interesting. I certainly would like to have you explain it to me some time. Cordially". After marrying her second husband, influential Time magazine publisher Henry R. Luce, Clare Boothe Luce wrote three successful plays: The Women (1936), Kiss the Boys Goodbye (1938) and Margin for Error (1939). She later served as a war correspondent before representing Connecticut in Congress from 1943-1947. In 1953, Luce became the first American woman Ambassador to a major country when President Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed her Ambassador to Italy (1953-1956). In 1983, four years before her death in October 1987, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. When this letter was written, most of the fighting was going on in Russia, where a German invasion had been stalled, but not yet thrown back. The USSR was pressing the United States and Britain to land forces in France in 1942, creating a "Second Front" to take pressure off their own forces. President Roosevelt initially favored this course, but was persuaded by British Prime Minister Churchill that a D-Day style invasion in 1942 was premature, and risked disaster. US and British forces chose a softer target: North Africa and an advance through the Mediterranean, postponing a landing in France until 1944. Normal mailing folds. Fine condition.