The Publisher (28 page)

Luce looks over possible photographs for
Life
, flanked on the left by John Shaw Billings, the first managing editor of
Life
, and on the right by Daniel Longwell, the most energetic champion of the new magazine and eventually Billings’s successor as managing editor.

Harry and Clare became great celebrities—partly as a result of the marriage of these two famous people, and partly because their marriage coincided with the runaway success of
Life
. They are shown here debarking the
Queen Mary
after a trip to Europe in 1938.

Luce’s fascination with Wendell Willkie exceeded all but a few of his many political infatuations. He used his magazines zealously (and perhaps recklessly) to promote Willkie’s cause—including this
Life
cover a few weeks before the 1940 presidential election.

Harry and Clare walk with Madame Chiang Kai-shek through a reverent group of Chinese near Chungking, in a 1941 visit. The crowd was organized by Kuomintang leaders to impress Luce, whose influence was important to the regime. Their hosts were not disappointed by their treatment in Luce’s magazines.

An important event of Luce’s 1941 visit to China was his first meeting with Theodore H. White. The much younger “Teddy” and the famous and powerful “Harry” struck up a close friendship that cooled several years later when White turned against Chiang Kai-shek, a man whom Harry continued to revere.

One of the many covers
Time
devoted to Chiang Kai-shek. In this one, he is accompanied by Madame Chiang, as “Man & Woman of the Year” in 1938.

After a long and frustrating period during which Roosevelt forbade publishers from visiting the war zones, Luce finally made his way to the Pacific front in June 1945. Harry Truman, the new president, overruled Roosevelt’s ban. Luce is shown here on the left, along with
Time
’s managing editor, Roy Alexander, a
Brooklyn Eagle
reporter, and General Henry Larsen.

During the war years, with Clare in Washington as a member of the House of Representatives from Connecticut, Harry began a serious and relatively public affair with Jean Dalrymple, a theatrical publicist and producer four years Luce’s junior. For a time, Luce talked of divorcing Clare and marrying Jean. But after Ann Brokaw’s death, he gradually broke off the relationship.

Ambassador and Mr. Luce on vacation with Joseph P. Kennedy in 1956. Harry’s unusual costume suggests his general discomfort with leisure.

Whittaker Chambers joined Time Inc. as a book reviewer, and rose to be the controversial editor of Foreign News, in which he relentlessly denounced the Soviet Union and communism. The Alger Hiss case, which began in 1948 and revealed Chambers’s past life as a Soviet spy, led to his departure from the company.

Luce took advantage of his connection to the American embassy in Rome by traveling widely in Europe and hosting distinguished visitors. He is shown here escorting Winston Churchill in a 1955 visit.

Luce’s growing interest in the importance of leisure in American life led him to support the creation of a sports magazine, a project many of his colleagues at first disdained. But because of the energy, commitment, and talent of Sidney James (
left
), most of Luce’s colleagues soon came to support the project. James, Luce, and
Sports Illustrated
publisher Harry Phillips pose in 1954 in front of a blown-up cover of the magazine’s first issue, August 16, 1954—a photograph of a baseball game in Milwaukee.