A Prediction from Richard Nixon

Written by Daniel on August 30, 2008 – 4:35 pm -

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I am just finishing reading Richard Nixon’s Leaders (I love lazy Saturday afternoons). It is an excellent book - go on Amazon and buy a used copy for $0.01. I particularly recommend the chapters on Churchill and de Gaulle. I thought this section from his final chapter would be of interest, given the news of the week:

If in 1952, acceptance of the idea of women in high office had advanced as far as it has today [1982], Clare Boothe Luce could well have been a strong candidate for Vice President. She had the brains, the drive, the political acumen, the judgment, and she was the first really interesting woman to make a major mark in American politics. She also had a well-honed ability to engage in the cut-and-thrust of political conflict and she was identified as strongly anti-Communist - two of the specific qualities for which Eisenhower chose me. If he had chosen her instead, this book might never have been written. But she would have turned in a stellar performance.
In 1952 Clare Boothe Luce was ahead of her time. But I believe that before the end of the century we will probably elect a woman to the vice presidency and possibly to the presidency.

Before seeking elected office, Clare Boothe Luce was a playwright and reporter for Life and Vogue.

In 1952, the point at which Nixon says she would have been a viable VP pick, she was an ex-congresswoman. She had represented Connecticut in the House from 1943-47, after which she wrote an Academy Award nominated screenplay about two nuns and edited a book on the saints. She returned to politics later in life, but in 1952 she was an ex-two term congresswoman. And Nixon thought she would have made a “strong candidate” for VP and would have “turned in a stellar performance.”

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