Harry Luce and the Russian Century

Whatever became of Henry R. Luce’s American Century? The twentieth century, so Henry Luce said in 1941 in his famous Life editorial, would either belong to the Nazis or the Americans. Well, the Nazis didn’t make it. Apparently we aren’t going to make it either. Not if Bill Fulbright and his dove coterie, along with certain oddball Republican opponents of the antiballistic missile, have their way. It begins more and more to look as though we are going to have the Russian Century.

If he were alive today what would Harry Luce be saying in his magazines about the drift in America toward a new isolationism that must willy-nilly leave everyone to the tender mercies of Moscow? Mr. Hedley Donovan, Luce’s chosen successor as editorial guide at Time Inc., is disarmingly prudential about the Indochina war. Let’s end it, he seems to be saying, to save homefront America. But for how long would we be saved? Donovan let Charles J. V. Murphy, once the very knowledgeable Fortune and Life specialist on geopolitical affairs and comparative armaments, slip away to the Reader’s Digest. Murphy wasn’t exactly retired, nor was he exactly fired; he left of his own accord when it was made plain to him that, while he would be welcome to write about the origins of the Mellon fortune or the economics of the King Ranch, he would not be doing any more Pentagon stories. So it was the Reader’s Digest, not Fortune, that recently published Murphy’s brilliant article on America’s retreat toward becoming a second-rate military power.

JC

About the Author

John Chamberlain

John Chamberlain (1903–1995) was an American writer.

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Whatever became of Henry R. Luce’s American Century? The twentieth century, so Henry Luce said in 1941 in his famous Life editorial, would either belong to the Nazis or the Americans. Well, the Nazis didn’t make it. Apparently we aren’t going to make it either. Not if Bill Fulbright and his dove coterie, along with certain oddball Republican opponents of the antiballistic missile, have their way. It begins more and more to look as though we are going to have the Russian Century.

If he were alive today what would Harry Luce be saying in his magazines about the drift in America toward a new isolationism that must willy-nilly leave everyone to the tender mercies of Moscow? Mr. Hedley Donovan, Luce’s chosen successor as editorial guide at Time Inc., is disarmingly prudential about the Indochina war. Let’s end it, he seems to be saying, to save homefront America. But for how long would we be saved? Donovan let Charles J. V. Murphy, once the very knowledgeable Fortune and Life specialist on geopolitical affairs and comparative armaments, slip away to the Reader’s Digest. Murphy wasn’t exactly retired, nor was he exactly fired; he left of his own accord when it was made plain to him that, while he would be welcome to write about the origins of the Mellon fortune or the economics of the King Ranch, he would not be doing any more Pentagon stories. So it was the Reader’s Digest, not Fortune, that recently published Murphy’s brilliant article on America’s retreat toward becoming a second-rate military power.