FOREIGN RELATIONS: Arsenic for the Ambassador

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One of the best kept secrets of U.S. diplomacy has been the cause of recurring illnesses of Clare Boothe Luce during her three years-plus as Ambassador to Italy. Last week the secret came out: she was poisoned.

The scene of the poisoning was one of Borgian splendor: her spacious, high-ceilinged bedroom in the 17th century Villa Taverna, the residence of U.S. Ambassadors to Rome. When Ambassador Luce took over in Rome in late April 1953, she loved the bedroom at first sight, noted approvingly that the heavy-beamed ceiling—admired by a long line of predecessors as a fine example of Italian Renaissance décor—had been newly painted. The beams were in terra cotta green, decorated with cluster upon cluster of roses and rosettes. Many coats of heavy paint had been brushed onto the white roses to make them stand out richly against the background.

In the months that followed, the bedroom became her favorite room. There she could dictate and write after a day of meetings, interruptions, official calls and callers. There before another busy day she could read over her breakfast tray and a second cup of coffee.

Painful Waltz. After the first year in Rome, Clare Luce discovered to her surprise that she had to make great efforts to keep up the pace she had set herself. Day after day, she found herself feeling vaguely tired and ill. At first she ascribed the trouble to "Roman tummy," common to many a tourist. Then bone-gnawing fatigue set in. Nervousness and nausea followed. At an art festival in Venice a friend asked her to waltz. She found that her right foot was benumbed; she almost had to drag it in dancing.

In the late summer of 1954 she returned to the U.S., underwent long medical examination in a New York hospital. The experts' verdict: she had the symptoms of serious anemia and of extreme nervous fatigue. Feeling better after two months in the U.S., she went back to Rome to face the full work load. In a short time, all the symptoms reappeared and some new and frightening ones developed. Her fingernails became brittle, broke at a slight tap. She began to lose blonde hair by the brushful. Her teeth were noticeably loosening. Worst of all for a diplomat, she had become irritable. She was forced to spend more and more time abed, and she always felt the worse for it.

Ugly Word. Late in 1954, too busy to return to the U.S., she went to the U.S. Navy Hospital in Naples, where the doctors found a heightening of the conditions her New York physicians had listed. Noting that gum and mouth tissues were greatly inflamed, a Navy nose-and-throat specialist asked if any of her medicines contained arsenic. None did. It was the first time the ugly word had been mentioned in connection with her illnesses.