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During the middle 1950s, Luce spent much of his time in Rome with his wife Clare, who had been appointed Ambassador to Italy by President Eisenhower in 1953. The Italian government gave him an honorary rank, as the ambassador's consort, immediately behind ministers plenipotentiary. But Luce kept discreetly out of the limelight, proudly leaving it to Clare. He studied Italian, roamed through Rome (he liked to show visitors the zoo, where he usually fed the animals), and set up a separate office of his own overlooking the Borghese Gardens. From there, he sent a steady flow of memos and suggestions back to New York, including a critique of the issues of his magazines as he read them.
His retiring stance as the ambassador's husband did not suggest that he ever had any reluctance to challenge the top figures of government. On his way to interview the Emperor of Japan, he asked his companions to help him frame an unusual question: How would you ask the Emperor how it felt to be a mortal and no longer revered as a god? He himself then proceeded to frame the question, simply and in a dignified manner that robbed it of any impertinence. He was a frequent visitor at the White House, particularly during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, and he never lost a certain awe of the office of the presidency.
Into the Streets. His habit of constant questioning—combined with a cub reporter's curious eye—made Luce a formidable practicing journalist. His questions about President Kennedy's reading speed, asked of the President himself and his relatives, produced the article in LIFE that revealed that the President liked to read Ian Fleming, and thus launched the James Bond boom in the U.S. He also traveled out of his way some years ago to hear and talk with an obscure young North Carolina preacher named Billy Graham, then gave him his first national exposure in LIFE. Present in Cairo when the Naguib regime was under siege by Nasser, Luce rushed out into the streets full of surging crowds and, using a terrified interpreter, filled a notebook with color, quotes and impressions that he filed off to New York.
Luce was interested in the young and what they thought. Only a few days before his death, on a visit to San Francisco, he insisted on being taken to the Haight-Ashbury beatnik district to observe how today's far-out young play. Whatever was new fascinated him; he could sense development and innovation. Recently, discussing the supersonic transport with one of his reporters, he asked: "When will I be able to fly in it?" He was also interested in the Rule of Law, which became practically a crusade with him as he persuaded Presidents and Prime Ministers to push the cause of international law.