<--PREV Doc #87  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  First Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #89 Document #88; March 16, 1953 To Henry Agard Wallace Series: EM, AWF, Name Series ; Category: Personal and confidential The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, Volume XIV - The Presidency: The Middle Way Part I: Charting a New Course; January 1953 to April 1953 Chapter 2: "A number of misunderstandings": Party and International Struggles   Dear Mr. Wallace:1 Thank you very much for your two letters. I have read them both carefully.2 I am going to have them studied by several individuals of whom my brother, Milton, will be one.3 I think I shall have my personal physician write to Dr. Sheldon at Columbia University to get his views on Malenkov.4 Very sincerely 1 Agriculture Secretary and Vice-President under Franklin D. Roosevelt and briefly Truman's Secretary of Commerce, Wallace had broken with the Administration and in 1948 had run for President on the Progressive party ticket, strongly favoring improved U.S.-Soviet relations (see Galambos, Columbia University, no. 110; see also n. 3 below). 2 Wallace, who now made his home in South Salem, New York, had written on March 7 and 10 (AWF/N), in the first letter praising Eisenhower for his "intelligence, integrity, and courage" and complimenting him on his recent statement to the Russian people (see no. 72). Wallace believed that Georgi Maximilianovich Malenkov as Stalin's successor had "the opportunity of adopting a new line which will save both himself and the World." He urged the President to send Ambassador Charles Eustis Bohlen to Moscow "as soon as possible with the right kind of message to Malenkov. On this message," Wallace continued, "may hang the lives of millions of people and certainly the lives of those in the Kremlin." Three days later Wallace offered an assessment of Malenkov based on Wallace's familiarity with Soviet agricultural science. While perhaps wise in "the politics of force," the new Soviet leader in Wallace's view was "abysmally ignorant" in other areas; in 1946 he had given his official blessing to a wrongheaded geneticist who "condemned Russia to the loss of several hundreds of millions of dollars of agricultural production annually." 3 Wallace had suggested that if the President was too busy to study these letters, they might be sent to Milton Eisenhower or the State Department for evaluation. According to a note for the file, Milton advised his brother against signing any reply to Wallace. 4 "It is worth observing closely Malenkov's physical type, five feet seven and 250 pounds," Wallace had written. "As an athlete you know what this means. There is a relationship between this physical type and temperament as well as susceptibility to disease." He cited the work of William Herbert Sheldon, Columbia University medical researcher, as an authority on the determinants of human temperament and recommended obtaining his views on Malenkov. "We must get this man sized up and sized up right." Bibliographic reference to this document: Eisenhower, Dwight D. Personal and confidential To Henry Agard Wallace, 16 March 1953. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, ed. L. Galambos and D. van Ee, doc. 88. World Wide Web facsimile by The Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission of the print edition; Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/presidential-papers/first-term/documents/88.cfm <--PREV Doc #87  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  First Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #89

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