<--PREV Doc #8  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  First Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #10 Document #9; January 28, 1953 To Aksel Nielsen Series: EM, AWF, Name Series 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 1: Developing a spirit of teamwork   Dear Aksel:1 While it was typically kind of you to go back to Denver without asking for an appointment with a busy man, my failure to see you was a real disappointment. A visit with you is never a mere time-consuming incident--it is always real fun. What I am trying to say is that the next time you come here, I hope you will give Tom Stephens2 a ring and come in to see me even if we can have only a matter of minutes together. If you should be here for two or three days, maybe we could work in a lunch over at the White House. Some time back you gave me some material on the whole subject of the federal government's connection with housing development in the United States. This matter is up for study now and I hope to dig all your correspondence out and give it to Sherman Adams for study.3 There is so much pro and con argument submitted on the question and there is such an obvious lack of real understanding both in the public mind and in many governmental offices, that I should like to call in some individual to make a special study on it. I have been trying to think of someone who would not be connected with any of the business activities involved in housing, but whose reputation in the country for integrity and wisdom would assure great respect for whatever report he might make. That reminds me of a story. A man was giving the qualifications that he demanded of everyone that he desired to come into his employ. These qualifications were: 1. He must be honest. 2. He must be professionally qualified for the duties at hand. 3. He must be a respected citizen in his community. 4. He must have a wonderful personality. 5. He must be a damn fool. His friend, reading the list, of course agreed quickly with the first four but was astonished at the fifth. The man then observed that any man possessing the first four qualities who would work for anyone else had to be a damn fool. While at times I think this story has some application to government, the difference is this. I am not asking anyone to work for me. It is a job to be done for our country, which means a job to be done for ourselves--each of us. So when I insist on having people around me who have the first four qualifications, I am still hopeful that they don't necessarily have to have the final one. I have had a bit of a bout with the flu and while I am better, I am going now back to my bed. First, however, I send to you and Helen and to Virginia and her family all my best wishes and regard.4 As ever 1 For many years Nielsen, president of the Title Guaranty Trust Company in Denver, had been Eisenhower's friend, fishing partner, and political-financial adviser (Galambos, NATO and the Campaign of 1952, nos. 34, 235, 503, 681, 786, 873). 2 Thomas Edwin Stephens was the President's special counsel and later his appointments secretary. During the campaign of 1952 he had been Eisenhower's appointments secretary (ibid., no. 918). 3 Eisenhower had asked Nielsen to help find the campaign headquarters housing file, which was finally found among the papers of campaign researchers C. D. Jackson and Harold Keller in Albany, New York. By February 6 a staff member had turned the file over to Maxwell M. Rabb, assistant to Sherman Adams (Harrington to Rabb, Feb. 6, 1953, AWF/N, Nielsen Corr.). In December 1952 Nielsen had also given Eisenhower his ideas concerning federal housing policy: "Public housing is a proper national governmental activity. However, its activity should be aimed at seeing that the local community does something about it themselves with the national government participating financially in a cash way--not by just making allowances for furnishing local facilities, tax forgiveness, etc." (Nielsen to Eisenhower, Dec. 15, 1952, WHCF/OF 120). In 1949 Congress had authorized construction of 810,000 public housing units over the next six years, but the Truman Administration, faced with heavy Korean War expenditures, had built only about a quarter of that number. Eisenhower's selection for Administrator of Housing and Home Finance, former Kansas Congressman Albert M. Cole, had opposed federal spending on public housing. The housing bill that the Administration proposed in the spring provided for only 35,000 new public dwellings in fiscal year 1954. Still, many members of Eisenhower's party opposed the measure and believed, as did the Republican Chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee, that the federal government should "get out of the home-building business" (Gary W. Reichard, The Reaffirmation of Republicanism: Eisenhower and the Eighty-Third Congress [Knoxville, 1975], p. 120. See also Taft to Eisenhower, Dec. 17, 1952; Nielsen to Hauge, Jan. 23, 1953; and other papers in WHCF/OF 120). For developments see no. 486. 4 Nielsen's wife, the former Helen Maurer, and daughter, Virginia Elaine Muse. Bibliographic reference to this document: Eisenhower, Dwight D. To Aksel Nielsen, 28 January 1953. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, ed. L. Galambos and D. van Ee, doc. 9. 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/9.cfm <--PREV Doc #8  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  First Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #10

Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission 1629 K Street, NW Suite 801 Washington DC 20006 Phone: 202.296.0004    Fax: 202.296.6464