<--PREV Doc #109  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  First Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #111 Document #110; March 27, 1953 To Stanley Hoflund High 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 2: "A number of misunderstandings": Party and International Struggles   Dear Stanley: This note is not in the nature of an "acknowledgment." It is to ask a question. Was Russell Davenport's memorandum ever used either in its entirety or in summary form?1 What I am getting at is "Would I be plagiarizing if I should use it almost as written?"2 My feeling is that if it was written for me to use at any time, Russell would have no great objection to my making use of it one of these fine days. At the same time, I do not want to be using something that has been made public before. Of course, I would, in any event, do a bit of re-writing--but I would like to have the facts in the case. Thanks for remembering to send it to me, as well as for the editing job you did. As ever P.S. With respect to the little "chore" we were talking about, what would you think of the following names in addition to your own?3 Ralph McGill4 Fred Seaton5 Donald Eastvold Bill Francis (young lawyer of Houston) Bob Burroughs6 John Lodge7 Fred Alger8 John McCone9 Bradshaw Mintener10 Charles Wilson W. Alton Jones11 Lucius Clay Bill Robinson Cliff Roberts If we could get quite a long list of representative people (most of them young) to work along the lines we had in mind, with only one or two to be present at almost every meeting--say yourself and Milton--we could, out of such a list make up little panels from time to time of one or two experienced business men to meet with two or three younger, possibly less cautious, individuals. These names are just picked out of the air but everyone of them is an individual for whom I have considerable admiration for one reason or other. 1 High had written Eisenhower on the twenty-fifth (AWF/N), thanking him for his time on March 20 and referring to Russell Wheeler Davenport's memorandum "The Middle Way" as "long and slanted for campaign purposes." He said he had cut it down to what seemed "its currently useful sections" and enclosed an abstract (not in EM. On Davenport see Galambos, NATO and the Campaign of 1952, no. 1). 2 On March 30 High replied that Davenport's memorandum had been written solely for Eisenhower and that the President might use it at any time. A telegram of the following day made clear that the memo had not appeared in any form previously (letter and wire in AWF/N). 3 See no. 99. In his March 30 message High said that he soon would talk to several of Eisenhower's old friends and advisers about "enlisting, off the record, a panel of concerned Americans whose thoughtfulness and experience may be turned to your helpful account. Then, if the objectives of such a group can be reduced to a few brief and clear points, I will hope to present the plan to Milton." Besides Lucius D. Clay and William E. Robinson, High had mentioned Reader's Digest publisher DeWitt Wallace. 4 Ralph Emerson McGill edited the Atlanta Constitution. 5 Frederick Andrew Seaton, appointed interim U.S. Senator from Nebraska in 1951, had been one of Eisenhower's campaign advisers and Milton Eisenhower's choice for a seat on the Federal Communications Commission (see Galambos, NATO and the Campaign of 1952, nos. 924 and 1022). 6 Robert Phillips Burroughs (A.B. Dartmouth 1921), life insurance executive and leading designer of corporate pension plans, long had been active in the Republican party. 7 For background on Lodge, a Connecticut Republican, see ibid., no. 966. 8 Frederick Moulton Alger, Jr. (Harvard 1926), a Navy veteran, had been Michigan secretary of state since 1946 and Republican candidate for governor in 1952. Eisenhower would name him Ambassador to Belgium in 1953. 9 For background on California industrialist John Alex McCone see ibid., no. 830. 10 James Bradshaw Mintener, Pillsbury Mills vice-president and general counsel, had early been active in the Eisenhower campaign in his home state (ibid., no. 498). 11 For background on William Alton ("Pete") Jones, an oil executive who had been a member of Eisenhower's personal advisory group during the 1952 campaign, see ibid., nos. 610 and 750; and Galambos, Columbia University, no. 388. Bibliographic reference to this document: Eisenhower, Dwight D. To Stanley Hoflund High, 27 March 1953. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, ed. L. Galambos and D. van Ee, doc. 110. 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/110.cfm <--PREV Doc #109  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  First Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #111

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