<--PREV Doc #136  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  First Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #138 Document #137; April 6, 1953 To Mark Wayne Clark Series: EM, AWF, Administration Series ; Category: Personal 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 Wayne: Thank you very much for taking the trouble to write me so fully regarding the recent tour of members of the American-Korean Foundation.1 I am confident that this visit will produce tangible and much needed results. I'm afraid Dr. Rusk over-estimated Milton's travelling potential this summer.2 As of now, he plans to go on a special trip to South America for me, but I don't see how he can also make the trip to Korea.3 With warm regard, and much appreciation, As ever 1 The American-Korean Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan group that planned to work through existing public and private relief organizations, would hold its first full board of directors meeting in New York on April 8, 1953. The President's brother Milton chaired the board, made up of some fifty corporate leaders, including many old Eisenhower friends and associates. The preceding February Eisenhower had written General Clark, the Far East Commander, informing him that in early March several representatives of the foundation would travel through Tokyo on their way to Korea on a fact-finding mission. "I want you to know," Eisenhower had said, "that I am in accord with the purposes of the Foundation" (Eisenhower to Clark, Feb. 25, 1953, AWF/A). Eisenhower publicly supported one private Korean-relief agency, American Relief to Korea (see New York Times, Apr. 7, 1953). Clark later had informed the President that "we have never had a more sincere, conscientious, hard-working and talented group of people visit this command on the rehabilitation problem. They were an inspiration to us all." Clark had provided aircraft to the group, which in eight days visited more than fifty Korean hospitals, clinics, orphanages, refugee camps, and rehabilitation centers and on the return journey also inspected Japanese welfare facilities. At its first meeting the American-Korean Foundation would announce a $5 million fund drive for Korean rehabilitation (Clark to Eisenhower, Mar. 30, 1953, AWF/A; New York Times, Apr. 9, 1953). 2 Dr. Howard A. Rusk, Director of the New York University Institute of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, had headed the group that toured South Korea and reported to the board in early April (ibid.). 3 "I am told by Dr. Rusk that your brother, Milton, will visit this command this summer," Clark had concluded, "and I am looking forward to seeing him" (Clark to Eisenhower, Mar. 30, 1953, AWF/A). Milton would not visit Korea; on his prospective trip to Latin America see no. 89. Bibliographic reference to this document: Eisenhower, Dwight D. Personal To Mark Wayne Clark, 6 April 1953. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, ed. L. Galambos and D. van Ee, doc. 137. 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/137.cfm <--PREV Doc #136  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  First Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #138

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