<--PREV Doc #1532  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  First Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #1534 Document #1533; August 1, 1955 To Lewis Williams Douglas Series: EM, AWF, Dulles-Herter Series ; Category: Personal and confidential The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, Volume XVI - The Presidency: The Middle Way Part VIII: Toward "statesmanship of a high order"; June 1955 to November 1955 Chapter 16: Summitry at Geneva   Dear Lew: I am giving your letter to State. We have long secretly been contemplating the project you mention and have made certain necessary preliminary moves.1 When decision is finally reached, I will give you necessary information so you can firm up your plans.2 With warm regard, As ever 1 Douglas had suggested that Indian Prime Minister Nehru be invited to visit the United States. This could be done, he said, through an invitation by the English-Speaking Union to both Nehru and Canadian Prime Minister St. Laurent to speak at its annual dinner on November 8--an invitation that required Eisenhower's endorsement. Nehru's "excessively metaphysical nature" and a previous visit that had been mishandled had made him suspicious of the United States, Douglas wrote, and a weekend with Eisenhower "which would subject him to the influence of your character" could effect a change. If the visit were successful, the United States would "begin to see some light in the Orient," Douglas said, "for in the final analysis, whether we like it or whether we don't, the enlistment on our side of the only Oriental power that can really match China's power, that is to say India, is the key to balance in the Far East" (Douglas to Eisenhower, July 30, 1955, AWF/A; see also Telephone conversation, Dulles and Adams, July 28, 1955, Dulles Papers, Telephone Conversations). In a cable to Eisenhower on July 28 (AWF/I: Nehru) Nehru had invited the President to visit India. Secretary Dulles told Eisenhower the following day that the State Department had been considering an invitation to the Prime Minister and that Nehru's letter had provided the opportunity for a reciprocal invitation (Memorandum of Conversation, July 29, Dulles Papers, White House Memoranda Series; see also Eisenhower to Dulles, Aug. 1, 1955; O'Connor to Whitman, Aug. 2, 1955, both in AWF/D-H; and Telephone conversations, Dulles and Allen, July 28, 29, 1955, Dulles Papers, Telephone Conversations). 2 Eisenhower would extend the invitation to Nehru on this same day (see the following document). Bibliographic reference to this document: Eisenhower, Dwight D. Personal and confidential To Lewis Williams Douglas, 1 August 1955. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, ed. L. Galambos and D. van Ee, doc. 1533. 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/1533.cfm <--PREV Doc #1532  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  First Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #1534

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