<--PREV Doc #1548  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  First Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #1550 Document #1549; August 9, 1955 To Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. Series: EM, AWF, Administration Series ; Category: Personal 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 Cabot: Thank you for your three letters of August fourth--the "bit of history" you relate about the '52 campaign is reassuring;1 the comments about the recent Geneva Conference, coming as they do from you, are more than gratifying;2 and you bring up an important point about '56.3 This sketchy acknowledgment does not adequately convey the appreciation I feel of your valuable assistance, politically and officially. With warm regard, As ever 1 In a letter marked "Personal" Lodge recalled that when he served as Eisenhower's campaign manager in 1952 he had been opposed--"entirely for political reasons"--to having Harold E. Talbott as finance chairman (see Galambos, NATO and the Campaign of 1952, no. 537). The motive for participation in the campaign, Lodge observed, should have been that of "doing something good for the country . . . it certainly involved no commitment to give anyone a job, and still less any commitment to authorize a breach of ethics" (AWF/A). On August 1 Secretary of the Air Force Talbott had resigned under fire (see no. 1532). 2 A second classified letter from Lodge had chided the President for being "unduly modest" in reporting to the Cabinet that the only real accomplishment at the Geneva Summit Conference had been a "new atmosphere" (AWF/A). Lodge went on to recount his view of the gains at the recent summit meeting. Alluding to the McCarthy controversy, Lodge told Eisenhower that he had "rehabilitated the American reputation before the world"--a reputation, he said, that had been "badly damaged by the antics . . . of certain individuals in recent years." Lodge went on to praise Eisenhower's proposal for aerial photography, which he said had "lifted the whole disarmament question to a new level" and would place the United States in an "impregnable position to mobilize world opinion." Lastly, Lodge commended Eisenhower for having regained the "initiative" that the United States had lost following World War II. On the Geneva Summit Conference see no. 1523; and on Senator McCarthy's demise see no. 1179; see also Cabinet meeting minutes, July 22, 1955, AWF/Cabinet, and Public Papers of the Presidents: Eisenhower, 1955, pp. 726-31. 3 In his third letter of the day, marked "Personal-Confidential," Lodge had alerted the President to expect Democratic leaders in 1956 to attack the Administration through the Defense Department, because, he said, "the Defense Department spends the most money of any department and is therefore fertile ground for a Democratic `fishing expedition.'" He recommended that steps be taken to manage the Defense Department "with public relations sense and knowledge of Congressional tactics--in a word, with political skill" (AWF/A). He further recommended that Eisenhower, in his State of the Union message, present his program with "real feeling and in moving human terms." This, Lodge said, "will keep Congress on the defensive and keep them busy fighting where you choose rather than where they choose." On the State of the Union message see Public Papers of the Presidents: Eisenhower, 1956, pp. 1-31. Bibliographic reference to this document: Eisenhower, Dwight D. Personal To Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., 9 August 1955. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, ed. L. Galambos and D. van Ee, doc. 1549. 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/1549.cfm <--PREV Doc #1548  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  First Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #1550

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