Dear
Swede: The whole tough business of making up my mind to bow my neck to what seemed to be the inevitable; of then deciding how and when to make my announcement as to a second term;1 and finally the intensive work of preparing notes from which to speak to the American people, has so occupied my mind and days that I simply had no chance to carry out my hope of writing to you in advance to tell you all about it.2
Even the giving of my consent, in 1952, to stand for the Republican nomination was not as difficult as was the decision to lay my name again before that convention. I suppose there are no two people in the world who have more than Mamie and I earnestly wanted, for a number of years, to retire to their home--a home which we did not even have until a year or so ago.
When I first rallied from my attack of September twenty-fourth, I recall that almost my first conscious thought was "Well, at least this settles one problem for me for good and all."3
For five weeks I was not allowed to see a newspaper or to listen to a radio. While, within a matter of a week after I was stricken, I took up the practice of daily meetings with Governor Adams and gradually increased my contacts with other members of the staff and the Administration, the doctors still kept the newspapers away for the reason they didn't want me worried about stories and gossip concerning my illness.
On top of this I found it something of a relief to be away from the daily doings of the world, and consequently I did my work from knowledge already acquired, and from official reports, memoranda and studies brought to me by associates.
As a consequence of this hiatus in my understanding of what was going on in the world, I was astounded when I found that even as early as early November a great number of people were saying that they believed I could and should run again! I had a let-down feeling that approached a sense of frustration. As I look back, I truly believe that could I have anticipated in early October what later public reaction was going to be, I would have probably issued a short statement to the effect that I would determine as soon as possible whether it was physically possible for me to finish out this term, but that I would thereafter retire from public life.4
Having missed the opportunity to do this (and again I say I cannot be so certain that I would have done it), it seemed to me that I had no recourse but patiently to wait the outcome of all the tests the doctors wanted to make on me and gradually come to a decision myself as to whether or not I could stand the pace.5
I wish I could tell you just exactly what finally made me decide as I did, but there was such a vast combination of circumstances and factors that seemed to me to have a bearing on the problem--and at times the positive and negative were delicately balanced--that I cannot say for certain which particular one was decisive.
One--and this has been mentioned to no one else--had to do with a guilty feeling on my own part that I had failed to bring forward and establish a logical successor for myself. This failure was of course not intentional. To the contrary, I struggled hard to acquaint the public with the qualities of a very able group of young men; I will not bore you with the repetition of the story I told you many months ago. But the evidence became clear that I had not been able to get any individual to be recognized as a natural or logical candidate for the Presidency.6
Parenthetically, I have just about decided that a first-term President--unless he has been publicly repudiated from the beginning of his term--can scarcely get his own party to think in terms of a candidate other than himself.
Of course, I told my story as much as I could over the television, the other evening, but in any such presentation it was obviously impossible even to refer to all the types and kinds of influences that seemed important.
For example, I think we have put together in the Executive Branch, the ablest group of civilians that has worked in government during the long years I have been around Washington. If I had quit, no matter who might be elected in my place, there would be a tendency for this band to scatter. After all, two or three of them are even older than I, and most of them have business affairs and interests that attract them to a freer existence than they can lead here.
There was a volume of mail from people who almost prayerfully hoped that I would consider the matter favorably. Only two or three of my friends really urged me to decline, and all of these put the matter purely on the personal basis--that I would shorten my life. Possibly this is so. But it is certainly true that never once in all these weeks of study has it occurred to me that that particular point was of great importance.7
There remain several questions about the current year.
The first is that if I am to have a recurrence of this illness, I assume that the possibility is greater during this year than it will be during any one of the following two or three. In my case this would seem to be true if for no other reason than because, in an election year, the tirades of demagogues and the newspaper quarrels tend to reach a venomous level. In fact, if one were not rather philosophical about the things he reads and hears, any sensitive man would never attain that calmness of attitude and spirit that the cardiologists so glibly talk about.8
Finally, I am a competitor, a fighter, so if, as normally happens, politicians begin to get scared along about the middle of October and see themselves losing the election because of lack of activity on my part, my own reluctance ever to accept defeat might tempt me into activity that should be completely eliminated from my life.9
This I shall, of course, earnestly try to resist, but politicians are funny people and they can certainly paint a situation "scary" when they get to worrying about an election.
When I consider how many times I have been driven away from personal plans, I sometimes think that I must be a very weak character. I think that one mistake I made was in assuming, in 1948, that I had forever destroyed the possibility of a political career for myself. When I finally, in January of '52, acknowledged publically that I was a Republican, I realized that I had gone a long ways away from the personal objectives that Mamie and I had laid down for ourselves. Having gotten into the struggle, however, I naturally was not going to take any chances of defeat that I could avoid. I worked hard.10
The next time that I had a defeat of a similar kind was when I allowed myself to be talked out of my purpose of announcing, in my Innaugural Address, that I was a one-term President only.11 However, all of the people who persuaded me to do so agreed that, at my age, one term was all that should be expected of me, or that I should attempt. My recent decision represents another of the same kind of defeat--speaking only from the personal viewpoint. I have gotten to the point that I believe the Constitutional Amendment limiting Presidential tenure to two terms is a good one, even though, logically, I think it is indefensible.12
Far more than balancing all of this is the hope that I may still be able to do something in promoting mutual confidence, and therefore peace, among the nations. And that I can help our people understand that they must avoid extremes in reaching solutions to the social, economic and political problems that are constantly with us. If I could be certain that my efforts would really promote these two things, I shall certainly never have any cause for sympathizing with myself--no matter what happens.13
I have talked enough and I have probably not clarified for you a single thing that was causing you doubt; possibly I have not even added an atom of information to your own store of knowledge. But I feel better for having written. I am fortunate in having you to absorb some of the offshoots from my sometimes wandering mind--and to get your reactions.
Give my love to Ibby and the family. As ever
