Presidential Papers, Doc#204 To Milton Stover Eisenhower, 22 May 1953. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower
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Document #204; May 22, 1953
To Milton Stover Eisenhower
Series: EM, AWF, Administration Series, UNESCO Corr.
The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, Volume XIV - The Presidency: The Middle Way
Part II: Settling into "the long pull"; May 1953 to August 1953
Chapter 3: "A time for continued vigilance"

 

Dear Milton: The UNESCO thing is a little difficult. At a press conference, I gratuitously made the statement that you read.1 But it would be politically awkward at this minute, in view of some of the fights I have about Reciprocal Trade Agreements and Foreign Aid, to go too far out on a limb on UNESCO.2 As ever

1 Asked his opinion of UNESCO at a meeting with reporters on May 14, Eisenhower had commended its "announced purpose" of cultural exchange but also noted that "there has been a lot of suspicion aroused about this organization. I think possibly some of the discussions within the body have given rise to this suspicion," he continued, but he had not seen "any real justification" for it (typescript copy of question and answer, AWF/A, UNESCO Corr.; New York Times, May 15, 1953). Earlier in the month the President had received assurances that the UNESCO executive board had agreed to "arrangements which would safeguard the Secretariat of the organization against infiltration by American subversives" (Luther H. Evans to Eisenhower, May 5, 1953, ibid.).

Milton and his wife had joined the Eisenhowers at Annapolis, Maryland, on May 17 for Naval Academy commencement exercises and journeyed by boat to Washington with the first family. On the following day Milton had written to warn that Eisenhower's "lukewarm" references "could kill American support of the UNESCO program." Milton reminded his brother that he had been among the founders of the organization and chaired its U.S. national commission from 1946 to 1948. "I most sincerely believe that the UNESCO program is indispensable in the whole task of building peace," he wrote. Milton urged the President to lend his support to the UNESCO appropriation that Congress would shortly consider (see also George N. Shuster to Eisenhower, March 5, 1953, and Karl W. Bigelow to Eisenhower, May 15, 1953, ibid.). The Eisenhower Administration had recommended slight reductions in U.S. support for the United Nations, from 35 percent of the body's total budget to one-third (New York Times, May 1, 1953).

2 In a memorandum of May 19, C. D. Jackson had advised the President not to make any further statements on UNESCO for the time being ("You would be stepping into a hornet's nest") and to appoint a small group to study the UNESCO situation (AWF/A, UNESCO Corr.). Eisenhower would name a committee, which in mid-September would report that UNESCO was not Communist-dominated, did not promote atheism, and did not undermine loyalty to the United States (New York Times, Sept. 15, 1953).

Bibliographic reference to this document:
Eisenhower, Dwight D. To Milton Stover Eisenhower, 22 May 1953. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, ed. L. Galambos and D. van Ee, doc. 204. 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/204.cfm

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