<--PREV Doc #2124A  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  First Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #2126 Document #2125; December 1, 1956 To Henry Agard Wallace Series: EM, AWF, Name Series The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, Volume XVII - The Presidency: The Middle Way Part XI: The free world's "sad mess"; October 1956 to January 1957 Chapter 23: What is needed is "a calming influence"   Dear Mr. Secretary: I am grateful for the trouble you took to give me your thinking about Nehru, his place in the world, and his capacity for needed leadership in that region in the years to come.1 To me the crux of your letter appears in the paragraph which begins, "The altogether serious long-time problem . . . ."2 There is no question that the refusal of the world's populations to accept sharply increasing differences in living standards will give rise to increasingly violent rejection of color inferiority, as well as hatreds and envies based on resentments, some of them founded in the imagination rather than in fact. The West must without fail get itself into position that there is no just cause for these resentments and hatreds being directed toward the free nations and, in addition, must work at the job of convincing others that we have no ambitions except to see all share the freedom that we so highly prize. Obviously the material factors that must underlie a sustained national and individual freedom achieve, in this context, an importance that we will neglect at our peril. That is one fact that seems difficult for our own people to grasp. Again my thanks for your letter, and with personal regard, Sincerely 1 The former Secretary of Agriculture, Secretary of Commerce, and Vice-President of the United States had written Eisenhower in anticipation of Indian Prime Minister Nehru's visit to the United States (see no. 1794). Nehru, he said, was "a very intelligent, self-contained person who, in spite of his western education is sufficiently oriental to go two directions at the same time very politely" (Wallace to Eisenhower, Nov. 27, 1956, AWF/N). 2 Wallace had written that "modern sanitation has suddenly caused an already over-crowded population greatly and continuously to out-run food supply. If something is not done about this there will be an inevitable decline in living standards coinciding with rising nationalism, increasingly violent rejection of color inferiority, hatred for colonial powers, and growing envy and hatred of the western powers blessed with ten to thirty times the good things of life. . . ." These conditions would lead to hostilities, Wallace said, that would "imperil the very life of Britain and France and finally our own." Bibliographic reference to this document: Eisenhower, Dwight D. To Henry Agard Wallace, 1 December 1956. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, ed. L. Galambos and D. van Ee, doc. 2125. 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/2125.cfm <--PREV Doc #2124A  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  First Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #2126

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