<--PREV Doc #233  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  First Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #235 Document #234; June 8, 1953 To Mildred McAfee Horton Series: EM, AWF, Administration Series ; Category: Personal The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, Volume XIV - The Presidency: The Middle Way Part I: Charting a New Course; January 1953 to April 1953 Chapter 1: Developing a spirit of teamwork   Dear Mrs. Horton: 1 I know that you have received from others explanations of the extraordinary investigative delays that finally resulted in depriving us of your services in the United Nations Social Commission and caused you personal embarrassment.2 Nevertheless I write this note to express my deep regret and the hope that I may have an opportunity soon to repeat these sentiments in person.3 In the meantime I scarcely need to tell you that never for a moment have I lost an iota of confidence in your capacity for public service or my admiration of your past accomplishments in that service. I trust that you will not permit one unfortunate occurrence to deter you when again there may be need to call upon you to fill some important position. With personal regard, Sincerely 1 A Missouri native, Horton (M.A. Chicago 1928) had served as president of Wellesley College from 1936 to 1949. She had been Director of the Women's Reserve, U.S. Naval Reserve, and special assistant to the Chief of Naval Personnel during World War II, and afterward she had served on boards overseeing postwar Japanese schools and Chinese Christian colleges. 2 The State Department in mid-March had contemplated nominating Horton to the U.N. Economic and Social Commission, scheduled to meet in New York May 4-20. The FBI had sent the results of its background investigation of Horton to the State Department on April 16, after which the case had undergone further analysis for ten days. Given the time the Senate normally took with hearings and votes on presidential nominations, according to Walter Bedell Smith, who in late May had replied to an inquiry from Senator Henry M. Jackson, it then became clear that Horton's appointment would not pass the Senate in time for the commission's opening session. The State Department had not made public its letter explaining the delay to Horton, who told reporters she had intended to keep quiet about the incident until news of it leaked in the press. During the late-May furor over Horton's failure to gain a seat on the commission, a conservative religious leader attacked her for some of her earlier stances on the House Un-American Activities Committee and alien naturalization. "There was no doubt," Jackson said, that Horton's failure to win approval left a "slur in the people's minds" (New York Times, May 21, 22, 27, 1953). 3 Commenting on the Horton case at his May 28 news conference, Eisenhower had noted the "impatience that extremists felt because of what they called the slow way" in which the Administration was "changing the face of Government." He described the necessary investigations as "detailed and laborious" and praised the FBI for its work (ibid., May 29, 1953). This same day the President wrote a Horton supporter that he shared her admiration for Horton and was "truly sorry that clearance procedures became so drawn out as to preclude the submission of her name to the Senate in time for service" (Eisenhower to Jean T. Palmer, June 8, 1953, AWF/A, Horton Corr.). Bibliographic reference to this document: Eisenhower, Dwight D. Personal To Mildred McAfee Horton, 8 June 1953. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, ed. A.D. Chandler and L. Galambos, doc. 234. 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/234.cfm <--PREV Doc #233  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  First Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #235

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