<--PREV Doc #506  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  First Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #508 Document #507; October 31, 1953 To Harry Clifton Byrd Series: EM, WHCF, President's Personal File 1063 The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, Volume XIV - The Presidency: The Middle Way Part III: The Space Age Begins; October 1957 to January 1958 Chapter 6: Building strength when there is "no perfect answer"   Dear Dr. Byrd:1 It is a privilege to join in the tribute being paid to you by the University of Maryland Alumni Association. It awakens pleasant memories of three decades ago, when we were both football coaches--you at the University of which you later became President and I at Fort Meade.2 Please accept my warm congratulations on receipt of an honor that I know means much to you. With personal regard and best wishes, Sincerely 1 Byrd (B.S. University of Maryland 1908), an instructor of English and history at the University of Maryland in 1912, had served as director of athletics and football coach from 1913 until 1934. He was appointed assistant to the president in 1918 and vice-president in 1932 and was named university president in 1936. 2 The Alumni Association of the University of Maryland planned to honor Byrd at a testimonial dinner on December 9 and had asked Eisenhower to send a message to be included in a bound book of letters recognizing his forty years of service to the university (Brigham to Eisenhower, Oct. 19, 1953, same file as document). On October 28 Administrative Assistant Bryce N. Harlow recommended in a memorandum to Ann Whitman that the requested letter be sent, pointing out, however, that the President did not ordinarily send messages to outgoing college presidents and, further, that it had been rumored that Byrd was planning to run as a Democratic candidate for the governorship of Maryland (ibid.). Harlow's draft of the letter, with Eisenhower's handwritten emendations, is in AWF/Drafts. See also Harlow to Brigham, November 2, 1953, same file as document; New York Times, June 28, December 19, 1953, and Baltimore Sun, December 10, 1953. On the President's career as an Army football coach see his memoir At Ease, esp. pp. 180, 195-98. See also Baltimore Sun, November 27, December 3, 4, 1921; November 11, 1924. Bibliographic reference to this document: Eisenhower, Dwight D. To Harry Clifton Byrd, 31 October 1953. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, ed. L. Galambos and D. van Ee, doc. 507. 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/507.cfm <--PREV Doc #506  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  First Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #508

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