<--PREV Doc #84  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  First Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #86 Document #85; March 16, 1953 To Milton Stover Eisenhower Series: EM, AWF, Name Series 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 2: "A number of misunderstandings": Party and International Struggles   Dear Milton: I feel that under no circumstance should you come here this next weekend.1 If you have any doubt about accepting my view, please consult Helen, who, I hope, will be my ally in this matter.2 My recommendation is that you play a little golf early Saturday morning, then go to bed and do not get up until Monday morning. Moreover, I would be against your taking any weighty reading matter to your bedside table. A short "whodunit" or a good western would be admirable. If they are too pulpy for your taste, then one or two of the slick magazines would be a second rate substitute. In any event, we have got things going well enough3 that you simply must take this brief breather.4 As ever P.S. What would you think of Ken Royall (if we could get him) to serve on the Rockefeller committee?5 1 The President wrote his brother on Monday; the preceding weekend Milton had attended a Friday-night dinner at the White House and then a Saturday-morning meeting on government reorganization (see the Chronology). 2 Milton's wife, Helen Eakin Eisenhower, had accompanied him to Washington. 3 See no. 89. 4 Milton would respond on March 18 (AWF/N) by addressing Eisenhower's confessed need for "general assistance" of the kind that would help him anticipate and meet problems. "One of the greatest tasks of the President is to give all the people a sense of direction," Milton observed, "a sense of cooperating intelligently in a purposeful enterprise." Milton recommended presidential press conferences and informal radio and television appearances. He also called for the naming of "two or three anonymous individuals" who would "become a sort of silent cabinet," pulling together ideas and formulating domestic and foreign "program-outlines." "This is the sort of thing one should talk about rather than put on paper," Milton concluded, "but we never seem to have a chance to visit in a really relaxed fashion." 5 Kenneth Claiborne Royall had been Secretary of War under Truman. Nelson Rockefeller and Milton Eisenhower served on the President's Advisory Committee on Government Organization (see no. 26). For developments see no. 155. Bibliographic reference to this document: Eisenhower, Dwight D. To Milton Stover Eisenhower, 16 March 1953. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, ed. L. Galambos and D. van Ee, doc. 85. 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/85.cfm <--PREV Doc #84  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  First Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #86

Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission 1629 K Street, NW Suite 801 Washington DC 20006 Phone: 202.296.0004    Fax: 202.296.6464