<--PREV Doc #860  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  First Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #862 Document #861; May 6, 1954 To John Foster Dulles Series: EM, AWF, Dulles-Herter Series The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, Volume XV - The Presidency: The Middle Way Part V: Maintaining "a united defense"; April 1954 to August 1954 Chapter 10: Losing the war "they could not win"   Dear Foster: Herewith a suggestion that is worth study.1 While, in effect, the author proposes that I repeat the effort of April 16, 1953, yet it is clear that the situation of today could stand some kind of repetition along the lines suggested. Moreover, included in the memorandum are one or two suggestions that are rather novel--we can never be sure that they would not work.2 When you get a chance, let's talk about this.3 As ever 1 Murray Shields, economist for the Bank of Manhattan, had sent his ideas to Eisenhower through Secretary of Commerce Sinclair Weeks (Weeks to Eisenhower, May 6, 1954, AWF/D-H). Shields had suggested that the President "grab the initiative from the Communists" through a "dramatic TV-Radio appeal to the world for the Geneva Conference to be converted into . . . a really grand effort to achieve whole peace for the whole world instead of simply trying to obtain just a little piece of peace in Indo-China." For background on the conference see no. 722 and 854. 2 Eisenhower was referring to his speech before the American Society of Newspaper Editors when he first proposed international control of atomic energy for peaceful purposes (see Public Papers of the Presidents: Eisenhower, 1953, pp. 179-88 and no. 395). Shields had proposed "the grand prospect of a better life for everyone . . . if the scientists of the world could go to work for peace, if the millions of men now under arms could go back into production, and if the war industries could begin to produce goods for consumption instead of for destruction." He wanted the United States to be "ready and willing and eager to open up the channels of world trade" if the Communists reversed their aggressive policies and asked for a specific statement of U.S. peace terms. 3 Eisenhower would discuss the suggestions with Dulles at lunch on May 11, and the two men would agree that any proposals should be confined to a general paragraph in Eisenhower's speech at the National Bicentennial Dinner at Columbia University on May 31 (Memorandum, May 12, 1954, AWF/D-H; see Public Papers of the Presidents: Eisenhower, 1954, pp. 517-25 for Eisenhower's address; and Telephone conversation, Dulles to Eisenhower, May 17, 1954, Dulles Papers, Telephone Conversations for Dulles's suggestions regarding the speech). Bibliographic reference to this document: Eisenhower, Dwight D. To John Foster Dulles, 6 May 1954. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, ed. L. Galambos and D. van Ee, doc. 861. 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/861.cfm <--PREV Doc #860  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  First Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #862

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