Presidential Papers, Doc#866 Eyes only To Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., 10 May 1954. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower
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Document #866; May 10, 1954
To Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.
Series: EM, AWF, Administration Series ; Category: Eyes only
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 Cabot: Thank you for your May seventh letter.1 The position you propose to take is exactly correct. I would be astonished if any of my personal advisers would undertake to give testimony on intimate staff counsel and advice. The result would be to eliminate all such officers and offices from the Presidential staff. In turn this would mean paralysis.

I do not know what answer you have received from Herb Brownell, but I am sure he would agree with this view.2 As ever

1 Lodge, U.S. representative to the United Nations, had written to inform Eisenhower that he had learned of the "possibility" that he might be called to testify at the Army-McCarthy hearings regarding his participation--as special adviser to the President on political strategy--in a January 1954 meeting in the Attorney General's office (AWF/A). "I feel," he wrote, "that it would be utterly destructive of the integrity of the presidential office and contrary to the spirit of the Constitution for any committee of Congress to require testimony from me in my capacity as an Adviser to the President. . . . It is my intention, therefore, to decline to give testimony in that capacity" (ibid.). Lodge had enclosed a two-page typed statement of his position which, he said, he would make "if it ever became appropriate to do so" (ibid.).

On the controversial meeting, held on January 21 in Attorney General Brownell's office, see Lodge's account in his memoir, As It Was (New York, 1976), pp. 133-36; Brownell with Burke, Advising Ike, pp. 257-58; and Ewald, Who Killed Joe McCarthy?, pp. 167-72, 348-53.

2 Lodge said that he had discussed the situation with Brownell. For developments see no. 883.

Bibliographic reference to this document:
Eisenhower, Dwight D. Eyes only To Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., 10 May 1954. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, ed. L. Galambos and D. van Ee, doc. 866. 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/866.cfm

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