<--PREV Doc #88  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  First Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #90 Document #89; March 17, 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 think it is already fixed up that I am to address the Pan American Union on the twelfth of April.1 Frankly, I get weary finding new reasons to turn down invitations to speak. Built as I am, I never had much faith in words--consequently one speech a year is about all that I can take without a bit of growling. I shall be on the lookout for Bill Benton's Morocco-bound set of the Encyclopedia.2 As always 1 Writing on the sixteenth (AWF/N), Milton had suggested that the President give a short address before the Council of the Organization of American States on April 12 (he was to leave Washington for Augusta National Golf Club on April 13; April 14 was Pan American Day). Milton noted that Secretary of State Dulles was the appropriate person with whom to discuss the matter, "but it came to my attention," he explained, "because of my contemplated trip to South America." Milton enclosed copies of speeches U.S. presidents previously had made before the OAS. Milton's special interest in Latin America dated from 1946, when he served as vice-chairman of the U.S. delegation to a conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in Mexico City. Thereafter he had become increasingly aware of political, economic, and social problems in the Southern Hemisphere, anti-Americanism there, and American ignorance of the region. Having criticized Truman's neglect of Latin America during the 1952 campaign, Eisenhower apparently hoped himself to travel there on a goodwill mission, but he was sending his brother instead (see no. 85; and Milton S. Eisenhower, The Wine Is Bitter: The United States and Latin America [Garden City, N.Y., 1963], pp. 5-7). Two days after Eisenhower wrote this message the National Security Council would discuss U.S. objectives and courses of action in Latin America (NSC meeting minutes, Mar. 19, 1953, AWF/NSC). The next day, March 20, Milton again visited the White House. In his speech on April 12 Eisenhower would declare his wish that the government "be fully informed of the economic and social conditions now prevailing throughout our continent and of all the efforts being pressed to bring a better life to our peoples" and would announce plans to send his brother to visit the South American republics. "He will report to me," said the President, ". . . on the ways to be recommended for strengthening the bonds of friendship between us and all our neighbors in this Pan-American union" (New York Times, Apr. 13, 1953). 2 Milton had reported that William Benton, publisher and board chairman of Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc. (see Galambos, NATO and the Campaign of 1952, no. 303), was sending Eisenhower such a set. Bibliographic reference to this document: Eisenhower, Dwight D. To Milton Stover Eisenhower, 17 March 1953. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, ed. L. Galambos and D. van Ee, doc. 89. 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/89.cfm <--PREV Doc #88  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  First Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #90

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