Presidential Papers, Doc#903 Personal To Edwin Palmer Hoyt, 28 May 1954. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower
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Document #903; May 28, 1954
To Edwin Palmer Hoyt
Series: EM, WHCF, Official File 99-R (McCarthy) ; Category: Personal
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 Ep:1 Thank you for your letter and its attachments. I have read, though very hastily, most of the documents you sent me.

Mr. Martin has undoubtedly tried to do a good job of reporting; but he is fantastically mistaken in a number of things that he alleges happened during the campaign. He is wrong both as to the kind and nature of the advice I received, and as to what my decisions were and what I did.2

I am rushed at the moment, but some day when I am testing out that improved golf game of yours we will have a chance to talk it over.3

As ever

1 Hoyt, editor and publisher of the Denver Post, had written on May 24 to congratulate Eisenhower on his "forthright expressions" regarding the Army-McCarthy hearings. He had enclosed a half-dozen news clippings, all dated May 17--the day Eisenhower announced that army witnesses could not testify further concerning a White House conference held last January (same file as document). On Eisenhower's decision to invoke the principle of executive privilege at the height of the Army-McCarthy debate see no. 879.

In related correspondence Hoyt had written to the President's friend Paul G. Hoffman on May 17 to express concern that Eisenhower was "slipping badly" in Denver and Colorado. Hoyt said the slip was "due to the administration's position on public power, mccarthyism, and a worsening of foreign relations." "Joe McCarthy has long since repudiated the Republican party," Hoyt said. "It is now time for the Republican party to repudiate Joe McCarthy before he drags them all to defeat" (same file as document).

2 Hoyt wrote that he was so "impressed with the appeasement of McCarthy going on by the Administration since the convention," that he had asked Lawrence C. Martin, associate editor of the Denver Post, to "run up a summary of same." Martin had listed nine occasions which, in his opinion, had demonstrated deliberate appeasement of McCarthy by Eisenhower or by his advisers. Martin's paper, titled "Appeasement of McCarthy by the Executive Branch," is in the same file as the document.

Hoyt would send Martin a copy of Eisenhower's remarks regarding the "appeasement" paper--an act which brought, on July 6, an apology to Eisenhower from Martin: "This is not the first time I've had lumps from public men on some question of fact, but it is the first time that the President of the United States has ever `decorated' me with the order of the Fantastic Mistake. It is, I assure you, a souvenir that brings me no pride" (same file as document).

3 In a handwritten postscript Hoyt had noted, "My golf is a little better. I have broken 90 once this year."

Bibliographic reference to this document:
Eisenhower, Dwight D. Personal To Edwin Palmer Hoyt, 28 May 1954. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, ed. L. Galambos and D. van Ee, doc. 903. 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/903.cfm

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