<--PREV Doc #1430  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  Second Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #1432 Document #1431; February 4, 1960 To Mason K. Knuckles Series: EM, WHCF, Official File 102-R The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, Volume XX - The Presidency: Keeping the Peace Part VIII: "Friends and Foes"; September 1959 to February 1960 Chapter 20: "No substitute for personal contact"   Dear Mason: Needless to say, I am sympathetic to your problem. However, I was not aware of the fact that you so urgently desired some position in the Federal government.1 Presidential appointments, of course, have to be made on my personal decision, but there is a very long and thorough procedure followed before applications reach my desk. The appropriate staffs of the various Departments and Agencies determine the special requirements of a position and then try to fit into those requirements the man they deem best qualified. I shall ask my principal staff officers to survey any present or prospective vacancies to determine whether or not there is any place where you could logically be appointed.2 With personal regard, Sincerely 1 Knuckles, an insurance agent in Denver, Colorado, was a member of the board of trustees of the University of Denver, and president of the Republican Club of Denver. He had met Eisenhower in 1952 when the President-elect was vacationing in Denver (for background see Galambos and van Ee, The Middle Way, no. 462). He had written on February 1 (same file as document) that a mutual friend had nominated him for a position in Eisenhower’s Administration, but the friend had been told that nothing was available for a man of his "talents." He had spent his entire adult life serving the Republican party, and now, he wrote, "Like the Master ‘He came unto His own, and His own received Him not.’" 2 There is no further correspondence on this subject in EM, and there is no indication that Knuckles received an appointment. Bibliographic reference to this document: Eisenhower, Dwight D. To Mason K. Knuckles, 4 February 1960. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, ed. L. Galambos and D. van Ee, doc. 1431. 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/second-term/documents/1431.cfm <--PREV Doc #1430  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  Second Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #1432

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