<--PREV Doc #1449  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  Second Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #1451 Document #1450; March 10, 1960 To Ralph Harlan Cake Series: EM, WHCF, Official File 41 ; Category: Personal The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, Volume XX - The Presidency: Keeping the Peace Part IX: Shattered Dreams; March 1960 to July 1960 Chapter 21: "Progress in a knotty problem"   Dear Ralph: Thank you for your letter.1 I have been going into this Panama Canal business intermittently for something like seven years. I started out with the theory that we could "do something" to improve our relationships with the Panamanians, most particularly those that work for the Canal. Though many of the problems seemed fairly simple at first glance, the fact is that results have not been too startling.2 The idea that you bring up about medical training for doctors is a new one so far as I am concerned.3 Since I now have an appointment with Governor Brucker, who is to come to my office with his principal associates concerned with the Panama affair, I will ask him to study this suggestion also.4 Should you discover, when you next come to Washington, that Tom Stephens can find a few minutes that would be available to us both, I would be, of course, more than happy to see you.5 With warm regard, Sincerely 1 Cake’s letter of March 10, 1960, is in the same file as this document. Cake (A.B. University of Oregon 1913), a savings and loan executive, was on the Board of Directors of the Panama Canal Company. 2 For background see nos. 1355, 1380, 1443, and Galambos and van Ee, The Middle Way, no. 1926; G. Bernard Noble, Christian A. Herter in American Secretaries of State and their Diplomacy, 20 vols. (1927 - 85), vol. 18 (New York, 1970), pp. 205 - 16. For developments see no. 1645. 3 Cake had suggested an idea, which he attributed to Canal Zone Governor Major General William Everett Potter, for starting an international medical teaching program at Gorgas Hospital, near Panama City. He had proposed bringing as many as 1,000 doctors from Central and South America to study different diseases over varying time periods. As a budget committee member, Cake was willing to have the Canal Company provide transportation and housing facilities. He knew of nothing, he wrote, that "would bring as much good will to the United States." Cake had also described the poor housing conditions in Panama, and he had proposed that the United States help finance and build up to two thousand homes. He argued that "you cannot expect anything but unrest and violence in places where you find the people huddled together four or five in a room ... with no sanitary conditions" (Cake to Eisenhower, Mar. 10, 1960, same file as document). 4 Eisenhower would meet with Brucker and other officials on March 21, 1960, to discuss various aspects of the Panama situation (see no. 1443; Stephens to Brucker, Mar. 14, 1960, same file as document). Ann Whitman, the President’s secretary, would note that "State" liked Cake’s idea, and would have a study made (Memorandum for the Record, Mar. 21, 1960, AWF/AWD). Dillon would report to the President that the project would be feasible, that Governor Potter had agreed to start the program with a small number of participants, and that the U.S. Ambassador would secure cooperation from Panama’s Foreign Ministry (Dillon to Eisenhower, Mar. 20 and Apr. 15, 1960, AWF/D-H). 5 Thomas E. Stephens was Appointments Secretary to the President. Eisenhower would meet with Cake on April 27, 1960 (President’s daily appointments). Bibliographic reference to this document: Eisenhower, Dwight D. Personal To Ralph Harlan Cake, 10 March 1960. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, ed. L. Galambos and D. van Ee, doc. 1450. 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/1450.cfm <--PREV Doc #1449  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  Second Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #1451

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