Presidential Papers, Doc#93 Cable. Top secret To Harold Macmillan, 29 March 1957. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower
<--PREV
Doc #92		  |  Memorial Commission
Home Page		  |  Second Term
Table of Contents		  |  Presidential Papers
Home Page 		 | 
Doc#
 |  NEXT-->
Doc #94

Document #93; March 29, 1957
To Harold Macmillan
Series: EM, AWF, International Series: Macmillan ; Category: Cable. Top secret
The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, Volume XVIII - The Presidency: Keeping the Peace
Part I: A New Beginning, Old Problems; January 1957 to May 1957
Chapter 1: The Mideast and the Eisenhower Doctrine

 

Dear Harold: As I should have told you before, I initiated immediately upon the appearance of the Middleton story the same kind of inquiry here as you did in Bermuda and with the same negative results. I believe with you that we should drop the matter and give our attention to the future, as you suggest in your last paragraph where you say 'the embarrassment of this article will not make us lose faith in the need for us to talk frankly and with confidence to each other.’1

With warm personal regard, As ever,

1 For background on the controversy surrounding the article by Drew Middleton, London correspondent for the New York Times, see no. 88. After prodding from State Department officials, New York Times editors had learned from Middleton that the press director of the British Foreign Office had given him the story. "I cannot doubt the correctness of this fact," Secretary Dulles told Eisenhower. "Indeed I assumed it in any event because (1) Drew Middleton has for long been the semi-official mouthpiece of the British Foreign Office; (2) there was no American left in Bermuda who could have given the information, with the possible exception of Jock Whitney" [John Hay Whitney, U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain]; "(3) it was the UK Delegation which evidenced a very strong desire to put in the communiqué language about combined intelligence and planning, and the US which wanted it out, so that there was demonstrable motivation for a UK leak and none for a US leak" (Dulles to Eisenhower, Mar. 27, 1957, Dulles Papers, White House Memoranda Series; see also Telephone conversations, Dulles and Hagerty, Mar. 26, 27, 1957, and Dulles and Elbrick, Mar. 26, 1957, Dulles Papers, Telephone Conversations).

Eisenhower had called Ambassador Whitney when the latter had returned from Bermuda, asking him if he had any idea who had disclosed the information. Whitney did not know "but pointed out it was datelined Bermuda" (Telephone conversation, Mar. 26, 1957, AWF/D).

In his letter Macmillan had denied that his public relations people had leaked the information. He admitted that Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd had spoken with Middleton but claimed that Lloyd had "stuck closely to the words" used by Dulles in his earlier talk with British correspondents. "Much of the article could be based on intelligent guess-work," he wrote (Macmillan to Eisenhower, Mar. 29, 1957, AWF/I: Macmillan).

Whitney later told Eisenhower that the British were "professing high-and-mighty injured feelings that they were accused of the Drew Middleton leak." Middleton was "very sore at their denial, but must, of course, protect his source." Whitney also told Eisenhower that Macmillan "was just as mad" as the President "and that is why the innocent faces all around" (Whitney to Eisenhower, Apr. 13, 1957, AWF/A).

Bibliographic reference to this document:
Eisenhower, Dwight D. Cable. Top secret To Harold Macmillan, 29 March 1957. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, ed. L. Galambos and D. van Ee, doc. 93. 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/93.cfm

<--PREV
Doc #92		  |  Memorial Commission
Home Page		  |  Second Term
Table of Contents		  |  Presidential Papers
Home Page 		 | 
Doc#
 |  NEXT-->
Doc #94
 


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