Beschreibung:

EISENHOWER, DWIGHT D., President. Typed letter ("Dwight D. Eisenhower" in type at end) extensively revised by Eisenhower in pencil, to Senator Robert A. Taft at the Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, n.p., n.d. [Minneapolis, 10 June 1953]. Half-page, 4to, slight fold creases , the body of the letter comprising five lines of typed text, with 22 words of pencilled revisions in Eisenhower's hand (he has rewritten the last typed sentence and has added the closing). EISENHOWER TO A TERMINALLY ILL REPUBLICAN STALWART AND PRESIDENTIAL CONTENDER "Dear Bob: I just learned on arriving in Minneapolis that your hip condition is so serious you will be prevented from serving as Senate Majority Leader during the balance of the session [of Congress]. I deeply regret this unfortunate development and hope that you will take every step to restore your health. The country needs such as you..." Taft, a Conservative Republican Senator from Ohio, was Eisenhower's principal rival for the 1952 Republican Party Presidential nomination, during which the Eisenhower partisans had popularized the slogan "Taft Can't Win" and mounted a hard-fought challenge to the the credentials of some of Taft's Southern supporters. In the highly charged convention, Eisenhower had won the nomination on the first ballot. Putting the bitter feelings of the convention behind him, Taft campaigned vigorously for his former rival and after the Eisenhower victory Taft worked hard to smooth Eisenhower's way in Congress. At the end of May 1953, Eisenhower had learned that Taft's doctors believed that the Senator's persistent hip condition might be cancer. On June 3, Taft, on crutches, anounced that he would relinquish his post as Majority Leader. The present draft letter shows the care with which Eisenhower crafted his reassuring letter to his Republican former rival and now, supporter. Tragically, Taft's condition deteriorated rapidly and he died on 31 July. In his memoirs, Eisenhower wrote that: "In the short time that Senator Taft lived after my inauguration, we worked together to rebuild unity in the Republican party and to put through legislation we both felt necessary to the welfare of our country" ( Mandate for Change 1953-1956 , p.274). After Taft's death, Eisenhower compared Taft's loss to the Republican cause to General Robert E. Lee's loss of T.J. ("Stonewall") Jackson in the Civil War. It was, he reflected, "a loss which possibly could never be made good" ( ibid, p.278).