Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, General: Economic and Political Matters, Volume I, Part 2

Eisenhower Library, Dulles papers, “Telephone Memoranda”

Memorandum of Telephone Conversation Between the Secretary of State and the Attorney General (Brownell)¹

[Washington,] July 17, 1953—2:45 p.m.

The Attorney General called the Secretary re the Bricker Amendment, he had confirmed with Knowland that nothing would be done until the first of the week, since Bricker is out of town and there won’t be another policy meeting until he returns.

He asked what the Secretary had thought of Nixon’s presentation this morning,² and the Secretary said he thought Nixon might be right. His original idea had been to let it die, but they had lots of money and were hiring speakers, etc., and it might build up instead. He thought if we let it come to a vote we could defeat it and it would be difficult to get it built up again. Knowland is under pressure from his own constituents and it might be difficult to get much of a battle in the last few weeks of the session but both were impressed with Nixon’s analysis of the case.

The Attorney General said he would play it by ear.

1. Prepared by Burnita O’Day.
2. Presumably a reference to the comments the Vice President made at the Cabinet meeting, the minutes of which are printed supra.