38. Letter From Eisenhower to John Foster Dulles1
I called you on the phone, but find you are still on the Hill. I wanted to talk to you about your conclusion that I was becoming a pessimist.
In trying to produce a draft of a talk before the Editors, an effort which I am now disposed to postpone, I deliberately wanted to stress the difficulties now confronting the world. Of these, the greatest are:
- (a).
- The costs of relative security with the attendant
possibilities of, either:
- (1).
- Seeing the American people get so tired of these huge expenditures as to cause them to refuse to support necessary appropriations and thus expose us to unacceptable risks.
- (2).
- Imposing upon our people such political and economic controls as would imply a dangerous degree of regimentation.
- (b).
- The task of reaching some reliable agreements with the Soviets that will make it possible, with confidence, to reduce armaments.
To my mind this transcends all other objectives we can have. Security through arms is only a means (and sometimes a poor one) to an end. Peace, in a very real sense, is an end in itself.
[Facsimile Page 2]It is, of course, quite comforting to recite all of the international difficulties that have, over the five years, been either surmounted or ameliorated. I’ve personally recited these in a number of speeches.
But these specific successes cannot blind us to the most potentially dangerous of all the situations now developing. This is the credence, even respect, that the world is beginning to give to the spurious Soviet protestations and pronouncements. As their propaganda promotes this world confusion, the tone of Soviet notes and statements grows more strident. The more the men in the Kremlin come to believe that their domestic propaganda is swallowed by their own people and by the populations of other countries, including some we have counted upon as allies, the greater the risk of American isolation. One great step we can take to counteract this trend is to make sure our own people are not deceived.
It is not pessimistic to face up to difficulties and to seek ways to overcome them. We must never confess that we have gotten to the bottom of the barrel in searching for ideas to stem and turn the tide of Soviet propaganda success.
[Typeset Page 130]I personally believe that one of the main objectives of our own efforts should be to encourage our entire people to see, with clear eyes, the changing character of our difficulties, and to convince them that we must be vigilant, energetic, imaginative and incapable of surrender through fatigue or lack of courage.
So, no matter what the preoccupations we daily have with the unfolding scene—both international and domestic—I feel that our principal responsibility is to try unceasingly to create [Facsimile Page 3] both general and specific situations under which the consummation of reliable agreements conforming to our ideas of right and justice can be more probable.
I have not the temerity to argue that any idea I have advanced is necessarily good; I just say that we have one basic job to do. A part of this is educating and informing our own people—so that they will support every burden we must carry, and will dedicate themselves to helping seek out new ways to dispel the basic differences between us and the Soviets that, becoming more and more unyielding in character, could finally lead to consequences that could be most unpleasant.
My own feeling about this business is simple. Optimism is not the ability to smile because of a refusal to face disagreeable facts; it is the seeking unceasingly (and, if possible, intelligently) for the methods and means to overcome difficulties.
With warm regard,
As ever,
- Source: Thoughts on dealing with Soviet threat. Personal and Confidential. 3 pp. Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, DDE Diaries.↩