213. Letter From the President to George M. Humphrey1
[Here follows discussion of unrelated subjects.]
The story of our effort to preserve the peace and to avoid unacceptable deterioration of the United States position in the Mid East has been fairly well told in the press; I shall not bore you here with its details. The fact is that we will take any honorable and practicable solution to the Lebanese problem, so that we can remove our troops. But we must insist that the formula is both practicable and honorable.2
[Here follows discussion of unrelated subjects.]
The basic reason for our Mid East troubles is Nasser’s capture of Arab loyalty and enthusiasm throughout the region. Foster and I have long struggled with the Congress to get the kind of propaganda campaign established in that area that could counteract anti-Western sentiment as it now pours out of the Cairo—and Soviet—radios. We have never been able to get the money to do a good job, though today we are probably spending more by the month to solve this crisis than it would have cost us by the year to have been more effective in preventing it.
There is no use going over with you all of the ins and outs of our negotiations with the Russians. Admittedly they are masters in propaganda, in deceit, in distortion and in influencing ignorant populations. At the same time they seem to appeal also to a certain percentage of the intelligentsia. But one thing is certain. The men in the Kremlin are serving only their own selfish purposes. They are not trying to do anything decent for any other portion of humanity.
[Here follows discussion of unrelated subjects.]
As ever,3
- Source: Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, Eisenhower Diaries. Personal and Confidential. Humphrey resigned as Secretary of the Treasury in May 1957.↩
- In briefing legislative leaders on July 22, Eisenhower said that the United States would withdraw its forces from Lebanon as soon as “the U.N. group takes hold, or if Lebanon says that we are not wanted.” (Supplementary Notes on a Legislative Leadership Meeting, July 22; ibid., Staff Memos—July 1958; included in the microfiche supplement)↩
- Printed from an unsigned copy.↩