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Document 84538

DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER
Under public pressure, the President questions the Atomic Energy Commission Chairman on controversial Dixon-Yates contract.
TLS: "D.E." as President, 1p, 7x9. The White House, Washington, 1954 December 13. To Lewis L. Strauss, Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission. Marked: "PERSONAL" at top and bottom. In full: "Someone from the South (an editor of one of the Southern papers) came to see me to say that one of the most obvious causes for criticism of the Dixon-Yates contract is because it was made by the AEC instead of by the TVA. I promised to examine into the reasons why the contract could not have been made by the TVA directly. What is the answer on this one?" President Eisenhower wanted to sell the Tennessee Valley Authority, referring to the agency as a prime example of what he called "creeping socialism". Earlier in 1954, Eisenhower proposed that private utilities supply power to the federally-funded "Atomic City" in Oak Ridge, Tennessee and other nuclear facilities in Paducah, Kentucky, which at the time consumed 60 percent of TVA's entire output. Private utility presidents Edgar Dixon and Eugene Yates organized a consortium of power companies to build a plant in West Memphis, Arkansas that would sell electricity to these government installations. The Dixon-Yates plan, however, became a scandal when opponents uncovered that Adolphe Wenzell, a Bureau of Budget official who drafted the plan was also an executive of First Boston Corporation, a financial backer of the deal. President Eisenhower denied any connection between Wenzell and the deal's beneficiaries, but TVA's allies later exploited the mistake and forced President Eisenhower to retract his denial and to cancel the Dixon-Yates contract. On November 13, 1958, LEWIS L. STRAUSS was appointed Secretary of Commerce by President Eisenhower. On June 27, 1959, by a vote of 49-46, the U.S. Senate refused to confirm Strauss as Secretary of Commerce, the first Cabinet nominee since 1925 to be rejected by the Senate. Some Senators voted against confirmation because of his handling of the Dixon-Yates contract. "Tue/Dec 15" written in pencil by Strauss at upper left. Staple holes in upper left blank margin. Fine condition.

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