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Document 84614 DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER Former President criticizes the nuclear test ban treaty and eliminating the gold backing of U.S. currency. TLS: "Ike E", 1p, 7¼x10¼. On his Gettysburg stationery but written from Palm Desert, California, 1965 February 9. To his former Secretary of Commerce, Lewis Strauss, Washington, D.C. In full: "I, too, have been very disturbed about the particular weakness in the test ban treaty that you mention in your letter of the first. What seems amazing that papers like the STAR and officials like Dr. Seaborg have only now taken note of this omission, which at that time seemed so obvious to every individual of experience in this whole matter. Moreover, I am concerned about our readiness to begin the elimination of the gold backing of our currency. While I realize that at present this applies only to the amount of money deposited by banks with the Federal Reserve, I think that the initial step has a fearful portent. I am quite sure that I have invited your attention before this to a pamphlet by Jacques Rueff called 'The Age of Inflation.' While I think that in some ways he overstates his case, I do believe that we are following a slippery road today and I am truly disquieted. Mamie joins me in affectionate greeting to you and Alice. With warm personal regard." An insightful letter on two critical issues: It's quite possible that the obvious omission Eisenhower notes is the stopping of underground tests. The Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was signed by the U.S., United Kingdom and the Soviet Union on August 27, 1963. The treaty only called for ending atmosphere, space and underwater tests. When Eisenhower was President, the Soviet Union in 1955 wanted a nuclear test ban as part of a major disarmament proposal. The American government rejected the idea believing that without an international inspection system, a test ban would be dangerous to national security. The issue figured prominently in the 1956 and 1960 presidential elections. In 1957 the U.S. stated it would consider a test ban as an issue untied to disarmament negotiations. By 1960, as new players entered the international arena as holders of nuclear power, the U.S. and Soviet Union reached an understanding that brought them to the treaty of 1963. They still could not agree on underground testing thus excluding it in the treaty. More than 100 countries acceded to the treaty--one was India but not France or China. Eisenhower's glum economic predictions came true. On February 18, 1965 (just 9 days after this letter) Congress removed 25% of the gold certificate requirement against deposits in Federal Reserve banks and on March 18, 1968, it removed a similar requirement on Federal Reserve notes. At this time, the world still attached the value of its currencies to gold reserves and believed that the U.S. dollar was as good as gold. But by the 1960s, as the U.S. economy expanded and exported its dollars and deepened its deficits and short-term liabilities with foreign banks, the United States had too little gold to honor the quantities of dollars it had outstanding in international markets. In 1971, President Nixon took the nation off the gold standard. The dollar was devalued, and the 1970s was a decade of unprecedented economic inflation. LEWIS STRAUSS served as Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission from 1953-1958 and was appointed Secretary of Commerce by President Eisenhower on November 13, 1958. But the Senate disagreed with Strauss' policies for the Commission and voted against his appointment by a close vote of 49-46, on June 27, 1959. DR. GLENN E. SEABORG discovered Plutonium (1940), Americium (1944) and Curium (1944). He was awarded the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The element Seaborgium, discovered in 1974, was named in his honor. GOOD CONTENT LETTERS OF EISENHOWER AFTER HIS PRESIDENCY ARE RARELY ENCOUNTERED. Pen notes and staple holes at upper left corner. Fine condition. SEE IF DOCUMENT 84614 IS FOR SALE RIGHT NOW!!
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