THE MEMOIRS OF HERBERT HOOVER: The Great Depression, 1929-1941. (Inscribed and signed by author). by Hoover, Herbert - 1952

New York: Macmillan, 1952. First edition, first printing. Hardcover. Very good/good. Original blue cloth; xv, 503 pp., frontispiece and 8 plates from photographs. Some scuffing to covers, spine gilt dulled, else very good in moderately worn jacket.

INSCRIBED AND SIGNED BY HERBERT HOOVER on front free endpaper: "To Easton Rothwell With the good wishes of Herbert Hoover." Charles Easton Rothwell (1902-1987) was Director of the Hoover Institution (at Stanford University) from 1952-1959, preceding his Presidency at Mills College in Oakland (1959-1967). During the Second World War Rothwell served in the U.S. State Department. In 1945 he was executive secretary of the founding conference of the United Nations and a principle drafter of the UN charter. Rothwell was also a friend of fellow State Department employee and secretary general of the UN Charter Conference, Alger Hiss. At a House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) hearing in 1948 Hiss was accused by Whitaker Chambers of being a Communist and Soviet agent. Though Hiss denied all charges, he was convicted of perjury and served nearly 4 years in Federal Prison. Herbert Hoover was reportedly quite chagrined when Hiss's old friend C. Easton Rothwell was made Director of the Hoover Institution, though the inscription here seems cordial enough! A compelling association. The inscription, though undated, likely coincides with Rothwell's appointment to the Hoover Institution in 1952, the year of publication of Hoover's memoir.