President Dwight Eisenhower Sends Letter To Leader Of National Council Of Churches In Appreciation Of Prayers For Success At First Nato Summit In 1957

DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER (1890-1969). The Thirty-Fourth President, Eisenhower was an Allied commander in World War II, and ordered the Normandy invasion. He was elected President in 1952 for two terms. TLS. 1 pg. 8” x 10”. December 26, 1957. The White House, Washington. A typed letter signed by “Dwight D. Eisenhower” to “Dr. Kenneth L. Maxwell”: “This is a belated, but nonetheless grateful, acknowledgement of the message that you and Dr. Dahlberg sent to me in Paris. It was encouraging to know that the members of the International Affairs Committee of the National Council of Churches, in meeting at the Arden House, were praying for the success of the conference deliberations”. Kenneth Maxwell and Edwin Dahlberg were both affiliated with the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA (NCC). The NCC is an interdenominational partnership of Christian faith groups in the United States, and their Department of International Affairs, according to their bylaws, “is responsible for working with the churches to discern and articulate in thought and action a Christian witness concerning international matters relating to freedom, justice, order and human welfare in order to achieve greater realization of those conditions which make for peace among men and nations.” In 1957, Dr. Dahlberg was serving as President and Dr. Maxwell was the Executive Director of the Department of International Affairs, which focused on the group’s international political advocacy. Thus, they would have been paying attention to the 1957 Paris Summit, which was the first NATO summit actually bringing the leaders of member nations together at the same time since the organizations; founding in 1949. The New York Times referred to the summit as “a reconsideration of the relationship of the strategy for the defense of Western Europe” in the wake of weakened U.S. nuclear capabilities and the launch of Sputnik. The summit concluded with the development of a “dual-track” approach by NATO towards the Soviet Union: deploying missiles to Europe while still emphasizing diplomatic negotiations. This letter is an important reminder about the influence the NCC had as a Christian advocacy body and Eisenhower’s role as the leader of the internationalist and institutionalist wing of the Republican Party in the decade after World War II.