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Hand-edited typescript draft of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s speech delivered to the American Legion during his 1952 presidential campaign as the Republican Party nominee. The unsigned speech, 15 pages, 8.5 x 11, is headed “DRAFT - American Legion, August 10, 1952,” and contains ample handwritten notations and emendations made in pencil by Eisenhower, who adds an opening line to the upper margin of the first page: “My old friends of the American Legion, it is good to be back again.” Eisenhower’s speech, which focuses on the state of geopolitics and the potential for conflict with the Soviet Union, reads, in part: “I shall talk to you about the current threat to the United States of America, its nature, its scope, and its strength. You veterans of America’s wars have a special concern in these matters. Our nation is what it is today because of the service you have rendered, the personal risks you have taken, the sacrifices you have made…
“The first characteristic of the threat we face is its many-sided nature. The men in the Kremlin are far too shrewd to start a global war under conditions similar to those that brought defeat to Hitler and the Japanese warlords…If and when they ever decide it is to their advantage to start a global war, they shall most certainly hope at that moment to have under their iron-fisted control the productive, industrial, and human strength necessary to carry the conflict to a successful conclusion…
“All of this effort behind the Iron Curtain is accompanied by virulent political and propaganda attack upon all of the free world. Their agents are everywhere. Indeed, though we say it in sadness, shame, and in anger, we know that they have succeeded in penetrating into significant sectors of our own country — even at times into the governmental structure itself. How this can happen in a country that has been the home of the greatest mass prosperity, happiness, and freedom that the world has known is beyond our comprehension.”
Eisenhower continues the speech on the reverse of the seventh page with three handwritten paragraphs: “Here, on this point, I do not hesitate to speak for you, my old comrades, or the millions that are Americans, in answering those power-hungry, ruthless, but stupid, dictators. Americans do not quit – they do not forsake their principles…They need only to understand the problem…Peace loving we have been and shall remain – but woe to him who believes he can, by force, destroy our institution, or subdue our people!” Ink notations to the reverse of the last page note that the speech was “Dictated & proofread by Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower on his trip to Gallup, N. Mex, Aug. 10, 1952.” In fine condition.
