Program
Tina Ferguson introduced the speaker Bob Kieve, who provided some behind-the-scenes anecdotes about his time serving as a staff writer for President Eisenhower. He first talked about a speech he wrote for Eisenhower to deliver in New Orleans on foreign trade. After writing and rewriting drafts of the speech, he sent it to his boss Emmet Hughes who sent it back heavily covered with editorial comments. After some changes, the speech was ready to go and Eisenhower delivered it. Bob excitedly looked in the New York Times the next day to read their account of the speech. He found the story below the fold on the first page, but he was surprised to see it talked about Eisenhower’s view of American tourists abroad as our most important export. That had not been in the version of the speech he wrote. He found out that Eisenhower had read his speech up to the last paragraph then extemporaneously interjected his thoughts on the importance of American tourists as ambassadors before reading the final paragraph Bob had written. Bob said that speech actually had a significant life because of Eisenhower’s addition. The State Department sent out a pamphlet with each passport it issued for the rest of Eisenhower’s term with those words from the speech as advice for tourists. Click on read more to learn more about his time with Eisenhower.
Bob also talked about Eisenhower’s hands-on approach to editing. Bob wrote lots of letters congratulating people on their 50th anniversary and Eisenhower would even edit those. Bob found out Eisenhower had some strong preferences in language – for example not wanting to use “merit” as a verb. He also never wanted to start two consecutive paragraphs with “I”. Bob believes this says something about Eisenhower’s focus on people and things other than himself. On one occasion Bob got a call from Ann Whitman, Eisenhower’s secretary, asking him to please stop using “appreciation for” since Eisenhower always changed it to “appreciation of” and Ann would have to retype the whole note. Bob felt “appreciation for” was correct and told this to Ann. Ann called back shortly and said Eisenhower had an opening at 2:00 that afternoon if Bob would like to explain to the President why his wording was incorrect. Bob got the point and used “appreciation of” from that point forward.
Bob made clear that Eisenhower was a very intelligent man who was able to absorb information quickly and thoroughly even on the most complex subjects. At the end of his talk Bob gave all attendees a copy of a page from an important speech Eisenhower delivered on April 7, 1953 that has the typed words of Emmet Hughes with copious handwritten edits by Eisenhower.
