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Vrooman, Carl
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Vrooman, Carl
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Pre-Presidential Papers of Richard M. Nixon
General Correspondence
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COPY
Vrooman, Mr. Carl
November 22, 1954
Mr. Carl Vrooman
Union League Club of Chicago
65 West Jackson Boulevard
Chicago 4, Illinois
pje"s
Dear Mr. Vrooman:
As the Vice President was leaving
Washington for a few days, he asked me to thank you
for your letter of November 15 and for sending him a
copy of your statement "The Washington Predicament. "
He appreciated your interest in writ-
general
ing to him and your timely suggestions as well.
I know the Vice President would want
me to extend his best wishes to you.
Sincerely yours,
Rose Mary Woods
Personal Secretary
to the Vice President
RMW:pje
Reproduced at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum
Ofyi
Union League Club OF CHICAGO
2
ach
65 WEST Jackson Boulevard
CHICAGO 4, Illinois
troply
Bloomington, Ill.
November 15, 1954
Vice President Nixon
The Capitol
Washington, D. C.
Dear Mr. Vice President:
George Washington faced a crisis as crucially important
for the then infant nation as is the present one for America
and the Free World. For him as for President Eisenhower it
seemed imperative that in both the Legislative and Executive
branches of the government a super-sectional and super-
partizan unity of purpose be achieved. To this end he did
not hesitate to form a Crisis Coalition Cabinet!
This stroke of executive genius worked a near-miracle.
It saved the nation from the delays and dangers involved in
political friction and rivalry and enabled government
officials of both parties to focus their attention on our
struggle for survival as a free people.
I believe that a similar action on the part of the
President would achieve a similarly beneficent result. A
more detailed discussion of this suggestion is contained in
the enclosed statement entitled, "The Washington Predicament".
Very sincerely yours,
Carl Vroanan
Carl Vrooman
CV:bp
Enclosure
Reproduced at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum
THE WASHINGTON PREDICAMENT
By Carl Vrooman
The post-election olive branch offered the Democrats by the President was a
highly commendable gesture and an encouraging omen for the future. Happily it
evoked an equally patriotic response from the "Loyal Opposition."
However, judging by the experience of other Presidents, who had to face
hostile congressional majorities, this propitious start by no means precludes the
possibility of future partizan disagreements, rivalries, jockeying for position
and consequent dangerous delays of crucially needed emergency legislation. Con-
ciliation, consultation and the best of intentions on both sides cannot guarantee
America and the Free World against the perilous possibility of future partizan
"fiddling while Rome burns". Indeed this danger presumably can be counted on
steadily to increase as we approach the 1956 election--unless--the present
feeling of super-partizan patriotism can be expressed not only by super-partizan
legislative cooperation but also by its natural corollary a super-partizan
Administrative personelle. To achieve this dual objective a community of
interest, deeper and more potent than partizan differences, must be evoked and
implemented by a major surgical readjustment of our normal administrative
procedure.
Fortunately, President Eisenhower has a highly successful precedent on which
to build. George Washington faced a crisis as crucially important for the infant
nation as is the present one for America and the Free World. For him, as for
President Eisenhower it was imperative that in both the Legislative and Executive
branches of the government a super-sectional and super-partizan unity of purpose
be achieved. To this end he did not hesitate to create a Crisis Coalition
Cabinet. This stroke of executive genius worked a near miracle! It saved the
nation from the perils of political friction and rivalry and enabled government
officials of both parties to concentrate their efforts on defeating the enemy
which threatened its very existence.
Reproduced at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum
-2-
Since World War II, Coalition Governments have saved both France and Italy
from Communist domination and have saved Western Germany from a fateful fellow
traveller status of neutrality. British Coalition Governments twice enabled
Great Britain to mobilize its material and human resources for defense, without
the costly partizan wranglings which in America, during World War II, delayed for
months the passage of the vitally important Lend Lease Act and other badly needed
war legislation.
The parrot-like patter one occasionally hears to the effect that "a Coali-
tion Cabinet would destroy our 'traditional two-party system'' has no basis in
fact. Soon after each of her Crisis Coalitions Great Britain reverted to two-
party "politics as usual". Similarly in California, where both major parties
nominated and supported Chief Justice Warren for Governor, Coalition was tem-
porary and the state since has reverted to our traditional two-party system.
Providentially we have as President a man who is respected and admired by
Democrats as well as by Republicans. He is the first President since Washington
to whom Americans truthfully could apply the historic phrase, "First in war,
first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen". Under his leadership,
both middle-of-the-road Republicans and Democrats could work together as har-
moniously as the Allied Nations fought together in World War II and perhaps even
more harmoniously than the rival factions in either political party work together
at present.
It is sometimes mistakenly stated that Franklin Roosevelt created a Coali-
tion Cabinet by including several Republicans in his official family. Those
Republicans, by entering a Democratic Cabinet, lost much of their status and
influence as Republicans. Had they constituted the Republican contingent of a
Super-Partizan Coalition Cabinet, they would have retained and greatly augmented
their influence as Republican leaders. A Coalition Administration is not an
Reproduced at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum
-3-
ingenious piece of political patchwork, but a temporary readjustment of the
Executive and Legislative branches of the government to meet the challenge of a
dangerous national emergency.
We rank and file citizens have acquiesced in the decisions of recent Presi-
dents to increase our national debt, to levy burdensome taxes for imperative
military expenses, to draft into our fighting forces--workers from their jobs,
students from their class rooms and husbands and even some fathers from their
homes. We recognise that these temporary drafts on our lives and fortunes,
are inevitable during the present "cold war" of merciless aggression.
However, we feel that we, in our turn, have the right to ask for a similarly
patriotic and sacrificial response to the call of duty, on the part of the
President and the Congress. In behalf of millions of patriotic laboring men,
farmers, business and professional men and women, homemakers, parents and pros-
pective veterans and victims of the next world war, may I respectfully inquire,
if we, the rank and file of the nation's citizenry, supply the sinews of war, the
fighting men and the men behind "the men behind the guns", what sacrifices are
our leaders of both parties prepared to make?
Are a working majority of them willing to sacrifice partizanship and personal
ambition, on the altar of country? Recognizing the basic fact that the divisions
within both parties are deeper and wider than those between the safe and sane
middle-of-the-road majorities of both parties, are our leaders ready to lay aside
temporarily normal partizan procedures and act in accordance with the necessities
of present abnormal conditions, by creating a Super-Partisan Crisis Coalition or
National Defense Administration, composed of the best brains and character of
both political parties? With the world trembling on the verge of an incalculably
devastating possible atomic war, not to be willing to make such a sacrifice seems
unthinkable!
Reproduced at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum
-4-
When a nation's life and liberties are at stake, loyal Republicans and
Democrats, both privates and top-brass, must not forget that they are not enemies
but fellow citizens with a common enemy to defeat and a common country to defend.
In the present unparalleled crisis, Coalition can and should be democracy's
triumphant answer to the imperative demand for democratic efficiency vastly
greater than the boasted efficiency of dictatorship!
Reproduced at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum