Letter from Ambassador Claude Bowers to President Harry S. Truman

mr Pris, you might to have this A PERSONAL LETTER FROM OUR AMBASSADIR TO CHILE CLAUDE G. BOWERS TO A FRIEND. Copy Sent to Major General Santiago, Dece, ber 8th,1952 Harry Vaughan, by Gretchen Witt KNOWING IT WILL BE USED WITH DISCRETION. Dear Gretchen, Had I had more faith in the intelligence of the people, in these years of tyrannical hysteria and McCarthyism, I would, and could, have had no doubt of Stevenson's election. But I had no such faith. However this election was not a repudiation of the Democratic Party, since with Ike's great majority the Republicans would have had the House by a hundred majority instead of ten, if the people voted on issues and records. Martin of Mass was right when he said in an interview in the N.Y. Times that the Republicans could have elected no one but Ike He was elected as a Five Star General and not as a Candidate. The clamor about communism in the Government was clap trap tripe since every Government in all democratic countries have found ARCHIVES "NATIONAL AND g KECORDS communists in disguise insinuating themselves into positions. E SERVICE" I have not heard that Churchill is to be thrown out because two men holding highly strategic positions in the Foreign Office dealing with top secrets have been found to be communists. To my mind all this is disturbing to the last degree. Ofcourse in our Country all liberals and real democrats are communists and ofcourse I was, since did I not oppose the Axis in Spain when their armies took over with the proclaimed intention to exterminate the despised democracy there and throughout Europe? Even so, I suspect that the moron mind was impressed with the charge that Acheson, one of our greatest Secretaries of State is a communist! But I am certain that Ike's reckless pledge to the mothers of America to visit and end the war in Korea brought, him a million women V tes. He has just returned and the war goes on. He found that contrary to his charge that the South Koreans were not fighting that they are fighing splendidly; contrary to his charge that we had not trained these Koreans, that they have been perfectly trained; contrary to his charge that they had not been equipped that they had been. In other words he returns paying tribute to the management of the Truman Administration in Korea. His only suggestion is that we advance to the Manchurian line and possibly use small atomic weapons on the Chinese which would probably precipitate a World War Then too, the women went to the polls weeping copiously over the cruelty to dear Mr. Nixon. His soap box exhibition was the most disgusting thing in our history. When we reach the point when it is conceded to be proper for all Senators to accept supplimentary pay from rivh men interested in pending legislation we shall have corruption in a big way. I am amused now to find that most Americans trembling least something happen to Ike. A bit amusing is the foud begun between Ike and Taft. Dog eat Dog. Your suggestion that at the meeting between Ike and Truman, the latter would have his dander up and talk plainly seems to have been the case. The press says Ike emerged looking serious and disturbed, so much so that he brushed the press aside brusquely. One thing can be said about Truman - he has courage and he never lied to the people.