Letter+from+President+Eisenhower+to+a+Friend

Excerpt from a letter from President Eisenhower to his friend, Harry Bullis, May 18, 1953: http://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/dl/McCarthy/DDEtoBullis51853pg1.pdf

[...] With respect to McCarthy, I continue to believe that the President of the United States cannot afford to name names in opposing procedures, practices and methods in our government. This applies with special force when the individual concerned enjoys the immunity of a United States Senator. This particular individual wants, above all else, publicity. Nothing would probably please him more than to get the publicity that would be generated by public repudiation by the President.

I do not mean that there is no possibility that I shall ever change my mind on this point. I merely mean that as of this moment, I consider that the wisest choice of action is to continue to pursue a steady, positive policy in foreign relations, in legal procedures in cleaning out the insecure and the disloyal, and in all other areas where McCarthy seems to take such a specific and personal interest....

It is a sorry mess; at times one feels almost like hanging his head in shame when he reads some of the unreasoned, vicious outbursts of demagoguery that appear in our public prints. But whether a Presidential “crack down” would better, or would actually worsen, the situation, is a moot question.