The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers, Digital Edition > My Day
My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt

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MIAMI BEACH, Fla. Friday—We arrived here Thursday afternoon about an hour late and, after hurriedly collecting our bags and having innumerable photos taken, we finally were driven to Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Gordon's home where we are staying. We had to rush to get dressed and get back to the hotel for a press conference before the early dinner and the meeting of the Israel Bond Organization rally in support of Israel as one of the new democracies. Everything was accomplished fairly on time. At the press conference I met Dr. Frank Kingdom, who was to share the platform with Dr. Dov Joseph and myself. Dr. Joseph is Minister of the State of Israel. He made a most interesting speech on the development of Israel.

The first news to greet us here was the attack on a British bomber by two Soviet jet fighter planes. There is, of course, great speculation as to whether "these mistakes" are due to new policy under Premier Malenkov.

It is going to make it increasingly difficult to preserve peace along the borders in Europe. The intention might well be to distract our attention from the Asiatic area and focus our anxiety on the European theatre. This would allow for a surprise attack, in Korea.

This is, of course, all speculation. But at the present time everybody speculates; nobody is sure of anything, and the tension among the people is high. How one is ever to get at the real reason behind these attacks is difficult to imagine because no nation is willing to say that it fired first and accept responsibility for so doing.

I noticed in a Florida paper that a certain well-known columnist began a recent column by leading the public astray. He said: "The agency of the Ford Foundation 'Fund for the Republic' of which Paul Hoffman is the head..." He must have failed to read of Paul Hoffman's resignation, not only as the director of the foundation but as a trustee.

This columnist seems not very well pleased by methods to be used by this committee in its investigation and he starts his attack by just cleverly casting doubts on the work to be done. As time goes on he probably will gain in courage and keep suggesting more and more baleful results from this inquiry.

The announcement is made of President Eisenhower's choices as this country's representatives at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II on June 2. They seem excellent choices and I am particularly delighted that General George C. Marshall will head the group.

Will this serve notice on Senators McCarthy and Jenner that the President does not agree with the opinions they have apparently held in the past about General Marshall's services to the nation?

I had a good example the other day while talking to a gentleman of how inaccurate our memories are. He told me that while he distinctly held the impression that these two Senators had made unfounded attacks on various Americans he could not remember specific things that had been said by them.

That is a natural characteristic of ours as a nation. We get impressions and then promptly forget how we attained them. But I find one of the best ways to refresh one's memory is to keep a file of the Congressional Record and refer to it now and then. One can always find the Senators' original statements and then frequently the modification of those statements.

E. R.

(WORLD COPYRIGHT, 1953, BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC. REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART PROHIBITED.)


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  • Miami Beach (Fla., United States) [ index ]


About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, March 14, 1953

Roosevelt, Eleanor, 1884-1962
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Digital edition created by The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project The George Washington University 312 Academic Building 2100 Foxhall Road, NW Washington, DC 20007

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MEP edition publlished on June 30, 2008.

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Transcription created from a photocopy of a UFS wire copy of a My Day column instance archived at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library.
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