Copyright © 2000. Eisenhower Papers Project. All rights reserved.

Aids to Reading the Documents

In order to focus on Eisenhower the man, rather than the offices he headed, the project editing the Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower decided to select papers for inclusion in our collection on the basis of the degree of Eisenhower's own involvement. Incoming letters and cables--that is, those sent to Eisenhower--were not published. They were, however, summarized and quoted in our annotations. Staff-drafted papers, sent out over Eisenhower's signature but without much participation on his part, were also excluded. We did not publish most routine communications, such as the many letters that our subject sent thanking correspondents for gifts or expressions of opinion. Similarly, we included only a few letters accepting or declining invitations. We did, however, decide to include personal as well as official correspondence; private, personal letters often have public-policy implications. From the letters published in this mini-edition, for example, knowledgeable readers will note that most of Eisenhower's closest friends played roles in the General's political, academic, or military careers.

The only changes made to the text of Eisenhower's letters, diary entries, and cables involved the correction of typographical errors. Since Eisenhower's secretaries normally typed the final versions from drafts that he personally dictated or had prepared for him, these errors were attributable to persons other than the General. Furthermore, many typos were corrected before the messages were mailed or delivered. We left errors involving the spelling of proper names alone; the correct spelling is given in the notes. Grammar and punctuation have not been altered. Any doubtful words have been placed in brackets. When someone other than the General drafted a document, this fact was mentioned in the accompanying annotation. A superscript zero (0) immediately following the salutation indicated that we were unable to determine the drafter.

The documents are presented in chronological order and, in this mini-edition, are numbered from 1 to 98. If more than one document for a given date is published, they are printed in the order in which they were sent. If this order could not be determined, they appear roughly in order of importance. The internal cross references ("see numbers") in the annotations, if made to documents numbered higher than 98, refer to other items published in volumes 11 and 12 of The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, a set entitled NATO and the Campaign of 1952. These volumes were originally published in letterpress in 1989.

Textual Conventions

Capitalization, spelling, punctuation, abbreviations and contractions are normally retained. Superscripts are retained.
Underlined words are retained.
Text has justified left and right margins.

Abbreviations Used

 

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