An original Typed Letter signed in ink ‘Herbert Hoover’ to ‘My Dear Lewis’, on headed personal notepaper,

Please note that this lot is located in the USA. Clients from outside the US may want to consult the seller for shipping options before bidding. (24-056).

Lewis Lichtenstein STRAUSS (1896-1974, recipient). – President Herbert Clark HOOVER (1874-1964).

An original Typed Letter signed in ink ‘Herbert Hoover’ to ‘My Dear Lewis’, on headed personal notepaper, sent from the ‘Waldorf Astoria’ in New York City, dated ‘January 10, 1943’, asking that an unspecified passage from Strauss’s ‘friend’s history’ should be taken out ‘I don’t think I could stand for the paragraph I have marked … Can you bow me out? Otherwise, it is a fine record of accomplishment.’  Matted and framed large octavo sheet (visible area: 10 x 7 inches).

The 31^st President of the United States writes to his one-time personal assistant, private secretary and long-time friend and confidant. More controversially, in later life, Strauss led the effort which led to J. Robert Oppenheimer being stripped of his security clearance.

If the buyer wishes: a signed letter guaranteeing the authenticity of the letter and the signature can be provided. I have been authenticating, cataloguing, and valuing books and autograph material since 1978.

“Lewis Lichtenstein Strauss (January 31, 1896 – January 21, 1974) was an American government official, businessman, philanthropist, and naval officer. He was one of the original members of the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) in 1946, and he served as the commission's chairman in the 1950s. Strauss was a major figure in the development of nuclear weapons after World War II, nuclear energy policy, and nuclear power in the United States.

Raised in Richmond, Virginia, Strauss became an assistant to Herbert Hoover as part of the Commission for Relief in Belgium during World War I and the American Relief Administration after that. Strauss then worked as an investment banker at Kuhn, Loeb & Co. during the 1920s and 1930s, where he amassed considerable wealth. As a member of the executive committee of the American Jewish Committee and several other Jewish organizations in the 1930s, Strauss made several attempts to change U.S. policy in order to accept more refugees from Nazi Germany but was unsuccessful. He also came to know and fund some of the research of refugee nuclear physicist Leo Szilard. During World War II Strauss served as an officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve and rose to the rank of rear admiral due to his work in the Bureau of Ordnance in managing and rewarding plants engaged in production of munitions.

As a founding commissioner with the AEC during the early years of the Cold War, Strauss emphasized the need to protect U.S. atomic secrets and to monitor and stay ahead of atomic developments within the Soviet Union. Accordingly, he was a strong proponent of developing the hydrogen bomb. During his stint as chairman of the AEC, Strauss urged the development of peaceful uses of atomic energy, and he predicted that atomic power would make electricity "too cheap to meter". At the same time he downplayed the possible health effects of radioactive fallout such as that experienced by Pacific Islanders following the Castle Bravo thermonuclear test.

Strauss was the driving force behind the controversial hearings, held in April and May 1954 before an AEC Personnel Security Board, in which physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer's security clearance was revoked. As a result, Strauss has often been regarded as a villain in American history.  President Dwight D. Eisenhower's nomination of Strauss to become U.S. secretary of commerce resulted in a prolonged, public political battle in 1959 where Strauss was not confirmed by the U.S. Senate….”