President Eisenhower’s Diary Notes on His Meeting with Governor Orval Faubus over Little Rock (1957)

Date: October 8, 1957

Created By: Dwight D. Eisenhower

Original or Replica: Original

Era: The Presidency, Civil Rights

Collection: Eisenhower Presidential Library

Citations: DDE’s Papers as President, Administration Series, Box 23, Little Rock Ark (2); NAID #186622

This document consists of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s dictated diary notes, recorded on October 8, 1957, recounting his private meeting with Governor Orval E. Faubus of Arkansas at the U.S. Naval Base in Newport, Rhode Island, on September 14, 1957. Created several weeks after the meeting and shortly after the federal intervention in Little Rock, the diary provides Eisenhower’s personal recollection of one of the most important conversations of the Little Rock Crisis.

In his account, President Eisenhower recalls urging Governor Faubus to withdraw the Arkansas National Guard’s obstruction of school integration while continuing to use the Guard to preserve law and order. Eisenhower explains that he assured the governor the federal government sought only to enforce the orders of the federal courts and had no intention of imposing additional measures beyond those already required by law. He also recounts warning Faubus that a confrontation between the State of Arkansas and the federal government could have only one legal outcome and expresses his belief that the governor left Newport intending to comply with the court’s desegregation orders. Eisenhower further reflects on Faubus’s repeated professions of loyalty to the Constitution and the federal government, noting that the governor appeared appreciative of the discussion before additional officials joined the meeting.