Exchange of Messages Between the President and President Coty of France on the Postponement of His Visit to the United States.
[Released May 31, 1957. Dated May 27, 1957]
My dear Mr. President,
I have received your communication telling me that it will not be possible for you to come for your visit at the beginning of June. I want you to know that Mrs. Eisenhower and I were looking forward to the pleasure of welcoming you to this country and we very much regret that your trip cannot be made at this time. We sincerely hope it may be possible for you to make the visit at a later date.
Please accept, Mr. President, the assurances of my highest esteem.
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER
Note: President Coty's message of May 24, 1957, follows:
My dear President:
It would have been a great joy for me to answer your kind invitation and to bring personally to you and to the United States affectionate greetings from France. That is why, up to the last moment, I could not resign myself to postpone a visit which I believed useful to the friendship between our two countries. But today I feel too uncertain as to the date when a new government may begin its work, to run the risk for myself, and especially for you, of a postponement at the last hour, without lacking in courtesy to you, my dear President, and to those who are getting ready to welcome me. For this reason I find myself obliged today to ask for your permission to postpone a project so close to my heart.
I am sure that thanks to your understanding you will be good enough to excuse this change of plan that all my compatriots and myself deplore.
Would you allow me to express the ardent wish to find soon another opportunity to formally reaffirm the friendship linking our two Republics and the feeling of gratitude that France maintains for her liberator?
Please accept, my dear President, the expression of my feeling of sincere and cordial friendship.
RENE COTY
Dwight D. Eisenhower, Exchange of Messages Between the President and President Coty of France on the Postponement of His Visit to the United States. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/233175