[Released June 14, 1958. Dated May 12, 1958]
Dear Dr. Lleras:
I am pleased that Vice President Nixon is having the opportunity to visit Colombia and to discuss with you and other Colombian leaders matters of mutual interest to our countries. Undoubtedly such exchanges of views will serve to strengthen further the long and dose ties of friendship and cooperation that have linked the United States and Colombia.
The recent expression of popular will in Colombia is gratifying to the world as indicative of the return of Colombia to constitutional processes of government, and your election as President of Colombia is heartening to all of us who cherish democratic political institutions.
I am happy to take advantage of Vice President Nixon's presence in Bogota to extend through him my warm greetings to you and my best wishes for the success of your administration.
Sincerely,
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER
Note: Dr. Lleras Camargo's letter of May 17 follows:
Dear Mr. President:
On his recent, most welcome visit to Colombia, Vice President Nixon gave me Your Excellency's message, which I appreciated very much.
It was particularly gratifying to me to have the opportunity to discuss with Vice President Nixon all the matters of common interest to the United States of America and Colombia. The Vice President has a very clear concept of the possibilities and future developments in the field of cooperation between our two countries and an accurate understanding of the problems concerning the relations between his country and the nations south of the Rio Grande. I was delighted to find that I am in complete agreement with Mr. Nixon concerning the most effective means of increasing and utilizing the bonds of cooperation existing between our countries.
I wish to avail myself of this opportunity to inform Your Excellency that the Colombian people and their Government have a very pleasant memory of the visit of Vice President Nixon, for they not only saw in him a representative of the Government of the United States and Your Excellency's personal representative, but also found that he possessed a great spirit of understanding and an accurate appreciation of the problems of our countries that are now being developed.
As Your Excellency states in his generous message, Colombia's return to the constitutional processes of government will undoubtedly facilitate cooperation between nations that love democratic political institutions, and in particular I hope that the new Government of Colombia, following the tradition of all its previous governments, will maintain with the United States the closest possible relations, founded on the similarity of the political principles upheld by their peoples and embodied in their institutions.
Thanking Your Excellency for your good wishes for the success of my administration, I express to you my own wishes for Your Excellency's personal happiness, together with my admiration and friendship.
Yours very sincerely,
ALBERTO LLERAS
Dwight D. Eisenhower, Exchange of Letters Between the President and the President-Elect of Colombia. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/233578