Dinner with the President (1953)

Broadcast from the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C., this program contains live coverage of the dinner marking the fortieth anniversary of the B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation League. Highlights include the following: dramatic readings by Thelma Ritter, Rex Harrison, and Lilli Palmer; songs from Eddie Fisher, Jane Froman, William Warfield, and Ethel Merman; the introduction of broadcasting leaders David Sarnoff, Leonard Goldenson, and William Paley; comedy with Vivian Vance, William Frawley, Lucille Ball, and Desi Arnaz; breakthroughs in freedom with Jackie Robinson; spoken tributes by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein; Helen Hayes as Harriet Beecher Stowe, who speaks; and a speech by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, recipient of the League's Democratic Legacy Award. Eisenhower, speaking of his pride in America, stresses that there must be no weakening of the codes by which Americans live. He says that the rights to worship as we please and to meet our accusers face to face are rights all Americans must work to preserve.