Nixon Richard
Nixon Thanks Financier Jack Dreyfus "for helping me to rediscover Mark Twain and to understand that he was a profound philosopher as well as a great story teller"



Typed Letter Signed "Dick," 1 page, 7.25" x 10.5". New York, December 30, 1983. On his personal 26 Federal Plaza letterhead. To financier Jack Dreyfus. Handwritten salutation "Dear Jack," Fine condition.





In full, "I am again in your debt for helping me to rediscover Mark Twain and to understand that he was a profound philosopher as well as a great story teller. I admire your tenacity on Dilantin. As Elmer Bobst used to tell me, the medical profession is the most prejudicial and hidebound of all when it comes to new treatments they have not discovered. Pat joins me in sending our best wishes for the New Year."





Dilantin was manufactured in the laboratories of Warner-Lambert, whose president, Elmer Bobst was one of Nixon's closest friends, as was Jack Dreyfus. Dilantin is an anti-epileptic drug, but Dreyfus found that it cured his depression.




Financier Jack Dreyfus (1913-2009) was the founder of the Dreyfus Fund. In 1964, Life magazine called him the “Maverick Wizard Behind the Wall Street Lion,” in reference to the emblem of his fund and its aggressive marketing. Dreyfus, it said, was “the most singular and effective personality to appear in Wall Street since the days of Joseph Kennedy and Bernard Baruch.” His paternal grandfather was a first cousin of Alfred Dreyfus, the protagonist of the late 19th-century anti-Semitic scandal known as the Dreyfus Affair.





In 1961, Nixon opened his first brokerage account with Dreyfus & Co. In 1970, Jack Dreyfus had sold his mutual fund company and established the Dreyfus Health Foundation to pursue other medical applications for Dilantin which had cured his depression in the 1960s. In 2000, Dreyfus said that an account in The Arrogance of Power: The Secret World of Richard Nixon by Anthony Summers (New York: Viking, 2000) that he gave Dilantin to Richard Nixon in 1968 was correct. Dreyfus said he gave Nixon a bottle of 1,000 capsules of 100 milligrams each ''when his mood wasn't too good,'' and later gave him another bottle of 1,000 capsules.





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