posted on May, 26 2015 @ 08:31 AM
US Air Force
Vietnam Veteran
I sometimes look at my military uniform and ask "why", but in the back of my thoughts, I feel I know why.
Military-Industrial Complex Speech, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961
Public Papers of the Presidents, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1960, p. 1035- 1040
My fellow Americans:
Three days from now, after half a century in the service of our country, I shall lay down the responsibilities of office as, in traditional and solemn
ceremony, the authority of the Presidency is vested in my successor.
This evening I come to you with a message of leave-taking and farewell, and to share a few final thoughts with you, my countrymen.
Like every other citizen, I wish the new President, and all who will labor with him, Godspeed. I pray that the coming years will be blessed with peace
and prosperity for all.
Our people expect their President and the Congress to find essential agreement on issues of great moment, the wise resolution of which will better
shape the future of the Nation.
My own relations with the Congress, which began on a remote and tenuous basis when, long ago, a member of the Senate appointed me to West Point, have
since ranged to the intimate during the war and immediate post-war period, and, finally, to the mutually interdependent during these past eight
years.
In this final relationship, the Congress and the Administration have, on most vital issues, cooperated well, to serve the national good rather than
mere partisanship, and so have assured that the business of the Nation should go forward. So, my official relationship with the Congress ends in a
feeling, on my part, of gratitude that we have been able to do so much together.
II.
We now stand ten years past the midpoint of a century that has witnessed four major wars among great nations. Three of these involved our own country.
Despite these holocausts America is today the strongest, the most influential and most productive nation in the world. Understandably proud of this
pre-eminence, we yet realize that America's leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches and military
strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment.
III.
Throughout America's adventure in free government, our basic purposes have been to keep the peace; to foster progress in human achievement, and to
enhance liberty, dignity and integrity among people and among nations. To strive for less would be unworthy of a free and religious people. Any
failure traceable to arrogance, or our lack of comprehension or readiness to sacrifice would inflict upon us grievous hurt both at home and abroad.
Progress toward these noble goals is persistently threatened by the conflict now engulfing the world. It commands our whole attention, absorbs our
very beings. We face a hostile ideology -- global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method. Unhappily the danger
is poses promises to be of indefinite duration. To meet it successfully, there is called for, not so much the emotional and transitory sacrifices of
crisis, but rather those which enable us to carry forward steadily, surely, and without complaint the burdens of a prolonged and complex struggle --
with liberty the stake. Only thus shall we remain, despite every provocation, on our charted course toward permanent peace and human betterment.
Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some
spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties. A huge increase in newer elements of our defense;
development of unrealistic programs to cure every ill in agriculture; a dramatic expansion in basic and applied research -- these and many other
possibilities, each possibly promising in itself, may be suggested as the only way to the road we wish to travel.
But each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs -- balance
between the private and the public economy, balance between cost and hoped for advantage -- balance between the clearly necessary and the comfortably
desirable; balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties imposed by the nation upon the individual; balance between actions of
the moment and the national welfare of the future. Good judgment seeks balance and progress; lack of it eventually finds imbalance and frustration.
The record of many decades stands as proof that our people and their government have, in the main, understood these truths and have responded to them
well, in the face of stress and threat. But threats, new in kind or degree, constantly arise. I mention two only.
IV.
A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor
may be tempted to risk his own destruction.
Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War
II or Korea.
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required,
make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments
industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually
spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic,
political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for
this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very
structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial
complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and
knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so
that security and liberty may prosper together.
Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent
decades.
In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for,
by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the
same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct
of research. Partly because of the huge costs involve