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09/11/2003

A Warning From Ike

I was reading a recent Business Week article on the brewing
controversy over replacing soldiers with private contractors, one of
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s pet projects – part of
the overall downsizing of the American military.

Of course with the developments of the past few months in Iraq,
one could argue, as I have elsewhere on this site, that downsizing
is the last thing we need to be doing right now, particularly with
resolution of the North Korean situation still up in the air, and
with our reserve forces already severely overstretched.

It was President Eisenhower, though, who warned of the dangers
in dealing with the military – industrial complex as part of his
farewell address to the American people. In reading it, I’m sure
you’ll agree it’s an extraordinary statement of purpose, and has
particular import for today. He used words like “integrity,”
“dignity,” “insolence,” and “greed,” and warned of “arrogance”
in our dealings on the foreign policy front. This is a speech that
should be read by all policy-makers in Washington.

---

President Dwight D. Eisenhower, January 17, 1961

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
andtenuous 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.

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.

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 it 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 at 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 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 action 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.

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 peace time, 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 military-industrial 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 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 involved, a
government contract becomes virtually a substitute for
intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now
hundreds of new electronic computers.

The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal
employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever
present and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we
should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger
that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-
technological elite.

It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to
integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the
principles of our democratic system-ever aiming toward the
supreme goals of our free society.

Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of
time. As we peer into society’s future, we – you and I, and our
government-must avoid the impulse to live only for today,
plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious
resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets
of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their
political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive
for all generations to come, not to become the insolent phantom
of tomorrow.

Down the long lane of the history yet to be written, America
knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid
becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead,
a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.

Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must
come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we,
protected as we are by our moral, economic, and military
strength. That table, though scarred by many past frustrations,
cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of the battlefield.

Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing
imperative. Together we must learn how to compose difference,
not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose. Because
this need is so sharp and apparent I confess that I lay down my
official responsibilities in this field with a definite sense of
disappointment. As one who has witnessed the horror and the
lingering sadness of war – as one who knows that another war
could utterly destroy this civilization which has been so slowly
and painfully built over thousands of years – I wish I could say
tonight that a lasting peace is in sight.

Happily, I can say that war has been avoided. Steady progress
toward our ultimate goal has been made. But, so much remains
to be done. As a private citizen, I shall never cease to do what
little I can to help the world advance along that road.

So – in this last good night to you as your President – I thank you
for the many opportunities you have given me for public service
in war and peace. I trust that in that service you find some things
worthy; as for the rest of it, I know you will find ways to
improve performance in the future.

You and I – my fellow citizens – need to be strong in our faith
that all nations, under God, will reach the goal of peace with
justice. May we be ever unswerving in devotion to principle,
confident but humble with power, diligent in pursuit of the
Nation’s great goals.

To all the peoples of the world, I once more give expression to
America’s prayerful and continuing inspiration:

We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have
their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied
opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn
for freedom may experience its spiritual blessings; that those
who have freedom will understand, also, its heavy
responsibilities; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others
will learn charity; that the scourges of poverty, disease and
ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth, and that, in
the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a
peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and
love.

---

Hott Spotts will return September 25.

Brian Trumbore


AddThis Feed Button

 

-09/11/2003-      
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Hot Spots

09/11/2003

A Warning From Ike

I was reading a recent Business Week article on the brewing
controversy over replacing soldiers with private contractors, one of
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s pet projects – part of
the overall downsizing of the American military.

Of course with the developments of the past few months in Iraq,
one could argue, as I have elsewhere on this site, that downsizing
is the last thing we need to be doing right now, particularly with
resolution of the North Korean situation still up in the air, and
with our reserve forces already severely overstretched.

It was President Eisenhower, though, who warned of the dangers
in dealing with the military – industrial complex as part of his
farewell address to the American people. In reading it, I’m sure
you’ll agree it’s an extraordinary statement of purpose, and has
particular import for today. He used words like “integrity,”
“dignity,” “insolence,” and “greed,” and warned of “arrogance”
in our dealings on the foreign policy front. This is a speech that
should be read by all policy-makers in Washington.

---

President Dwight D. Eisenhower, January 17, 1961

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
andtenuous 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.

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.

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 it 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 at 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 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 action 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.

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 peace time, 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 military-industrial 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 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 involved, a
government contract becomes virtually a substitute for
intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now
hundreds of new electronic computers.

The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal
employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever
present and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we
should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger
that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-
technological elite.

It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to
integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the
principles of our democratic system-ever aiming toward the
supreme goals of our free society.

Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of
time. As we peer into society’s future, we – you and I, and our
government-must avoid the impulse to live only for today,
plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious
resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets
of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their
political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive
for all generations to come, not to become the insolent phantom
of tomorrow.

Down the long lane of the history yet to be written, America
knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid
becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead,
a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.

Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must
come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we,
protected as we are by our moral, economic, and military
strength. That table, though scarred by many past frustrations,
cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of the battlefield.

Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing
imperative. Together we must learn how to compose difference,
not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose. Because
this need is so sharp and apparent I confess that I lay down my
official responsibilities in this field with a definite sense of
disappointment. As one who has witnessed the horror and the
lingering sadness of war – as one who knows that another war
could utterly destroy this civilization which has been so slowly
and painfully built over thousands of years – I wish I could say
tonight that a lasting peace is in sight.

Happily, I can say that war has been avoided. Steady progress
toward our ultimate goal has been made. But, so much remains
to be done. As a private citizen, I shall never cease to do what
little I can to help the world advance along that road.

So – in this last good night to you as your President – I thank you
for the many opportunities you have given me for public service
in war and peace. I trust that in that service you find some things
worthy; as for the rest of it, I know you will find ways to
improve performance in the future.

You and I – my fellow citizens – need to be strong in our faith
that all nations, under God, will reach the goal of peace with
justice. May we be ever unswerving in devotion to principle,
confident but humble with power, diligent in pursuit of the
Nation’s great goals.

To all the peoples of the world, I once more give expression to
America’s prayerful and continuing inspiration:

We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have
their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied
opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn
for freedom may experience its spiritual blessings; that those
who have freedom will understand, also, its heavy
responsibilities; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others
will learn charity; that the scourges of poverty, disease and
ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth, and that, in
the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a
peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and
love.

---

Hott Spotts will return September 25.

Brian Trumbore