Enlightenment Untying Eisenhower's
Farewell Address 1961
President Dwight D. Eisenhower  Good evening, my fellow Americans:
First,
I should
like to express my
gratitude to the radio and television networks
for the opportunity they
have given me over the years to bring reports
and messages to our
nation. My special thanks go to them for the
opportunity of addressing you this
evening.
Three days from now, after a half
century
of 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 questions of great moment, the wise
resolution of which will
better shape the future of the nation.
My own relations with 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 nation well rather than
mere partisanship, and so have assured that the
business of the nation
should go forward. So my official relationship
with 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,
such basic
purposes have been to keep the peace; to foster
progress in human
achievement, and to enhance liberty, dignity
and integrity among peoples
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
a 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 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 the newer elements of our
defenses; development of unrealistic programs
to cure very 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.
Each proposal must be weighed in
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 the cost
and hoped for advantages-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 the
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 threat
and stress.
But threats, new in kind or degree,
constantly
arise.
Of these, 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 anyof 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
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 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 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, for our own ease and
convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow.
We cannot mortgage
the material assets of our grandchildren without
asking the loss also of
their political and spiritual heritage. We want
democracy to survive for
all generations to come, not to become the
insolvent
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
differences, 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 my 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 Nations' great
goals.
To all the peoples of the world, I
once
more give
expression to
America's prayerful and continuing aspiration:
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.
Now, on Friday noon, I am to become
a
private
citizen. I am proud to do so. I look
forward to it.
Thank you, and, good night.
"During the years of my Presidency,
and
especially
the latter
years, I began to feel more and more uneasiness
about the effect
on the nation of tremendous peacetime military
expenditures. [...]
The idea, then, of making a final address as President to the nation seemed to call on me to warn the nation, again, of the danger in these developments. I could think of no better way to emphasize this than to include a sobering message in what might otherwise have been a farewell of pleasantries." Dwight Eisenhower, memoirs
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Eisenhower's Farewell 1961 |
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