XPost: uk.politics.misc, alt.politics.british, alt.conspiracy.princess-diana   
   XPost: alt.conspiracy, alt.conspiracy.new-world-order, alt.america   
   XPost: us.politics   
   From: oO@oO.com   
      
   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   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)