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 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 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
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.
V.
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 insolvent
phantom of tomorrow.
VI.
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.
VII.
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 Nation's 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.
