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.
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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 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 scientifictechnological 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.
News flash:Ike warns of problem he caused!
Martin………Eisenhower and the growth of MIC was a direct result of Zeitgeist. You have to put yourself in their shoes in the 50’s.
Ike helped formulate the zeitgeist brother. The zeitgeist after each of the great wars caused the nextvwar. Korea doesnt happen without it, nor does vietnam. Ho chi minh asked for US help with the french if you recall. But zeitgeist. The red scare zeitgeist was created by and in sole benefit to the MIC. I had great high school history teachers. Ms Parisi, and Mr Gazzo. They would both appreciate this blog.
Ike didn’t cause the problem, WWII did.
I would agree ww2 set the stage, but the roots are older than ww1. But after ww2 ike drove the zeitgeist like a ferrari as our nations top general.
Ike didn’t become Pres until after Korea.
Ike did promote our military to have America ready – WW1 and WW2 revealed the US was woefully unprepared to engage any enemy militarily with trained, knowledgeable personnel, modern equipment, and technology.
There was no need for the US to join WWI and that was arguably true for WWII as well. If we did not have a base and naval fleet in Hawaii (not a state at the time it was bombed), perhaps the Japanese would have been happy establishing an unsustainable empire in their own half of the world. Indeed it would have been highly unlikely that they would have had any interest in bombing Hawaii (even with a base there) if Roosevelt had not first cut off their access to Indonesian/Malaysian oil) And they would not have dreamed of attempting to subjugate mainland USA. You see there may actually be something to this whole minding your own business thing.
Nice speech.
Pissing in the wind. Casting pearls before swine.
No one listened. No one gave a fuck.
Eisenhower did a great job warning against the inherent problems of a MIC, but he wrongly and openly supported the necessity of it. See here: “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.” He was a cold warrior through and through: See here: “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.” If anything this statement is extremely hyperbolic. We need to commit our entire being to combat an inherently flawed economic model that must eventually collapse under the weight of its own falsehood? Why not just do our liberty thing here in the US and patiently wait for their false paradigm to fail. Instead we gave away our country to the bankers and the arms industry (while sacrificing a few million souls and reaping billions for that same MIC) to fight a battle we were always going to win if we stood by our principles. And we were always going to win because our economic system was in line with nature and theirs was not. And nature always wins. If nothing else, I guess we can take comfort in that fact.
Mercy – try using paragraphs or why bother with periods, just run it all together.
c’mon man
Sorry about that. Please insert a virtual new paragraph after “development” and beginning with “He” 😉
Eisenhower’s comments need to be put in context. When Eisenhower left office the US defense budget was over HALF of all Federal spending. The old generat was decrying what he himself had BUILT during his presidency. It was HE who came up with the ‘NEW LOOK defense program and he left office with over 3 million MEN under arms in a nation of 180 million and Vietnam hadn’t even started!
It is sad to read this blubbering old man’s comments since he was clearly losing his mind!
The man was a respected general that became president. He clearly had done more than most, so it seems unfair to call him a blubbering old man. What’s your resume?
Eisernhower was great man but every dog has his day and Ike’s was over by the end of his presidency. He was in ill health by then suffering from heart disease and other health problems.
My point was Ike built the MIC. Knowing it would be politically impossible to field large enough ground forces to match the USSR in Europe Ike sought to leverage American technological and industrial power to counter Soviet manpower advantages. Thus we got the Century fighter series, hundreds of B-52’s, B=58’s, U-2s, nuclear submarines and the big deck carriers. The only area he neglected was ICBMs though the US was building the Polaris SLBM system which was the better weapon but Kennedy ran on the ‘missile gap’ and the USSR did gain the lead in space because they had bigger rockets