Eisenhower’s Farewell Address | A Warning for the Future
As we peer into society’s future, we—you and I, and your 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.
- President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Farewell Address, 1961 -
The president sat at his desk in the Oval Office as technicians scurried about setting up lights and cameras. He looked down at the speech, his last to the nation he had served for almost a half-century, and his thoughts no doubt turned to the tumultuous events of his life. Two world wars, nations devastated and then reborn, and the constant menace of a new enemy armed with terrible weapons. But perhaps he also thought of the advancements he had witnessed: economic revival and a new standard of living, an unpopular war imperfectly ended, and a world still thriving despite the threat of atomic devastation. His long life was nearing its end, and America’s oldest president would soon hand power to the youngest ever elected. Change was upon the country, and its people deserved one last message from a man who had led it through many dangers. He took a breath and began to speak. “Good evening, my fellow Americans.”
Dwight David Eisenhower served his country in and out of uniform for more than four decades. His life, like that of his entire generation, witnessed the greatest transformation of human society in its long history. He was born only ten years after Thomas Edison had patented the incandescent lightbulb and was only three when America’s first automobile took to the streets. On his death in 1969, most homes in the United States had electric appliances, and NASA was only months away from landing a man on the moon. Eisenhower’s military career earned him near-universal praise, especially his leadership of Allied forces in Europe during the Second World War. He won two landslide elections to the presidency that ended the opposing party’s twenty-year hold of the nation’s highest office, and most presidential historians credit his eight years as a time of unparalleled prosperity and, for the most part, peace.
But as the nation entered a new decade, the winds of change began to blow. The postwar “baby boom” was nearing its end, and many young Americans believed it was time for the country to move past the ideals of patriotism and national sacrifice that had dominated society since the Great Depression. Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts had inspired millions of young people in the 1960 presidential campaign with his youthful optimism and message of a “new frontier” for America. He’d won a close election against Eisenhower’s vice president, Richard Nixon, who had conceded defeat graciously despite widespread accusations of voting irregularities in several states.
President Eisenhower was concerned about several recent trends in American government. Before leaving the White House to his successor, he wanted to give his countrymen one final warning in a televised “farewell address” from the Oval Office. He began by wishing President-elect Kennedy good fortune in office, asked the leaders of both political parties to work together in a bipartisan manner, and reminded the American people of the trials they had witnessed and overcome in the last eight years. His message was one of faith in the American spirit and confidence that the coming new generation of leaders would preserve the nation. He then offered two warnings to the nation that, some later observers believed, were little short of prophetic.
The Military-Industrial Complex
For the first 150 years of its history, the United States had no real armaments industry. Some small and large arms manufacturers could trace their history back to before the Civil War, but they operated as individual firms without any centralized direction. However, the stresses of two world wars and some unimaginable increases in demand for weaponry had given the federal government the chance to subsidize, regulate, and direct America’s growing arms industry. From firearms manufacturers like Springfield and Winchester to vehicle factories owned by General Motors and Boeing, the Department of War poured billions of dollars into these companies to arm and equip soldiers defending freedom on battlefields around the world.
President Eisenhower applauded these developments up to a point and wielded their products with great skill during the Second World War. But as the Cold War with the Soviet Union heated up in the late 1940s, he became concerned as members of Congress from both political parties began taking campaign donations from large firms within what he called America’s “defense establishment.” He also worried that the country was spending billions of dollars each year to enhance its security—more, as he put it in his farewell address, “than the net income of all United States corporations.”
So what was to be done? The president’s answer has become the most often-quoted passage of his speech. “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.”
Despite what some critics said, both at the time and in later years, President Eisenhower was not spinning an unsubstantiated “what if” scenario. He, and the world, had seen a country fall victim to the power of a military-industrial complex quite recently. During the 1930s, business magnates in Germany poured vast sums of money into the National Socialist Party. Adolf Hitler’s promise of war to rectify the injustices done to Germany at Versailles meant millions in profit for men like Gustav von Krupp and Fritz Thyssen. These men, and the firms they led, rearmed Hitler’s military and reaped huge financial rewards as a result. (For more on the German industrialists’ ties to the Nazis, you ought to check out of episode “The Arms of Krupp.”) The Allied Powers had defeated the German military-industrial complex in 1945 at tremendous cost, and President Eisenhower hoped the American people would recognize a reemergence of fascist corporatism if ever it reared its evil head, and that they would heed this warning and watch over their own military-industrial complex very closely.
A Scientific-Technological Elite
During the 1950s, the United States had leaped past most of its competitors abroad in scientific research and innovation. Homes hummed with refrigerators and electric ovens; automobiles filled the country’s new national highway system (built at great expense by the federal government); and military scientists were hard at work making larger and deadlier nuclear warheads. Again, President Eisenhower acknowledged the importance of these advances and paid tribute to their (mostly) positive impact on American life. But the president remained wary as the nation’s leaders gave huge sums of money to research institutes instead of relying on, as he put it, “the solitary inventor tinkering in his shop.” As with the military-industrial complex, he worried that government-funded science might lead to a weakening of America’s democratic institutions.
Eisenhower’s words on this subject were less rooted in recent history than they were a speculation on the future. “For every old blackboard [at a research university] 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 goal of our free society.
Looking Ahead
If you’re eyeing your device and wondering if I’m about to get political, be at ease. Joe and I might discuss some recent events next week—and we’d love to get your questions and comments as well. But let’s let history be our guide and examine just a few moments after Eisenhower’s speech in 1961 to see whether or not his words of warning had any merit.
Let’s start with the military-industrial complex. Do arms manufacturers wield considerable influence in our government? Absolutely—every corporation does, and has for decades. Is this good for our country? Ask me next week. Do defense companies fund the campaigns of politicians who want more defense spending? Yes—it’s in their interest. Study after study from non-partisan groups like the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute proves that defense contractors’ profits rise in direct proportion to the number of U.S. soldiers and pieces of equipment deployed to war zones anywhere in the world. Does this benefit our security? Sometimes—you can ask me for specifics if you want next week. Are there examples of abuses of power in the defense contractor system? Do you even have to ask? Companies overcharge the Defense Department for billions of dollars each year, and few members of Congress or bureaucrats take note of these up-charges. And, sadly, the facts show that it gets much worse.
In 1971, the “Pentagon Papers” revealed that defense companies were part of the national push for war in Vietnam after the (CIA-manufactured) Gulf of Tonkin Incident seven years earlier. Both President Lyndon Johnson and his successor, Richard Nixon, received huge campaign contributions from these firms and ramped up both the war and their contributors’ profits. The same was true in the George W. Bush administration before the 2003 invasion of Iraq (as proved in the “Iraqi Papers” published in 2009). The political aspects of these wars and whether they were or were not necessary to protect the United States is best left to our discussion next week, and any ill feelings toward business or elected leaders involved ought never trickle down to the men and women who fought in them. But these revelations and many others—the Ukraine war, the first Persian Gulf War, Granada, Afghanistan, Iran-Contra, and even the recently-revealed CIA role in, shall we say, an event that took place in Dallas, TX, in November 1963—all point to increasing influence of the military-industrial complex in national security and foreign policy. Whether such influence is warranted or not is up to American voters.
Which leads us nicely to another point President Eisenhower made, that of an alert and knowledgeable citizenry. Does the military-industrial complex pose a threat to a free society and democratic institutions as the president suggested? Honestly, that depends on your political perspective. History shows that the party in the White House has tended to be more pro-defenses industry since the end of World War Two, while those out of power often point out instances of waste, fraud, and abuse. But whether you wear a MAGA hat or voted for Bernie Sanders, you should at least inform yourself of who is funding the men and women for whom you vote. Here in the United States, campaign contributions are public information by law, and the same is true in most open and developed societies around the world (many of whom have their own military-industrial complexes). It may take some digging to find out how much money a presidential candidate or your local member of Congress received from defense contractors, and you’ll probably have to look at SuperPACs and other outside groups that support them as well. But if this issue matters to you, I’d suggest it’s worth your time.
And what about a federally-funded scientific and technological elite? Does it exist? Definitely. Every major technological or scientific advancement of the last 75 years, from the invention of velcro and the Internet to the human genome project and electric vehicles was funded at least in part by American taxpayers. To cite just one specific example, one of the world’s wealthiest men, Elon Musk, depends on federal subsidies paid to Tesla for a large part of his fortune. Are these payments beneficial? Usually, the technology and inventions they produced often improve all our lives (though I’m less and less convinced of the Internet and social media’s benefits). Have there been abuses? Again, the answer is obvious. Plenty of research and technology firms get government grants after kicking some money to political campaigns. We have certainly seen an increase in such funding in the last couple of decades, and again, voters have the right and responsibility to check funding disclosures and budget statements in Congress if they care about this.
The last question to consider is whether or not this scientific-technological elite poses a threat to democracy. Again, that depends on your political views, and if you’re reaching for your device, hold up and wait a minute. I won’t mention anything that’s been in the news recently that rhymes with “Schmovid” or “schmensorship”—I promise. I’ll just offer you two historical points to wrap this up. First, the scientists who developed nuclear weapons became the most fervent opponents of their use. Several, including J. Robert Oppenheimer himself, believed authoritarian rulers would use these weapons to suppress democratic movements in their countries. History certainly bears this out; China, Russia, and Pakistan have all languished under dictators at times who used the fear of nuclear war to stay in power. So the fruits of government-backed science and technology can sometimes be used for terrible purposes. Second, remember that “the science” once taught Americans that people with different skin colors were not humans and told Germans that Jews deserved death in concentration camps. Science is always changing, and ever-evolving as we discover more and more about our wonderful world. But merging it with public policy, even with the best of intentions, does not always enhance liberty or protect democracy.
This season is about heroes, and President Dwight Eisenhower certainly earned that title. He led Allied soldiers to victory in humanity’s deadliest war, crushed a tyranny that dehumanized and murdered millions and kept his country safe and prosperous in uncertain times. As we’ve shown many times this season, heroes often stand up and warn their fellows of coming danger, and those who take heed might be mocked or derided. But I believe, and I’d like to think that Eisenhower would agree, that a nation of watchful citizens, law-abiding but ever-vigilant, is a nation filled with heroes. That is what Dwight Eisenhower hoped America, and all free nations, would be.
