Eisenhower's
Farewell Address to the Nation
January
17, 1961
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 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 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 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 Statehouse, 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.
Am 17.
Januar 1961 in seiner Abschieds Rede
… 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.
(D)… Wir
müssen die Gremien unserer Regierung gegen die unberechtigte Einflußnahme durch
den militärisch-industriellen Komplex schützen. Das Potential für eine
verhängnisvolle Zunahme unberechtigter Macht existiert und besteht fort. Wir
dürfen unsere Freiheiten und demokratischen Gepflogenheiten niemals durch
diesen Einfluß gefährden lassen. Wir sollten nichts als selbstverständlich
betrachten. Nur wachsame und informierte Bürger können ein angemessenes
Zusammenwirken dieser riesigen industriellen und militärischen Maschinerie mit
unse-ren friedlichen Methoden und Absichten herbeiführen, so daß Sicherheit und
Freiheit zusammen gedeihen.
Wer in
einer Demokratie einschläft, muß damit rechnen, in einer Diktatur aufzuwachen!
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