Eisenhower's Farewell Address to the Nation

Eisenhower's Farewell Address to the Nation
SOURCE:

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 leader-
ship 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. 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.

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. 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.

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.
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.

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.

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