56 Years Ago Today, Eisenhower Warned Americans Of “The Unwarranted Influence” Of The Deep State
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
Jan 17, 2017
In his farewell address to the nation 56 years ago, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned the American people for the first time to keep a careful eye on what he called the “military-industrial complex” that had developed in the post-World War II years. Fiscally conservative Eisenhower had been concerned about the growing size and cost of the American defense establishment since he became president in 1953, and as History.com notes, in his last presidential address to the American people, he expressed those concerns in terms that shocked many of his listeners.
Eisenhower began by describing the changing nature of the American defense establishment since World War II. No longer could the U.S. afford the “emergency improvisation” that characterized its preparations for war against Germany and Japan. Instead, the United States was “compelled to create a permanent armaments industry” and a huge military force. He admitted that the Cold War made clear the “imperative need for this development,” but he was gravely concerned about “the acquisition of unwarranted influence…by the military-industrial complex.” In particular, he asked the American people to guard against the “danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”
Eisenhower’s blunt language stunned some of his supporters. They believed that the man who led the country to victory in Europe in World War II and guided the nation through some of the darkest moments of the Cold War was too negative toward the military-industrial complex that was the backbone of America’s defense. For most listeners, however, it seemed clear that Eisenhower was merely stating the obvious. World War II and the ensuing Cold War resulted in the development of a large and powerful defense establishment. Necessary though that development might be, Eisenhower warned, this new military-industrial complex could weaken or destroy the very institutions and principles it was designed to protect.
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