Society

Fifty years ago General Dwight D. Eisenhower  delivered his farewell address to the nation on the eve of his leaving office as President of the United States, having served his country since entering the U.S. Military Academy as a cadet while still in his teens.  After a lifetime of service, in war and in peace, he wanted to share his final thoughts on what he had learned, and what he felt was important for the nation to understand as it looked forward to a new era in America.

Historians and political activists alike have focused on his concern over the growing “military industrial complex” that was becoming – and now has become – a permanent fixture in the political, military and business life of America.  By defining a “Cold War” as war, America had (for the first time) de facto defined the United States as a nation permanently at war, something about which the President was deeply concerned.  (More about that later.)

However, there was much more to this address than just that issue that deserves to be understood by every young American and citizen of the world today.  It is less than 2,000 words (remarkable in and of itself for a politician), and yet it shows understanding beyond observation, and wisdom beyond knowledge.

His speech was essentially spiritual in nature.  The President referred ten times to God, prayer, and spiritual purpose.  These flowed freely from his recognition that freedom, peace and prosperity are, at their root, spiritual concepts.  His very first thoughts were that he “pray[ed] that the coming years will be blessed with peace and prosperity for all.”  Unfortunately, what we have witnessed in the half-century since then, is that the same human elements of greed, unrighteous  exercise of power, and selfishness (that the great General witnessed and feared) have not left the hearts of men since his passing, but instead seem to have intensified.

Having urged the political leaders to “serve the national good rather than mere partisanship, and so [assure] that the business of the Nation should go forward,” the President then directed America to recognize that despite the holocausts that the world had witnessed in the 1930s and 1940s, that

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.

To the President, the critical issue was the use of power for good, and that “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” and that “to strive for less would be unworthy of a free and religious people.”

He reminded the nation that there would always be crises (“whether foreign or domestic”), and that the temptation would always be to enact some new “spectacular and costly action” intended to provide a “miraculous solution . . . as the only way to the road we wish to travel. ”  And, with this reminder, he observed 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.

For many of us, in spite of the President’s warning, this balance seems to have been lost somewhere along the way as greater and greater demands get placed at the feet of a national political establishment only too eager to please, with little regard for the long-term consequences to our children and grandchildren.  The President warned that America

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.

Economic servitude to past and present excesses is still slavery to those who have to pay for it, even when incurred by loved ones and parents: the debt will be paid by the innocent one way or another.

  The question of how our using bad judgment (using General Eisenhower’s phrase), which is bringing about “imbalance and frustration” will be viewed by our grandchildren into whose hands we are placing the economic consequences of our “actions of the moment” over their “national welfare of the future,” is one I hoped never to have witnessed.

President Eisenhower then turned to the military, where he had spent his life rising from West Point cadet to General of the Army (“five star general”).  He began by stating what should have been obvious then, and should be obvious now: “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.”  Yet he lamented that “we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions” where

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.

As subsequent history has shown, not only ‘if we build it they will come’ (as in the movie Field of Dreams), but also if we build it, we will find wars to fight with it.  And, so we have.  Just as he predicted, “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.”  And, the intervening years have proven this prophetic.  His warning then is just as valid today:

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.

More and more Americans are asking whether our military is protecting America in the world, or whether we are protecting our access to oil from hostile powers.  And, while finding answers is murky and confusing, what is apparent to most of us is that our attention should be focused on a strategic policy to expand our energy independence – if only for national security reasons – so that our military policy will never be driven by any motive other than to “provide for the common defense.”

What has largely been ignored in this debate over the President’s address, however, was his equal concern over the rise of a technological revolution creating a new intellectual elite replacing “the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, [which] has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research.”  The result has been

partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract [has become] 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.

Shimon Peres, at the time Foreign Minister in the Israeli government, wisely observed in 1992 that “the minute people come to terms with reality they will begin to understand the limitations to imagination.  The great thing about imagination is that you don’t have to budget it.” ⁽ⁱⁱ⁾  President Eisenhower’s concern over who would pay for this costly research, and what the price of that research would be in terms of dollars and intellectual independence, can be seen today in almost every facet of university life.  Few universities today could survive without the federal government in their lives and checkbooks.

Equally, his concern was

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.

Looking back upon the years since his address, the dominance of science and technology over moral values and spiritually based decisions by those in positions of leadership is both remarkable and troubling; and, the consequences of an increasingly secular society are becoming more evident with the rise of family defeating values.

  Our nation’s worship at the alter of technology and at the feet of technological gurus in the media, information systems, and toys of convenience, have overtaken our worship in churches, synagogues and mosques; and have silenced the common religious values that America has always projected into the world.

This is reminiscent of the observation by great Christian scholar, Frederic Farrar, in his work The Life of Christ, when he shared lessons learned from Jesus’ years in obscurity in Nazareth:

Christ came to convince us that a relative insignificance may be an absolute importance.  He came to teach that continual excitement, prominent action, distinguished services, brilliant successes, are no essential elements of true and noble life, and that myriads of the beloved of God are to be found among the insignificant and the obscure. ⁽ⁱⁱⁱ⁾

Finally, the President spoke of the imperative of our society to remember that we must be our brother’s keeper:

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.

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.

The wisdom of this great General of the Army should be remembered and taught in every home.  In these few words, he captured the American ideal, and the prayers of all of us for the world that future generations will inherit.

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  i. Public Papers of the Presidents, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1960, p. 1035- 1040.  Delivered  on 17 January 1961.

  ii. Shimon Peres, Christian Science Monitor, August, 1992.

  iii. Frederic Farrar, The Life of Christ, p. 89.