Eisenhower's Farewell Address to the Nation

January 17, 1961



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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.

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