I just listened to Eisenhower's speech while reading the text from Wiki. There are quite a few omisions in the Earthstation1.com audio version.
Those ommissions are here in red, the closing line (which was in the audio, but not the text) is in blue (but it's not a link...)
Author:Dwight D. Eisenhower
Farewell Radio and Television Address to the American People (WAV
(http://www.earthstation1.com/History/Ei ... Speech.wav)
or RealAudio
(http://www.earthstation1.com/History/Ei ... Speech.ram)
format (from Earthstation1.com
(http://www.earthstation1.com/President_Eisenhower.html).
Delivered by President January 17, 1961, 8:30 p.m, from
the President's Office.
My fellow Americans:
Three days from now, after half a century in the 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 issues of great moment, the wise resolution of which will better
shape the future of the Nation.
My own relations with the 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 national good rather than mere
partisanship, and so have assured that the business of the Nation should go
forward. So, my official relationship with the Congress ends in a feeling, on my
part, of gratitude that we have been able to do so much together.
II
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.
III
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. 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 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 at 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 newer elements of our defense;
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 the 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 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 action 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 stress and threat. But threats, new in kind or degree,
constantly arise. I mention two only.
IV
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 peace time, 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 State 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 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.
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 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 over shadowed
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.
V
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 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.
VI
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 difference, 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.
VII
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 somethings 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 Nation's 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.
Source: Public Papers of the Presidents, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1960, p.
1035-1040
