Remarks on Eisenhower’s Farewell Address
Eisenhower warned of the dangers of the defense industry and military’s influence on politics and of government control of research at universities.
In his Farewell Address (1961) Eisenhower allows himself a moment of tentative thanks for current peace and bipartisan collaboration in Congress, while he simultaneously offers a warning to Americans that is both prescient and brief.
The United States faces a global threat, a “hostile ideology,” asserts Eisenhower, “that is global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method.” The threat is communism, and more specifically the aggressive expansionist communism of the Soviet Union. But while Eisenhower acknowledges the foreign threat, and the need to prepare for it, his foresight lies in understanding that developing and maintaining the capabilities for war may very well lead to a military industrial conglomerate that will exercise tremendous control over the republic and undermine the very values it seeks to defend.
In addition, scientific and technological advances have changed the nature of the university. With its oversight of federal grants and other forms of financial support, the government now exercises tremendous control over the direction and orientation of research in higher education. Eisenhower warns us that these arrangements may well lead to circumstances in which “public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”
Repeatedly, Eisenhower emphasizes that the role of the politician is to find balance between extremes, and remain focused on “the supreme goals of our free society.” Eisenhower understood that the growth of government, and the related growth of the administrative state, were the greatest internal threats to the foundational principles of liberty and justice.
