In a similar manner and almost word for word of the speech he gave to the American people in 1961, in the “Chance for Peace” speech in 1953 Eisenhower warned about the trade-offs:What's your opinion? What do you think President Eisenhower would say about the military spending President Obama is continuing?
“The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brink schoolhouse in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway. We pay for a single fighter with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with the homes that could have housed 8,000 people. This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.”
Considering that the speech was given at a time when the Red Scare of Communism was gripping the nation and the United States was involved in a military conflict on the Korean peninsula, the speech by Eisenhower showed the former military general to be a genuine leader of the country. Not only concerned or beholden to the interests of the former institution he spent most of his life in, the “Chance for Peace” speech by Eisenhower in 1953 proved that he was concerned about the interests of all Americans.
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"What's your opinion? What do you think President Eisenhower would say about the military spending President Obama is continuing?"
ReplyDeleteI think he wouldn't say anything about military spending. Ike would be too busy blasting him for all the commies he has on his staff.
In 1950 and 1951 , in what was called "The Great Debate" over the role the country should play on the world stage, conservatives vigorously opposed what was seen as "liberal interventionalism" of Truman and his supporters.
ReplyDeleteHowever, as we have seen over the last 60 years, both political parties and mostly the republican administrations holding the executive office have been interventalists.
As for the communist comment, at the height of the McCarthy crusade,Eisenhower confessed to hating the Wisconsin senator, but did not get make public comments against the senator. One of the reasons being not to give the senator publicity and the other not to degrade the office of the President.
Dwight Eisenhower, just like his son John Eisenhower did in 2008, most likely would renounce his membership in the GOP and ask why does China have high speed trains and a booming economy, while America is in a deep recession and bleeding red ink.
Like a true patriot, Eisenhower and other Americans see the true danger to American security and prosperity from the internal red ink , rather than the external red scare of communism.