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Chance for Peace Speech
American Society of Newspaper Editors
April 16,1953
First: No people on earth can be held, as a people, to be enemy, for all humanity shares the common hunger for peace and fellowship and justice.
Second: No nation's security and well-being can be lastingly achieved in isolation but only in effective cooperation with fellow-nations.
Third: Any nation's right to form of government and an economic system of its own choosing is inalienable.
Fourth: Any nation's attempt to dictate to other nations their form of government is indefensible.
And fifth: A nation's hope of lasting peace cannot be firmly based upon any race in armaments but rather upon just relations and honest understanding with all other nations.
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We are prepared to reaffirm, with the most concrete evidence, our readiness to help build a world in which all peoples can be productive and prosperous.
This Government is ready to ask its people to join with all nations in devoting a substantial percentage of the savings achieved by disarmament to a fund for world aid and reconstruction. The purposes of this great work would be to help other peoples to develop the under developed areas of the world, to stimulate profitability and fair world trade, to assist all peoples to know the blessings of productive freedom.
The monuments to this new kind of war would be these: roads and schools, hospitals and homes, food and health.
We are ready, in short, to dedicate our strength to serving the needs, rather than the fears, of the world.
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Third: Any nation's right to form of government and an economic system of its own choosing is inalienable.
There's the tricky part. Who exactly gets to do the choosing? I doubt most people living under a dictatorship would choose that if given other options, but that is what currently exists in too many places. From medieval European monarchies to the gangland of modern-day Somalia, all too often the control of nations is like a gangster film. The few ascend to power by force, charm and street-smarts (reading people, manipulating, political games, etc).
Eisenhower was one of my favorite presidents, he was a great general who brought to the forefront the whole concept of the military industrial complex..
He understood war and its effects.. no subsequent president has ever seen combat..
Eisenhower was one of my favorite presidents, he was a great general who brought to the forefront the whole concept of the military industrial complex..
He understood war and its effects.. no subsequent president has ever seen combat..
]
Yikes DarrylS, How about George HW Bush? Did you forget about him? Or Gerald Ford? Both served in WWII. Jimmy Carter was also in the Navy although I don't know that he served during a war.
There was a good article in Slate last week highlighting the fact that many people completely misunderstand Eisenhower's "military industrial" speech, and his presidency in general. Some of the posts in this thread seem to follow that pattern. Anyone ever hear of the "Eisenhower doctrine?" Ike was the END of the non-interventionist Republicans, and his actions in office speak louder than these quotes. Ike never sought the demilitarization of the US, in fact he was in favor of an overwhelming military force, and LOTS of nukes to back them up.
There's the tricky part. Who exactly gets to do the choosing? I doubt most people living under a dictatorship would choose that if given other options, but that is what currently exists in too many places. From medieval European monarchies to the gangland of modern-day Somalia, all too often the control of nations is like a gangster film. The few ascend to power by force, charm and street-smarts (reading people, manipulating, political games, etc).
I think you have to take all five points together. As life has shown in practice, you don't really find nations living under a dictatorship able to claim the second part of point five.
__________________
Do. Your. Job. Don't try to take care of somebody else's responsibilities and all that. Just take care of your assignment. Know what it is, execute it and get it taken care of. Do your job...and you'll be champions tonight
Yikes DarrylS, How about George HW Bush? Did you forget about him? Or Gerald Ford? Both served in WWII. Jimmy Carter was also in the Navy although I don't know that he served during a war.
There was a good article in Slate last week highlighting the fact that many people completely misunderstand Eisenhower's "military industrial" speech, and his presidency in general. Some of the posts in this thread seem to follow that pattern. Anyone ever hear of the "Eisenhower doctrine?" Ike was the END of the non-interventionist Republicans, and his actions in office speak louder than these quotes. Ike never sought the demilitarization of the US, in fact he was in favor of an overwhelming military force, and LOTS of nukes to back them up.
I also forgot about John Kennedy, perhaps should have clarified my thoughts better.. he was the last very powerful military leader who was elected to the highest office.. he understood the consequences of hard decisions...
Not deifying him at all, just a casual comment that since that time he is the only leader who seemed to understand the reality of war...
Not quite sure how this can be interpreted any other way except for its face value..
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
This world in arms in not spending money alone.
It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school 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 new homes that could have housed more than 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.
__________________ "Being the best doesn't mean you always win. It just means you win more than anyone else".. tweet from Kurt Warner to Tom Brady.
But much of Ike's rhetoric, and more importantly, his actions, belie these statements. The slate article references the fact that Ike disliked military spending not because he thought disarmament was a priority (in fact he thought the opposite), but because he was cheap! He still wanted the US to be THE military power in the world, and built both conventional and nuclear arsenals to reflect that. He also crusaded for military intervention to stop the spread of Communism, and started our involvement in Vietnam (sending advisors) and supported the Vietnam war from the sidelines. Evidently he was obsessed with a tight, balanced budget (and couldn't we use some of THAT right now!!!), and that obsession drove his spending, not some desire to demilitarize.
I think other Presidents understood the reality of war just as well, the clearest example that comes to mind is Bush 41 and the Gulf War. He made the decision to stop the ground offensive and leave Saddam in power to avoid the high casualty numbers we saw in the war under Bush 43. Ike had to make command decisions that sent men to their deaths, but the other WWII generation Presidents (JFK, Ford, Bush 41, etc.) were just as intimately exposed to the horrors of war as Ike was.
Also, reading the full text of the speech, it reads to me as a justification for our own arms buildup as being necessitated by Soviet aggression. It is a call for the Soviets to put aside their militaristic program, at which point we would do the same. It was not a comment on the folly of the US's own arms buildup, which I think some might see it as. Just what I got from reading it anyway.
But much of Ike's rhetoric, and more importantly, his actions, belie these statements. The slate article references the fact that Ike disliked military spending not because he thought disarmament was a priority (in fact he thought the opposite), but because he was cheap! He still wanted the US to be THE military power in the world, and built both conventional and nuclear arsenals to reflect that. He also crusaded for military intervention to stop the spread of Communism, and started our involvement in Vietnam (sending advisors) and supported the Vietnam war from the sidelines. Evidently he was obsessed with a tight, balanced budget (and couldn't we use some of THAT right now!!!), and that obsession drove his spending, not some desire to demilitarize.
I think other Presidents understood the reality of war just as well, the clearest example that comes to mind is Bush 41 and the Gulf War. He made the decision to stop the ground offensive and leave Saddam in power to avoid the high casualty numbers we saw in the war under Bush 43. Ike had to make command decisions that sent men to their deaths, but the other WWII generation Presidents (JFK, Ford, Bush 41, etc.) were just as intimately exposed to the horrors of war as Ike was.
Also, reading the full text of the speech, it reads to me as a justification for our own arms buildup as being necessitated by Soviet aggression. It is a call for the Soviets to put aside their militaristic program, at which point we would do the same. It was not a comment on the folly of the US's own arms buildup, which I think some might see it as. Just what I got from reading it anyway.
Good stuff, I appreciate the article. I always learn something when you post Stokes.
How cool was Eisenhower?
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