I didn’t watch Bush’s farewell address and I haven’t bothered to read it, either. Someday I will. Someday I may actually find it interesting. But not now. When you get down to it I don’t remember any other president’s farewell address, except Eisenhower’s. Of course, I don’t really remember Eisenhower’s farewell address because I wasn’t alive yet. But I remember what Eisenhower said because it was important. Ike said that he had found it necessary in a nuclear age to put America on a more or less permanent military footing. And to accomplish that, he had to set up a permanent industrial/research infrastructure that could make our state of the art airplanes, submarines, aircraft carriers, missiles, and all the rest. We couldn’t go back to the way things were before the war, where we could ramp up and down our arms industry on an as-needed basis.
Ike told us this, but he issued a warning.
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.
Those are the insights of a great man who has some understanding of the ways in which even good policies contain implicit dangers and unwanted side effects. I didn’t need to watch or read George W. Bush’s farewell address to know that he wasn’t capable of offering us anything of like value.
