The Delusional Eisenhower Mythology of Peaceniks

You can really distort and misrepresent something by taking words out of context. A good example is Eisenhower's "Farewell Address," delivered three days before leaving the White House, on January 17, 1961. The speech has been misinterpreted by many as a criticism of the "military-industrial complex," which became a key phrase in the speech in later years. When someone wants to add some political weight to a critique of the oppressive and increasingly expensive military establishment, oftentimes "Eisenhower's warning about the military-industrial complex" is invoked.

This by-now-hoary political trope is based mostly on a single sentence in a single speech given as Eisenhower was LEAVING office, which various progressives and soft-headed peaceniks mindlessly invoke. Here's the Great Sentence:

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex." [As if maybe it was unsought!] [He stumbles over the word "guard." I don't know whether that was a Freudian slip of some kind, or just that even reading off a teleprompter he has poor diction.]

This from a guy who helped build up that very "complex" in many ways. And the global gestapo of the U.S. too. (And is guilty of some of the most notorious crimes of the U.S., as I enumerate below. Crimes regularly decried by those very same intellectually-lazy alleged progressives who invoke Eisenhower approvingly. Or Eisenhower's one sentence, more accurate to say.) Eisenhower didn't even say the "complex" HAD too much "influence," much less too much power. Just be alert in case it gets to be too influential.

Some warning.

If various political ninnies, who are so desperate for the imprimatur of an imperialist establishment figure to attach to their opposition to the monstrosity that is the Pentagon machine, that they have latched onto this misleading Eisenhower trope, ever took the time to listen to the actual speech, they might notice something very obvious. Eisenhower is DEFENDING the "military industrial complex." He goes on at length justifying the necessity of it. But perhaps realizing that the Leviathan he'd helped build up was a democracy-chewing beast, he kicked the can down the road and plopped it into the laps the public at large and his successors to keep an eye out for it. [1]

Gee, thanks a million for the heads-up, man. Hey maybe the most powerful man in the world should have done something about it!

But it was already much too late for that. The spawning of this evil cancer began with Truman, who also helped create the CIA. Less than 3 years after Eisenhower tossed his warning over his shoulder as he skedaddled, the CIA, with help from the FBI and the military, bumped off his successor, Kennedy. The state within the state was the real, and unassailable power now. Democracy was well and truly dead in America, show elections notwithstanding.

Policy was to be made by the mighty military-secret police state, and presidents went along with that almost entirely. Yes, some presidents hold back the leash of the U.S. attack dog at times, but mostly head in the direction the attack dog wants to go. (This describes Obama to a T.) Presidents are encouraged in this by the ideological superstructure, all those "respectable" institutions like the Council on Foreign Relations, the so-called "think tanks," the Washington foundations, that cannot imagine a non-imperialist line. All the "experts" agree that the U.S. must dominate the world, by force if necessary, and impose exploitative corporate capitalism everywhere, destroying the indigenous capitalisms of target nations in the process. All they argue about is the specific plots and plans, the best strategies and tactics to achieve this or that end.

The truth is that some of the very worst crimes of U.S. imperialism committed in the 20th century were ordered by Eisenhower, and the destructive legacy of those criminal acts hobble nations and cause suffering to people to this very day.

Here's Eisenhower's actual record:

-Increased the U.S. arsenal of nuclear warheads from about 1,200 to over 22,000. That's an increase of over 18 times.

-Overthrew the democratically-elected government of Iran in 1953, installed the Shah, who became the worse dictator in the world until his overthrow 26 years later. Iran has still never recovered its democracy, and now suffers under a theocracy. The Shah effectively wiped out any possible opposition except from organized religion, directly leading to the result we see today. This was done by his murderous, sadistic secret police SAVAK, under the guidance of its mentor and guide, the CIA. (The coup was motivated by oil, but as was standard procedure, the Communist Threat was used as justification.)

-Overthrew the democratic government of Guatemala in 1954 to benefit one U.S. banana company, installing a bloodthirsty fascist military dictatorship that murdered a quarter million Guatemalans over the next four decades, and today is still a lethal rightwing hellhole. (Here again, a spurious charge of Communist Takeover averted was drummed up by propagandists for public consumption.)

-Here's a nice one: he authorized military-style roundups and expulsion of hundreds of thousands of of Mexicans in 1954. The mass Israeli-style deportation was officially named Operation Wetback, a nice racist touch. (But Eisenhower was a decent guy, we're told.)

-He oversaw the worst period of post World War II purges and domestic repression, initiated under Truman, a campaign of political "cleansing" and enforced ideological conformity lasting for about a decade and a half and misleadingly called "McCarthyism," so the bourgeoisie can blame it all on one Senator and dismiss it as some kind of aberration. (All the periods of heightened repression in U.S. history somehow are just aberrations. Same with the atrocities, the murders, the genocides, slavery, lethal attacks on labor organizers and protesters, ghoulish medical "experiments" apparently inspired by the behavior of Nazi concentration camp doctors, and so on and on. All the bad stuff only proves how good America really is. Because as the current Emperor constantly tells us, "That's not who we are!" Must be some body double nation doing it.)

-Oh yeah, he executed the Rosenbergs. That doesn't stop lefties from thinking Eisenhower was some kind of Good Guy.

-He also split Vietnam in two and prevented its unification by barring the elections agreed to in the accords that ended French colonial rule there, and established a U.S. cllient dictatorship in the southern half of the divided country. (1954 again. Busy year for The General!) The outcome? Ultimately the U.S. dropped 6 million tons of bombs on Vietnam, three times the tonnage it dropped in World War II. It poisoned the soil and water with deadly dioxins, leading to cancers and monstrous birth defects even today. In other words, it vandalized the very genome of the Vietnamese people. It caused the immediate deaths of at least 3 million Vietnamese, committed innumerable horrific atrocities, and killed another million Cambodians and Laotians combined. Nixon's war on Cambodia destabilized that small, vulnerable nation and led to the Khmer Rouge taking over Cambodia and murdering millions more Cambodians. (It's not for nothing that the U.S. is called the Super Bully Nation.)

-Set in train the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba (another booby-trap he handed off to his successor, like Vietnam), and initiated the 56 year long war against Cuba, which included innumerable acts of terrorism.

-And whatever else I've left out- which is a lot.

1] You don't have to take my word for what he said. Listen to the speech yourself! Here's the televised "Farewell Address," as some like to call it, of Dwight David Eisenhower.


I exaggerated a bit when I said it was just one sentence. After the money sentence are a few more sentences along the lines of a warning. The bulk of the speech is a defense of the peacetime "large armaments industry" and bulked-up peacetime military, which he claims is "new" under his presidency. In other words, the "military industrial complex" was created during his regime. He says of this complex:

"We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions," he says, before rolling out the sentence about being on guard against "unwarranted influence" of the m-i-c. He further defends the m-i-c.,"we recognize the imperative need for this development." Much of the address is a defense and justification of the m-i-c., contrary to how peaceniks have spun the speech. It's also larded with the standard U.S. bullshit about liberty, freedom, democracy, working for the good of people everywhere, all those sickening lies that are the direct opposite of what they actually do, as the examples I cited above amply demonstrate. He "prays" that "all the peoples of the world" get to experience "freedom" and an end to "poverty." (Instead of praying, he could have just refrained from imposing a fascist terror state on Guatemala, for example.)

Speaking of using words out of context for one's own political ends, environmentalists missed a chance to take some of the words of the speech to add "authority" to conservation. Eisenhower cautions against being too rapacious in using resources instead of husbanding them.

One possibly telling moment occurs near the beginning, in the single sentence dealing with his newly-elected successor. After a couple of words, he abruptly stops, and reaches for his throat, like he's clutching. Then he wishes the "new President...Godspeed." He never says Kennedy's name.
It's actually a terribly dull speech, poorly delivered. But you can judge it for yourself.