Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhowerwas an American politician and general who served as the 34th President of the United States from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army during World War II and served as Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe. He was responsible for planning and supervising the invasion of North Africa in Operation Torch in 1942–43 and the successful invasion of France and Germany in 1944–45 from the Western Front. In...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPresident
Date of Birth14 October 1890
CountryUnited States of America
We believe that our truly urgent need is to make our nation secure, our economy strong and our dollar sound. For every American this matter of the sound dollar is crucial. Without a sound dollar, every American family would face a renewal of inflation, an ever-increasing cost of living, the withering away of savings and life insurance policies.
... we have been warned by the power of modern weapons, that peace may be the only climate possible for human life itself ... There must be law, steadily invoked and respected by all nations, for without law, the world promises only such meager justice as the pity of the strong upon the weak.
I would rather try to persuade a man to go along, because once I have persuaded him, he will stick. If I scare him, he will stay just as long as he is scared, and then he is gone.
The spirit of man is more important than mere physical strength, and the spiritual fiber of a nation than its wealth.
It is still a fact that our common frontier grows stronger every year, defended only by friendship.
Each and all of us must summon to mind the words of Him whom we honor this Easter time: 'When a strong man, armed, keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace'.
We must be strong at home if we are going to be strong abroad. We understand that. So we want to be strong at home in our morale or in our spirit, we want to be strong intellectually, in our education, in our economy and, where necessary, militarily.
Now this brings me to my main topic - our military strength - more specifically, how to stay strong against threat from outside, without undermining the economic health that supports our security.
I believe we must be strong militarily, but beyond a certain point military strength can become a national weakness.
Things are more like they are now than they have ever been before.
Every gun that's made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms...is spending the genius of its scientists, the sweat of its laborers,
Don't join the book burners. Don't think you are going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed.
That was and still is the great disaster of my life-that lovely, lovely little boy.
I tell this story to illustrate the truth of the statement I heard long ago in the Army: Plans are worthless, but planning is everything. There is a very great distinction because when you are planning for an emergency you must start with this one thing: the very definition of 'emergency' is that it is unexpected, therefore it is not going to happen the way you are planning.