Dwight D. Eisenhower

(1890 – 1969)

• "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. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children." ()
  • Source: A speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors

• Things are more like they are now than they ever were before.

• "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."
  • Source: A speech to the National Defense Executive Reserve Conference in Washington, DC on Nov. 14, 1957.

• "This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience…we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the . The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."
  • Farewell speech as President, 1961 Jan 17

• "During ['s] recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and second because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of 'face.' [Stimson] was deeply perturbed by my attitude, almost angrily refuting the reasons I gave for my quick conclusions."
  • The White House Years: Mandate for Change: 1953–1956: A Personal Account (1963) p312-313

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