IMPEACHMENT: A REVISITATION OF THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX AND A THANK YOU TO KEN LARSON

QUAGMIRES AND QUESTIONS: A QUEST FOR THE ENTIRE TRUTH

(The Eisenhower Warning Re: The Military Industrial Complex, a revisiting 46 years later and related commentary and observation to be found at:
Rose Covered Glasses http://rosecoveredglasses.blogspot.com/2006/11/odyssey-of-armaments.html

Name: Ken Larson Location: Hastings, Minnesota, US _ 2 Tours in US Army Vietnam.

Retired from 36 Years in the Defense Industrial Complex after working on 25 major weapons systems, many of which are in use today in the Middle East. Volunteer with Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE). I specialize in Small, Veteran-owned, Minority-Owned and Woman-Owned Businesses beginning work for the Federal Government.

Mr. Larson’s contributions will be given full presentation in this post as part of the material for one to examine for the development of a perspective of one arena of current concern.

Evaluations of things Historical and Political are always complex as there are in today’s world the necessity of examining such matters for their historical, legal, social, political, economic, moral, intellectual, technological and systemic components, as well as the psychological make up, as best we may know it, of those public figures under scrutiny .

The present national distress over the Iraq is not different. Whether one be an intellectual, media writer or pundit, historian or informed concerned blogster is not a matter of great concern to me once we get past the acceptance of the facts that the media is currently guilty of a self-imposed silence of fear, and we who speak from blogs are engaged in much more free exchange of discourse, some worthy of serious consideration, and some as polarized and partisan pontification as a politician running scared in the final days of an election.

It is not hard recognize that type of verbal lint. None of us can bring to the table the entire scope of evaluation and examination of issues, investigation, vantage points of perception, life experiences and incites. The final product of doing so would fill a library, and still be incomplete.

So we each do our own thing, as best as we can, and we are to be of any worth, we do so with integrity in the pursuit of truth in our research and in our advocacy. In the advocacy category if you have visited this blog you are aware that I have staked out my position as an advocate for the immediate Impeachment and removal from office, George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney. As a historian, historical researcher, and instructor of history for thirty-one years, I cannot as a matter of clear and sincere conscience, take any other position. The facts; right and wrongs, cannot be denied or ignored.

But let us first turn our attention to President Dwight W. Eisenhower and a warning not well heeded over the years. Given the warning, given developments since I was 19 years of age and listened to this speech live; I can only assume that as a nation, on this issue, we are severely mentally challenged!

WORLD POLICY JOURNAL http://www.worldpolicy.org/journal/hartung01.html

ARTICLE: Volume XVIII, No 1, SPRING 2001
Eisenhower's Warning: The Military-Industrial Complex Forty Years LaterWilliam D. Hartung

[Go to interactive discussion forum]

Dwight Eisenhower's presidency is probably better remembered less for what he did than for what he said while heading for the exit. In a nationally televised address on January 17, 1961, only four days before John F. Kennedy's inaugural, Eisenhower warned of the dangers of "undue influence" exerted by the "military-industrial complex." He cautioned that maintaining a large, permanent military establishment was "new in the American experience," and suggested that an "engaged citizenry" offered the only effective defense against the "misplaced power" of the military-industrial lobby.

Press accounts at the time and the remembrances of those on the scene suggest that Eisenhower's surprising attack on the military lobby initially had only a modest ripple effect. The historian Douglas Brinkley points out that it was only years later, as the Vietnam War loomed large in the national consciousness, that activists in the antiwar movement seized on Eisenhower's remarks to support their own critiques of the national security state.1

Forty years on, it is surely fitting to look afresh at Eisenhower's warning, and to appraise the present and future of the military-industrial complex. At first glance, Dwight David Eisenhower seemed an unlikely candidate to launch a blistering critique of the military-industrial complex (a phrase coined by Eisenhower's speechwriters Ralph Williams and Malcolm Moos). As a four-star general and a hero of the Allied assault against Hitler, he certainly believed in maintaining a strong military.

And although Eisenhower tried to hold the line on military spending, his administration still maintained an annual military budget ranging from $42 billion to $49 billion-three to four times higher than defense spending during the brief postwar demobilization. As the historian Blanche Wiesen Cook has remarked, it is not as if Ike was a raving peacenik: his doctrine of massive nuclear retaliation increased the risk of nuclear war, and his administration's support for coups d'état that helped install repressive regimes in Iran and Guatemala undermined the stability of the Persian Gulf and Central America, even as they tarnished America's reputation as a force for democracy.2

Yet in retrospect, it was precisely Eisenhower's martial posture that gave authority to his warning about the growing influence of the military-industrial establishment. As the late Washington columnist Lars Erik-Nelson noted in his last published essay, Eisenhower's speech was not just a rhetorical throwaway meant to steal the thunder of the incoming Kennedy administration: it was deeply felt, grounded in his own bitter experiences.3 In the 1956 elections, conservative Democrats, egged on by officials in the air force, accused Eisenhower of permitting a "bomber gap" by refusing to fund their new B-70 bomber.

And in 1960, Richard Nixon, who served eight years as Eisenhower's vice president, was excoriated by his Democratic rival John F. Kennedy for allowing a supposedly dangerous "missile gap" to develop between U.S. and Soviet forces. The bomber gap proved a figment of the fevered imaginations of the weapons boosters, while the missile gap was real enough-though it was a gap that dramatically favored the United States, not the Soviet Union, as hard-line Democrats like Kennedy and Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson had maintained.

If an Eisenhower could not rein in the military lobby, small wonder that Bill Clinton, perceived as a draft-evading child of the 1960s, let the Joint Chiefs have their way. Clinton bequeathed his Republican successor a Pentagon budget not only higher in constant, 2001 dollars than it was when Eisenhower sounded his alarm, but also higher than the budget that Donald Rumsfeld presided over during his first stint as secretary of defense in the mid-1970s.

The United States has no superpower adversary, as it did then, yet we spend more on our military forces than eight runner-up nations combined. As for the so-called rogue states, or "states of concern" as former secretary of state Madeleine Albright called them, the United States now spends 22 times as much as Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, North Korea, and Cuba combined. And the United States and its closest allies, including the NATO member-states, Japan, and South Korea, currently account for nearly two-thirds of global military spending, a much greater proportion than obtained during the Reagan buildup of the 1980s, when the United States and these same allies accounted for just over half of total expenditures.4

Given these realities, Clinton's Pentagon budget was as much testimony to the enduring power of the military-industrial complex as it was to the military capabilities of potential adversaries. It is too early to tell how President Bush's military priorities will fare in the maelstrom of Beltway politics. Like Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush may surprise us by being more skilled in the arts of political communication and less rigid in the implementation of major policy initiatives than seemed possible at first glance. Or, like William Jefferson Clinton, he may permit his national security policies to be distorted by pressures brought to bear by the military-industrial lobby. Informed speculation needs to begin with a review of what candidate Bush said during campaign 2000.

Ambitious Goals
George W. Bush's only comprehensive defense policy speech, delivered at the Citadel on September 23, 1999, serves as a touchstone for his administration's early moves. He set three ambitious goals: 1) to "renew the bond of trust between the American President and the American military"; 2) to "defend the American people against missiles and terror"; and 3) to "begin creating the military of the next century."

Bush proposed restoring trust by increasing military pay and benefits and by clarifying the mission of U.S. forces to "deter...and win wars," not to undertake "vague, aimless, and endless deployments." The latter phrase signaled the new administration's reluctance to send U.S. forces on open-ended peace-keeping missions like the Clinton administration's deployments in Bosnia and Kosovo. Candidate

Bush gave few specifics on his second promise but indicated that as president he would make substantial new investments in anti-terrorism efforts and "deploy anti-ballistic missile defenses, both theater and national," at the earliest possible date. And he promised "an immediate, comprehensive review of our military" designed to "challenge the status quo and to envision a new architecture of American defense for decades to come." Beyond marginal improvements, he urged the replacement of existing programs "with new technologies and strategies" aimed at creating forces that would be "agile, lethal, readily deployable and require a minimum of logistical support."

To achieve this leaner, meaner, more mobile military, Bush suggested it might be necessary to "skip a generation of technology" in certain systems. These were fighting words for the military, the arms industry, and their allies in Congress. Skipping a generation implies canceling one or more big-ticket systems, such as the Lockheed Martin F-22 fighter, the Boeing/Textron V-22 Osprey (half airplane, half helicopter), or the United Defense Crusader artillery system.

That would mean sacrificing jobs and contracts now to husband resources for novel future systems-a perfectly reasonable management strategy, and arguably the only way to make room in the budget for Bush's ambitious missile defense system, plus tens of billions in research and development money for the next generation of weaponry. But it is also an extremely difficult feat in the face of opposition from the pampered "iron triangle": the military, the arms industry, and Congress.

The alternative to killing the Pentagon's sacred cows would be to seek a massive increase in military spending-in the range of $50 billion to $100 billion annually-that would cover costs of pork-barrel schemes already in the budget and simultaneously provide funding for missile defenses and new-wave weaponry.5 An increase on that scale, however, would conflict with Bush's commitment to a multi-year, $1.6 billion tax cut. For the moment at least, the Bush team has decided against such a defense-funding boost until it has more clearly defined its priorities.

In sum, Bush's military vision portends a substantial increase in missile defenses, new investments in smart maneuverable weapons and weapons platforms, and a major increase in military pay and benefits. These large expenditures would be offset by a reduction in U.S. overseas deployments and the cancellation of one or more costly Cold War weapons programs.

Were Bush to "skip a generation" of big-ticket conventional weapons, he might be able to keep his campaign promises without breaking the bank.

But if he gives in to pressure from Senate Republican leader Trent Lott, Lockheed Martin, and the Joint Chiefs, he would face a stark choice: either sacrifice his high-tech reform agenda or seek a politically controversial boost in the Pentagon budget. The guerrilla war between the administration and the military-industrial complex over what kind of buildup America should pursue is already under way, and the outcome will depend on whether the president can win key battles over spending against a Republican-controlled Congress.

Criticizing CongressIn the penultimate draft of his final address, President Eisenhower warned of the "growing influence of the military-industrial-congressional complex" but decided to strike the word "congressional" because he thought it was "not fitting...for a President to criticize Congress."6 George W. Bush may not have the luxury of being so gracious. If he wants to win approval for his military build-up - rather than one that conforms to Trent Lott's wishes, or John Warner's, or Joe Lieberman's-he will have to play hardball.

As Sen. John McCain noted during Donald Rumsfeld's confirmation hearings, congressional "add-ons"-weapons systems and construction projects stuck into the budget even though the Pentagon has not requested them-have increased geometrically in the past two decades. When Rumsfeld held office under President Gerald Ford, Congress added $200-300 million a year in home-state "pork" to the defense budget. By the 1990s, McCain asserted, the add-ons had snowballed to some $7 billion annually.7

As an example, McCain spotlighted the Lockheed Martin C-130 transport plane, produced in Marietta, Georgia, and shepherded through Congress by heavy hitters from the South-including former Senate Armed Services Committee member Sam Nunn and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

From 1978 to 1998 (according to a report by the General Accounting Office), the air force requested a total of five C-130s, but Congress voted funds for 256 of the aircraft, surely a record in pork-barrel politics.8 McCain complained there were so many excess C-130s that we could afford to park one in "every schoolyard in America." Without missing a beat, or blushing, the next speaker at the same hearing, Democratic senator Max Cleland of Georgia, said he felt compelled to suggest that the excess C-130s were justified since America needed the capability to deploy our schoolyards anywhere in the world on short notice.

Senator Cleland isn't the only lawmaker who thinks bringing home the bacon is a suitable subject for political humor. When a former Georgia senator, Mack Mattingly, was running to regain his former seat in the U.S. Senate, Sen. Trent Lott joined him for a day of campaigning.

The GOP Majority Leader said that if Georgia voters picked "good old Mack," he would keep the lucrative F-22 fighter project at Lockheed's Martin Marietta plant, but if they elected a Democrat, production might move to Lott's Mississippi. Given Lott's proclivity for shoveling defense dollars to his own state for everything from a $1.5 billion Marine helicopter carrier to a space-based laser project, it took a moment for Georgians to realize this was a joke. The irony of Lott's remark was heightened by the fact that Mattingly had just completed a stint as paid lobbyist for Lockheed Martin.9

In fall 1998, when Representatives Jerry Lewis, a California Republican, and Jack Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat, put procurement funds for the F-22 on hold, on grounds of cost and performance, (at $200 million per plane, it is the most expensive fighter ever built), Lockheed Martin hired Mattingly to spearhead its successful lobbying campaign to rescue the project. Other legislators, including Democrat Buddy Darden, who used to represent the Georgia district where the C-130 is built, and former Mississippi Republican representative Sonny Montgomery, who chaired the committee that added C-130s to the Pentagon budget for distribution to National Guard units, have also worked as lobbyists for Lockheed Martin since leaving Congress.

A list of constituencies for redundant weapons systems would include the Litton Ingalls military shipyard in Trent Lott's home town of Pascagoula, Mississippi; the Newport News shipyard, launcher of submarines and aircraft carriers, in the home state of Virginia's John Warner, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee; the McDonnell Douglas division of Boeing in St. Louis, maker of the F-18E and other combat planes favored by House Minority Leader Dick Gephart; and the Boeing plant in suburban Philadelphia, maker of the troubled V-22 Osprey, whose booster is Republican representative Curt Weldon.

Connecticut's Democratic senators, Christopher Dodd and Joseph Lieberman, have gone to bat for everything from General Dynamics' Electric Boat facility in Groton to the United Technologies/Sikorsky Black Hawk helicopters that are part of the $1.3 billion U.S. military aid package for Colombia. In Washington State, Democratic representative Norm Dicks has campaigned doggedly to revive Boeing's B-2 bomber program. Add to this the assiduous labors of House Majority Whip Tom "The Hammer" DeLay and Republican senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson and others in the Texas delegation on behalf of Lockheed Martin's and Bell Textron's fighter plane and helicopter factories in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.

All concerned were generously rewarded with campaign contributions. Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, and TRW together provided more than $11 million in soft money contributions during the year 2000 election cycle, and the giving continued through election day.

At the GOP convention, Lockheed Martin kicked in $60,000 for the "Lott Hop," a dance fundraiser honoring Trent Lott, including performances by Bobby Vee and the Four Tops. TRW, which is under investigation for possible fraud in the national missile defense program, sponsored a luncheon at the Philadelphia Union League Club in honor of Sen. John Warner and Virginia representative Tom Davis, the chief fundraiser for House Republicans.

In Los Angeles, meanwhile, Raytheon pitched in with a fundraising party at the Santa Monica pier for "Blue Dog" Democrats, a conservative caucus whose members tend to be in favor of missile defense. Ironically, California Democrat Loretta Sanchez, herself a "Blue Dog," had been criticized by the Gore-Lieberman campaign for planning a fundraiser of her own in Hugh Hefner's Playboy Mansion. Sanchez moved the fundraiser to avoid losing her speaking slot at the Democratic Convention. Apparently, associating with Hugh Hefner was viewed as too Clintonesque, but raking in contributions from weapons manufacturers was acceptable.10

Friendly Fire
Besides defending their version of the military buildup from "friendly fire" on Capitol Hill, President Bush and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld will have to do battle with the Joint Chiefs. The Joint Chiefs and their allies on the Hill were caught by surprise in early February when the White House indicated that there would be no big supplemental spending bill in the first part of 2001, and the projected Clinton/Gore budget of $310 billion would have to suffice for now.

And Bush and Rumsfeld's decision to tap Andrew Marshall, an unconventional thinker who runs the Pentagon's Office of Net Military Assessment and has criticized Cold War weapons platforms ranging from aircraft carrier battle groups to the F-22 fighter, to oversee the defense policy review, suggests they may be willing to dispense with some of the old weapons in the pipeline.

The shrill complaints by conservatives in both parties that Bush was somehow disavowing his campaign pledge to build up the U.S. military masked their true concerns. What this means, however, is that if Bush and Rumsfeld are to achieve the military buildup they have in mind, which will emphasize an expansive missile defense, a new generation of more "usable" low-yield nuclear weapons, and a new generation of more maneuverable weapons platforms equipped with the latest sensor and communications technologies, they will have to do battle with key players within the military-industrial complex.

The Bush-Rumsfeld agenda, which amounts to a unilateralist drive for U.S. preeminence based on an ambitious missile defense scheme and a re-legitimation of the role of nuclear weapons as an instrument not only of deterrence, but of warfare, ought to be opposed.11 The good news for those who would do so is that there is no single agenda within the defense establishment. There are competing agendas-on Capitol Hill, among the services, and in the White House.

As these power centers fight it out to determine the outlines of U.S. military spending, there should be room for input from the forgotten actors in this drama, the "alert and knowledgeable citizenry" that Eisenhower saw as our best hope for making sure that the military establishment serves the public interest, not the economic interest of Boeing and Lockheed Martin, or the parochial interests of powerful members of Congress.

Notes
1. Brinkley's remarks were made at a forum, "The Military-Industrial Complex Revisited: Is Eisenhower's Warning Still Relevant?" co-sponsored by the World Policy Institute, Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities, and The Nation Institute, held at New School University in New York City, January 17, 2001.

2. Figures from U.S. Department of Defense, Office of the Undersecretary of Defense (Comptroller), National Defense Budget Estimate for FY2000 (Washington, D.C.: Department of Defense, March 1999), table 7-1, p. 200; Blanche Wiesen Cook, Declassified Eisenhower: A Divided Legacy (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1981).

3. Lars Erik-Nelson, "Military-Industrial Man," New York Review of Books, December 21, 2000.

4. On Clinton and the Pentagon, see William D. Hartung, "Ready for What? The New Politics of Pentagon Spending," World Policy Journal, vol. 16 (spring 1999), pp. 19-24. On global military spending, see International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance 2000/2001 (London: IISS/Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 297-302.

5. Jim Mann, "Pentagon: A Game of Priorities," Los Angeles Times, January 31, 2001.

6. Lars Erik-Nelson, "Military-Industrial Man."

7. Jim Mann, "Pentagon."

8. Walter Pincus, "Cargo Plane with Strings Attached: Congress Funds and Stations C-130s Unwanted by Pentagon," Washington Post, July 23, 1998.

9. John Mintz, "After House Setback, Lockheed Scrambles to Save F-22," Washington Post, September 12, 1999.

10. On corporate donations and lobbying efforts during Campaign 2000, see William D. Hartung and Michelle Ciarrocca, The Military Industrial Complex Revisited: How Weapons Makers Are Shaping U.S. Foreign and Military Policies, a joint report of Foreign Policy in Focus and the World Policy Institute, forthcoming.

11. On the dangers of the emerging Bush administration's policy, see William D. Hartung, "The Bush Nuclear Doctrine: From MAD to NUTS," a Foreign Policy in Focus Commentary, December 2000, at

www.foreignpolicy-infocus.org.
[Go to interactive discussion forum]

January, 1961

"In the counsels 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."

Military-Industrial Complex Speech, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961

PUBLIC PAPERS OF THE PRESIDENTS, DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER,
1960, P. 1035- 1040

My fellow Americans:

Three days from now, after half a century in the service of our country, I shall lay down the responsibilities of office as, in traditional and solemn ceremony, the authority of the Presidency is vested in my successor.

This evening I come to you with a message of leave-taking and farewell, and to share a few final thoughts with you, my countrymen.

Like every other citizen, I wish the new President, and all who will labor with him, Godspeed. I pray that the coming years will be blessed with peace and prosperity for all.

Our people expect their President and the Congress to find essential agreement on issues of great moment, the wise resolution of which will better shape the future of the Nation.

My own relations with the Congress, which began on a remote and tenuous basis when, long ago, a member of the Senate appointed me to West Point, have since ranged to the intimate during the war and immediate post-war period, and, finally, to the mutually interdependent during these past eight years.

In this final relationship, the Congress and the Administration have, on most vital issues, cooperated well, to serve the national good rather than mere partisanship, and so have assured that the business of the Nation should go forward. So, my official relationship with the Congress ends in a feeling, on my part, of gratitude that we have been able to do so much together.

II.
We now stand ten years past the midpoint of a century that has witnessed four major wars among great nations. Three of these involved our own country. Despite these holocausts America is today the strongest, the most influential and most productive nation in the world. Understandably proud of this pre-eminence, we yet realize that America's leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches and military strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment.

III.
Throughout America's adventure in free government, our basic purposes have been to keep the peace; to foster progress in human achievement, and to enhance liberty, dignity and integrity among people and among nations. To strive for less would be unworthy of a free and religious people. Any failure traceable to arrogance, or our lack of comprehension or readiness to sacrifice would inflict upon us grievous hurt both at home and abroad.

Progress toward these noble goals is persistently threatened by the conflict now engulfing the world. It commands our whole attention, absorbs our very beings. We face a hostile ideology -- global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method. Unhappily the danger is poses promises to be of indefinite duration.

To meet it successfully, there is called for, not so much the emotional and transitory sacrifices of crisis, but rather those which enable us to carry forward steadily, surely, and without complaint the burdens of a prolonged and complex struggle -- with liberty the stake. Only thus shall we remain, despite every provocation, on our charted course toward permanent peace and human betterment.

Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties. A huge increase in newer elements of our defense; development of unrealistic programs to cure every ill in agriculture; a dramatic expansion in basic and applied research -- these and many other possibilities, each possibly promising in itself, may be suggested as the only way to the road we wish to travel.

But each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs -- balance between the private and the public economy, balance between cost and hoped for advantage -- balance between the clearly necessary and the comfortably desirable; balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties imposed by the nation upon the individual; balance between actions of the moment and the national welfare of the future. Good judgment seeks balance and progress; lack of it eventually finds imbalance and frustration.

The record of many decades stands as proof that our people and their government have, in the main, understood these truths and have responded to them well, in the face of stress and threat. But threats, new in kind or degree, constantly arise. I mention two only.

IV.
A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction. Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

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 State house, 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 militaryindustrial 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.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientifict echnological elite.

It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system -- ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.

V.
Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society's future, we -- you and I, and our government -- must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.

VI.
Down the long lane of the history yet to be written America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.

Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we, protected as we are by our moral, economic, and military strength. That table, though scarred by many past frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of the battlefield.

Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose. Because this need is so sharp and apparent I confess that I lay down my official responsibilities in this field with a definite sense of disappointment. As one who has witnessed the horror and the lingering sadness of war -- as one who knows that another war could utterly destroy this civilization which has been so slowly and painfully built over thousands of years -- I wish I could say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight.

Happily, I can say that war has been avoided. Steady progress toward our ultimate goal has been made. But, so much remains to be done. As a private citizen, I shall never cease to do what little I can to help the world advance along that road.

VII.
So -- in this my last good night to you as your President -- I thank you for the many opportunities you have given me for public service in war and peace. I trust that in that service you find some things worthy; as for the rest of it, I know you will find ways to improve performance in the future.

You and I -- my fellow citizens -- need to be strong in our faith that all nations, under God, will reach the goal of peace with justice. May we be ever unswerving in devotion to principle, confident but humble with power, diligent in pursuit of the Nation's great goals.

To all the peoples of the world, I once more give expression to America's prayerful and continuing aspiration:

We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn for freedom may experience its spiritual blessings; that those who have freedom will understand, also, its heavy responsibilities; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity; that the scourges of poverty, disease and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth, and that, in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love.

Military-industrial complex From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military-industrial_complex

Video From Jan. 17, 1961
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4340349985118918525

FROM KEN LARSON (There is much more worth the read at this site!)
Rose Covered Glasses: ODYSSEY OF ARMAMENTS
"Rose Covered Glasses" is a serious essay, satire and photo-poetry commentary from a group of US Military Veterans in Minnesota. ...rosecoveredglasses.blogspot.com/2006/11/odyssey-of-armaments.html - 121k - Cached - Similar pages

Sunday November 5, 2006- Ken Larson - from the book, "Odyssey of Armaments, My Journey Through the Defense Industrial Complex"In 1968, I came home from serving two US Army tours in Vietnam, having been awarded five medals, including a Bronze Star. During my second tour I acquired Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Depression.

Treatment would not become available for either ailment until the mid to late 70's. Returning to the University of Minnesota at Morris, I found that most of my former classmates were either facing the military draft or were violently against the war. I was not their favorite person.Feeling isolated and alone, I was unable to relate to my family due to untreated Depression and PTSD.

Disillusioned with school, I moved to Minneapolis Minnesota and began a career in the Defense Industrial Complex that would span over three decades from 1969 through 2005. I thought that through working on defense systems, I could contribute to the quality and quantity of weapons that the next generation would take to war. Given a clearly defined mission and the best armaments and systems in the world, I believed that another Vietnam could be avoided for the American Soldier.

In pursuit of this goal, I participated in the design, development and production of 25 large scale weapons systems under Federal Government and Foreign Military Sales Contracts. I worked in several different disciplines for the companies that produced these weapons, negotiating and controlling the associated contracts with procurement agencies in the US Armed Forces and in 16 allied countries.

By the time treatment for PTSD and Depression became available, I had such high security clearances that had I been treated for these disorders, the US Government would have revoked my clearances and my career would have ended or would have been sharply curtailed. This quandary led to my journey through the Defense Industrial Complex.

I found that accepting extreme challenges and succeeding at them became a way to displace PTSD and elevate depressive moods. For extended periods of time this method of self-management led to a satisfying, although somewhat adventurous and diversified life.

However, down periods always occurred, especially after the latest challenge had been met. A new challenge was then required. Family, friends and acquaintances were often puzzled by the frequent changes in my job sites and locations. Two marriages fell by the wayside.I became known in the industry as a front-end loaded trouble shooter on complex projects, installing processes and business systems required by the Federal Acquisition Regulation.

These systems included estimating and pricing, proposal preparation, contract administration, cost and schedule control, program management, design to cost, life cycle cost, export management and other specialties unique to US Government Contracts. Getting through government source selection boards and surviving audits during competition was a significant challenge for defense contractors. Installing required business systems after contract award, under ambitious cost, schedule and technical conditions, was an even more difficult undertaking.

I became a leader in the problem solving and creative processes necessary to win contracts and successfully fulfill them. When my mood demanded it, there was always a new job, with a new challenge and a subsequent elevated feeling from success. It was not unusual for a career professional in the Defense Industry to move regularly with the ebb and flow of competitive procurements and associated government funding shifts.

I came to know many of the career military and civil servants who managed the government procurement process. These individuals never went away, regardless of elections or politics. They developed the alternatives from which elected officials must choose.

The American Public rarely heard from these powerful insiders, while the insiders slanted the choices supplied to elected officials in a self-perpetuating manner. I recognized the mirror image way in which procuring agencies and defense contractors organized their operations on the largest systems acquisitions.

Key executives regularly moved back and forth between government and industry. I often observed the short, happy life of a defense company program manager. Appointed by the powerful insiders to head a single project, he had no authority over company resources, he perpetually competed with other program managers for the same talent pool and he always took the heat from management when things did not go well.

His counterpart in the government quarters had similar experiences. I often supported several program managers at the same time. They all were desperate to achieve success. They each believed they had the most important program in the company.

In early 2005, approaching age sixty, I found myself unable to self-manage an extremely deep depressive episode. The journey had simply wound down. This situation nearly resulted in death.

Recovering with help from my family and the US Veteran's Administration, I now reside in a veteran's home, volunteering through the Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE) to Small, Veteran-Owned, Women-Owned and Minority-Owned businesses that are pursuing contracts with the Federal Government. I provide advice, alternatives and business s based on my experiences. It is refreshing to witness the successes of small, motivated and flexible companies.

I believe they deserve every special consideration they have achieved under our system of government.After thirty-six years in the Defense Industrial Complex my greatest satisfaction came from watching "Stormin Norman" and his Gulf War Forces defeat the Iraqi Army in Operation Desert Storm. They used the Abrams Main Battle Tank, the Hellfire Missile and an array of communications and other systems on which I worked.

I have had the privilege of meeting several young soldiers coming back from current conflicts in the Middle East who have praised these systems for their life saving performances.Operation Desert Storm had a clearly defined mission to liberate a small country from an aggressor.

We accomplished the mission utilizing the best weapons in the world. Unfortunately, we did not leave the area. The lessons of Vietnam have not been remembered and once again political factors govern our presence in several countries.

This time it is the Middle East. A Future Combat System (FCS) is now under development geared for urban warfare with unmanned vehicles, state of the art sensors and remote standoff capabilities. The terrorist enemy has grown to become a formidable force, cable of striking without notice even within our own country.

He threatens the world economy with violent disruptions in several domains at the same time. He is a product of our own creation, rebelling against the "US Police Force" with help from neighbors who play either benign or active roles. Our enemy knows his neighborhood far better than we do. US intelligence and military capabilities are strained to the maximum monitoring perceived hot spots all over the globe.

We must face the fact that our long term presence in other countries is resented.How much longer can we afford to be the "World's Policeman"? We are spending over $500B per year for defense, homeland security and nation building. Investments we are making in developing new democracies are draining our domestic programs such as health care, stifling the education of our young people and limiting research and development in valuable commercial technologies.

The largest corporations selling to our government are no more than extensions of our government in the cloak of industry.

They are not in the business of making money for the stockholder. They are in the business of spending money for the government. As a result they are some of the poorest growth stocks on Wall Street.

Recent consolidation in the Defense Industrial Complex has dramatically reduced competition. Only public laws mandating a twenty per cent allocation of Federal Contract Funding to small business have kept diversification in the mix. Even then, much of the moneys that flow to small business go through a select group of large business prime contractors who add their respective overhead and general administrative expense to the small business cost and pass it on to the government.

When we consider the largest evolving countries in the world today, such as China, India and others, we should note that they are successfully competing with us in a fast moving, complex world economy. These countries are not all pure democracies and probably never will be.

No overt action on our part created these powerhouses. As we struggle to compete with them we must have education, research and development and a healthy work force to keep pace. How much can we afford to spend forcing our capitalistic ideologies on other societies?

Events have proven that the world has become a tightly wound place economically. Countries who wish to succeed and grow will play the game anyway.

I hope that this account of my experiences has supplied useful insights into the US Government Defense Industrial Complex. My odyssey was driven by a need to manage illnesses acquired in warfare.

I found a way to deal with the maladies for years by spreading myself thin and accepting every new challenge. I thrilled at success and moved on after defeat, pursuing a misguided goal.

Out of necessity I have now been forced to look inward, wind down to a smaller perspective, take care of my health - begin serving the little guy.

Perhaps it is time for our country to consider a similar transition.