1 gen 1961 anni - Eisenhower warns nation against military-industrial complex

Descrizione:

military industrial complex:

A term President Eisenhower used to refer to the military establishment and defense contractors who, he warned, exercised undue influence over the national government.

Sputnik:The world’s first satellite, launched by the Soviet Union in 1957. After its launch, the United States funded research and education to catch up in the Cold War space competition

National Defense Education Act: A 1958 act that funneled millions of dollars into American universities, helping institutions such as Stanford and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, become leading research centers.

While the Cold War raised tensions, it also drove postwar prosperity through defense spending. The business-government partnerships of the World War II era sprawled into a massive set of industries employing more than 3.5 million Americans by 1961. In that year, outgoing President Dwight D. Eisenhower used his farewell address to caution Americans about the growth of the military establishment and defense contractors, a partnership he dubbed the military-industrial complex, which he feared exerted undue influenced over the national government. Calling on Americans to recognize its “grave implications,” Ike warned that “the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.” Some companies did so much business with the government that they in effect became private divisions of the Defense Department. Over 60 percent of the income of Boeing, General Dynamics, and Raytheon, for instance, came from military contracts, and the percentages were even higher for Lockheed and Republic Aviation. In previous peacetime years, military spending had constituted only 1 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). By the time of Eisenhower’s speech, it represented 10 percent.


Often, technology developed for military purposes, such as the complex design of jet fighter planes, was easily transferred to the consumer market. The Boeing Aircraft Company — its Seattle plant is pictured here in the mid-1950s — became one of the leading commercial airplane manufacturers in the world in the 1960s, boosted in part by tax dollar–financed military contracts. Major American corporations — such as Boeing, McDonnell Douglas, General Electric, General Dynamics, and dozens of others — benefitted from military contracts in the years after World War II.

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