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To: JTN; SJackson
Actually, Ike made three different statements from what I've discovered. 1946, 1953, 1954. For some context, let's look at Reason.com:

Dwight Eisenhower, for all his rambling amiability, was capable of vehemence. He showed it memorably at a news conference on August 11, 1954. Ray L. Scherer of NBC asked him about "increasing suggestions that we should embark on a preventive war with the Communist world, some of these suggestions by people in high places." Scherer was talking about Red China, which was rattling its sabers at Taiwan (then called Formosa) and would soon begin shelling Taiwanese forces in what would rapidly become a full-fledged crisis.

In those days, Communist China was the closest thing to today's Iran: a rising regional power, radical, ideological, antagonistic, and increasingly bold. Ike's secretary of State called the Chinese "an acute and imminent threat," and compared their "aggressive fanaticism" to Hitler's. Hawks clamored for action, saying that if the U.S. failed to defend Formosa, it would have to defend San Francisco later.

Reason Magazine - Learning From Ike



This is the full quote in the 1954 press conference transcript from an academic website.

Q. Ray L. Scherer, National Broadcasting Company: Mr. President, there seem to be increasing suggestions that we should embark on a preventive war with the Communist world, some of these suggestions by people in high places. I wonder, sir, if you would care to address yourself to that proposition.

THE PRESIDENT. All of us have heard this term "preventive war" since the earliest days of Hitler. I recall that is about the first time I heard it. In this day and time, if we believe for one second that nuclear fission and fusion, that type of weapon, would be used in such a war--what is a preventive war?

I would say a preventive war, if the words mean anything, is to wage some sort of quick police action in order that you might avoid a terrific cataclysm of destruction later.

A preventive war, to my mind, is an impossibility today. How could you have one if one of its features would be several cities lying in ruins, several cities where many, many thousands of people would be dead and injured and mangled, the transportation systems destroyed, sanitation implements and systems all gone? That isn't preventive war; that is war.

I don't believe there is such a thing; and, frankly, I wouldn't even listen to anyone seriously that came in and talked about such a thing.

Dwight D. Eisenhower: The President's News Conference of August 11th, 1954



297 posted on 09/16/2007 7:09:14 PM PDT by George W. Bush
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To: George W. Bush

Thank you, GWB. Nice work.


299 posted on 09/16/2007 7:22:29 PM PDT by JTN (If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.)
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To: George W. Bush
Thanks for the transcript , the quote When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it as well as After my experience, I have come to hate war. War settles nothing, on their own or paired, appear to be fabrications.
320 posted on 09/17/2007 7:04:20 AM PDT by SJackson (isolationism never was, never will be acceptable response to[expansionist] tyrannical governments)
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