[mnehring]

Post #27 & 28 has that actual section of the speech. It isn’t what a lot of people like to make it out to be.

[Wallace T.]

It would be interesting to search old archives of National Review and Human Events from that time, or the reactions of such conservatives as Barry Goldwater or William Knowland to that portion of Eisenhower’s address. Eisenhower was, of course, a career soldier, but one who was not comfortable with the “hard right” faction in the military represented by such men as MacArthur and Patton, who were idolized by conservatives of the 1950s and 1960s. There was a book written several years ago documenting the rightist sentiments and frequently anti-Semitic attitudes of many senior officers from World War I to the Cold War era. I cannot help but think that Eisenhower’s remarks were in part based on the danger he perceived from such people were they to gain greater political control.