LETTER: Eisenhower, spending and communism

The Aug. 30 letter “Spending overload” misrepresents a contention by President Dwight D. Eisenhower that the communist objective was to make us spend ourselves into bankruptcy. This is actually referring to Eisenhower‘s concern for the military-industrial complex, a term he coined as an outgrowth of the Cold War. It was a concern mentioned in many of his speeches.

In Eisenhower’s 1961 farewell address, he said, “We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security.” This was in the context of discussing the continued expansion of communism.

In April 1953, President Eisenhower argued that continuing tension between the United States and the Soviet Union blighted the lives of millions of people around the globe. Included was this statement, “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. This 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.”