Every gun that is made, every wa
rship 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.
Dwight D Eisenhower (1890 – 1969)
Born in Texas and raised in Kansas, Ike was the 34th President of the United States after having risen through the ranks of the Army to be the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces during the Second World War. He is generally credited with having planned the successful invasions of Nazi-held North Africa and later Normandy and the battle for Europe. Although not highly political, he ran for President as a Republican, defeating the isolationist Robert Taft who wanted to end American participation in NATO, of which Eisenhower was Commander. He beat Adlai Stevenson in the 1952 general election by a landslide, repeating the feat in 1956.  Domestically conservative, he none-the-less successfully opposed McCarthyism, signed the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and paved the way for the massive Interstate Highway System, which is named in his honor. As he left the presidency in 1961 he famously inveighed against the “military-industrial complex” coining the term. The above quote from the most powerful soldier of the 20th century was uttered eight years earlier in a speech following the death of Stalin.
Good Morning Gloucester 