Council for a Livable World

Political action to reduce nuclear threats

  • Elections
    • Senate Candidates
    • House Candidates
    • Political Analysis
    • Who We’ve Helped Elect
  • Legislation
    • Key National Security Legislation
    • National Security Legislative Calendar
    • Legislative Analysis
    • Legislative Achievements
  • Take Action
    • Issues
    • Join Our Email List
    • Become a Member
  • About
    • Staff
    • Press
    • Newsletter
    • Boards & Experts
    • Jobs & Internships
    • Financials and Annual Reports
    • Contact Us
  • Donate
  • Search
You are here: Home / Blog / Eisenhower and Taft Would Flunk the Cruz and Inhofe Test

February 13, 2013

Eisenhower and Taft Would Flunk the Cruz and Inhofe Test

As the Senate gets ready to vote on Chuck Hagel’s confirmation to be Secretary of Defense, I found in my reading of history, courtesy of Harvard historian Jill Lepore, quotes from President Eisenhower and Senator Taft. I thought these historic Republicans would have been opposed by Senators Cruz R-Tx) and Inhofe (R-Ok).

Everyone knows Eisenhower’s famous warning about the military-industrial complex driving our security policy. It was a memorable warning, like that of George Washington warning against the United States being ensnared ” in entangling alliances.”

What deserves to be remembered is Eisenhower’s speech delivered to theAmerican Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE)on April 16, 1953 at the height of the Cold War, when Joe McCarthy ran rampant and Eisenhower had had a brutal confirmation fight for Charles Bohlen to be Ambassador to the Soviet Union, harshly fought by the Republican right.

Here is what Eisenhower said to the ASNE.

    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 not clothed. This is a world in arms.
     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…. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under
     the clouds of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross
     of iron.

Robert Taft gave a speech during World War II in 1941 before Pearl Harbor
that said:

    Frankly, the American people don’t want to rule the world, and we are
     not equipped to do it. Such imperialism is wholly foreign to our ideals
     of democracy and freedom. It is not our manifest destiny or our
     national destiny.

Cruz’s personal attacks, and Inhofe’s twisted reasoning that appointees are
held responsible for those they have no control over (Iran commenting on
Hagel) takes these Senators off the wall. It makes them champions of
excommunication.

It also tells me that Hagel stands as a Eisenhower Republican who is skeptical
of the excesses of what Taft rightly described as “manifest destiny.”

David Cohen
Washington, DC
February 13, 2013

Posted in: Blog

Tweets by Livable World

Recent Posts

  • ‘A TIMELY AND APPROPRIATE RESPONSE TO MODERN NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONCERNS’: STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF THE ‘BLOCK NUCLEAR LAUNCH BY AUTONOMOUS ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE ACT’ May 3, 2023
  • Council: Front and Center: April 23, 2023 April 23, 2023
  • Council: Front and Center: March 18, 2023 March 18, 2023
  • Statement on the Passing of Former Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder March 15, 2023
  • House Elections: Democratic and Republican Target Seats March 13, 2023
Council for a Livable World logo

820 1st Street NE, Suite LL-180
Washington, D.C. 20002
Phone: 202.543.4100

Elections

  • Meet The Candidates
  • Senate Candidates
  • House Candidates
  • Who We’ve Helped Elect

Legislation

  • Key National Security Legislation
  • National Security Legislative Calendar
  • Legislative Achievements

Take Action

  • Issues
  • Join Our Email List
  • Become a Member

About

  • History & Mission
  • Staff
  • Press
  • Newsletter
  • Boards & Experts
  • Jobs & Internships
  • Financials and Annual Reports
  • Contact Us
  • Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Instagram
  • Facebook

© 2023 Council for a Livable World
Privacy Policy