Подкаст на английском № 44: Прощальная речь Дуайта Дэвида Эйзенхауэра на посту 34-го Президента США. Часть 1.

Подкаст на английском № 44: Прощальная речь Дуайта Дэвида Эйзенхауэра на посту 34-го Президента США. Часть 1.

Учебные материалы тренажёра PTAFL.

00. Farewell Address of Dwight David Eisenhower as the 34th President of the United States. Part 1. An educational podcast for the PTAFL program. This speech is in the public domain in accordance with US copyright status. The introduction is written by Georgy Panov.

01. Dwight David Eisenhower was born on October 14, 1890, in Texas into a Protestant immigrant family. Immediately after high school, he became a cadet at the United States Military Academy at West Point. The young Eisenhower did not have a chance to participate in the First World War. However, by the beginning of the Second World War, he was already a big military commander. For example, in 1944, he commanded the famous Allied landings in Normandy.

02. Later, Eisenhower became commander-in-chief of the US Army. In 1951, he became commander-in-chief of the North Atlantic Alliance, in other words, NATO. They say initially, Eisenhower did not want to go into politics, but his colleagues in the Republican Party persuaded him to run for President of the country. Therefore, Eisenhower ended his military career and in 1952 began his political career, registering as a candidate for the presidency of the United States. In the fight for this position, Eisenhower beat the Democratic candidate and became the 34th President of the United States.

03. As President, Eisenhower is closely involved in in developing of the US military-industrial complex and considers it important to actively resist the influence of the Soviet Union in the international arena. Many have heard the expression ‘peace enforcement,’ and the author of this idea was, in fact, Eisenhower. It was he who once said, ‘We will achieve peace, even if we have to fight to do it. ‘ Although Eisenhower was always perceived as a fighter against communist influence in the United States, he terminated the activities of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s commission, which was investigating anti-American activities. This commission was associated with the massive and often unjustified persecution of United States citizens suspected of having communist ties.

04. According to McCarthy, the activities of the American Communists were controlled by the special services of the USSR and were subversive to America. Therefore, the American intelligence agencies actively resisted this. However, later it was considered that the communist threat was greatly exaggerated, and the methods of inquiry used by the American special services to their citizens were unacceptable. The unfounded suspicion and persecution of citizens in America has been named ‘McCarthyism. ‘ However, having studied the information available today, I can say that McCarthy’s suspicions and activities were not groundless.

05. However, the special services of the USSR managed to outplay the US special services and not only morally destroyed McCarthy as a politician through the American media but also turned his activities into a scarecrow for many decades. Returning to Eisenhower, it is worth noting that he did not always pursue successful economic policies. Nevertheless, he was an active supporter of innovation. For example, during his presidency in the United States, the first nuclear power plant was built and NASA was created. One of the largest aircraft carriers of the United States of our time is named after Eisenhower.

06. Let’s listen to his last speech as President of the United States, delivered on January 17, 1961, and broadcast on television. Good evening, my fellow Americans. First, I should like to express my gratitude to the radio and television networks for the opportunity they have given me over the years to bring reports and messages to our nation. My special thanks go to them for the opportunity of addressing you this evening. Three days from now, after a half a century of service of our country, I shall lay down the responsibilities of office.

07. As, in traditional and solemn ceremony, the authority of the Presidency is vested in my successor. This evening I come to you with a message of leave-taking and farewell, and to share a few final thoughts with you, my countrymen. Like every other citizen, I wish the new President, and all who will labor with him, Godspeed. I pray that the coming years will be blessed with peace and prosperity for all. Our people expect their President and the Congress to find essential agreement on issues of great moment, the wise resolution of which will better shape the future of the nation.

08. My own relations with the Congress, which began on a remote and tenuous basis when, long ago, a member of the Senate appointed me to West Point, have since ranged to the intimate during the war and immediate post-war period, and finally to the mutually interdependent during these past eight years. In this final relationship, the Congress and the Administration have, on most vital issues, cooperated well, to serve the nation and the nation good rather than mere partisanship, and so have assured that the business of the nation should go forward. So, my official relationship with the Congress ends in a feeling on my part, of gratitude that we have been able to do so much together. We now stand ten years past the midpoint of a century that has witnessed four major wars among great nations. Three of these involved our own country.

09. Despite these holocausts America is today the strongest, the most influential and most productive nation in the world. Understandably proud of this pre-eminence, we yet realize that America’s leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches and military strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment. Throughout America’s adventure in a free government, such basic purposes have been to keep the peace, to foster progress in human achievement, and to enhance liberty, dignity and integrity among peoples and among nations. To strive for less would be unworthy of a free and religious people. Any failure traceable to arrogance or our lack of comprehension or readiness to sacrifice would inflict upon us a grievous hurt, both at home and abroad.

10. Progress toward these noble goals is persistently threatened by the conflict now engulfing the world. It commands our whole attention, absorbs our very beings. We face a hostile ideology global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method. Unhappily the danger it poses promises to be of indefinite duration. To meet it successfully, there is called for, not so much the emotional and transitory sacrifices of crisis, but rather those which enable us to carry forward steadily, surely, and without complaint the burdens of a prolonged and complex struggle, – with liberty the stake.

11. Only thus shall we remain, despite every provocation, on our charted course toward permanent peace and human betterment. Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties. A huge increase in the newer elements of our defenses, development of unrealistic programs to cure every ill in agriculture. A dramatic expansion in basic and applied research – these and many other possibilities, each possibly promising in itself, may be suggested as the only way to the road we wish to travel.

12. But each proposal must be weighed in light of a broader consideration. The need to maintain balance in and among national programs – balance between the private and the public economy, balance between the cost and hoped for advantages, – balance between the clearly necessary and the comfortably desirable. Balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties imposed by the nation upon the individual, balance between the actions of the moment and the national welfare of the future.