Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum
The public is invited to join the September Lunch & Learn program on Thursday, September 26, at 12 p.m. noon central time at the Eisenhower Presidential Library. The hybrid program will be held in the Library building indoor courtyard and online via YouTube Livestream. Guests are encouraged to arrive by 11:45 a.m. A light box-lunch will be provided on a first come, first served basis.
Dr. Benjamin Greene will join us virtually as we take an in-depth look at Ike’s Farewell Address. Ike’s caution about the influence of a “military-industrial complex” remains a compelling and controversial aspect of his efforts at waging peace. Historians and commentators continue to debate the origins of the term, Eisenhower’s purpose for including it in his speech, and the lessons it holds for us today. Curiously, few note that his most famous presidential address included a second warning. Eisenhower also cautioned Americans that the growing influence of government-sponsored scientific research risked making public policy the “captive of a scientific-technological elite.” This Lunch and Learn discussion of his speech centers on Eisenhower’s profound disappointment at his administration’s lack of progress on disarmament and the forces that he believed frustrated his final efforts at waging peace.
Dr. Greene is a retired Army officer and currently a historian at the U.S. Department of State. He holds a Ph.D. in History from Stanford University and taught the history of American foreign relations at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, and Bowling Green State University in Ohio where he recently retired as Associate Professor, Emeritus. He is the author of Eisenhower, Science Advice, and the Nuclear Test-Ban Debate, 1945-1963, the editor of Oxford University Press’s bibliography of Dwight D. Eisenhower and has published numerous articles and chapters on a range of topics related to America’s interactions with the world.
The 2024 Waging Peace program series is made possible courtesy of the Eisenhower Foundation with generous support from the Jeffcoat Memorial Foundation.
