50th Anniversary of President Eisenhower's Farewell Address

January 17th is the 50th anniversary of President Dwight D. Eisenhower's farewell address to the nation where he worried about the creation of a military industrial complex in the United States. There are a number of programs this month in Washington discussing the history and significance of the speech.

THE MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX REVISITED: EISENHOWER'S WARNING 50 YEARS LATER. 1/11, 12:15-1:45pm, Washington, DC. Sponsor: New America Foundation. Speakers: Gordon Adams, Distinguished Fellow, Stimson Center; David Berteau, Senior Advisor, Center for Strategic and International Studies; Danielle Brian, Executive Director, Project on Government Oversight; Moderator, William D. Hartung, Director, Arms and Security Initiative, New America Foundation, Author, Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex.

THE MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX AT 50: ASSESSING THE MEANING AND IMPACT OF EISENHOWER'S FAREWELL ADDRESS. 1/13, 9:00am-12:30pm, Washington, DC. Sponsor: Cato Insitute. Speakers: Susan Eisenhower, Chairman Emeritus, The Eisenhower Institute; Andrew Bacevich, Professor of International Relations and History, Boston University; Charles J. Dunlap, Jr., Maj. Gen., USAF (Ret.), Visiting Professor and Associate Director of the Center on Law, Ethics and National Security, Duke University School of Law; Lawrence Korb, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress; Lawrence Wilkerson, Visiting Harriman Professor of Government and Public Policy, College of William and Mary; Moderated by Christopher Preble, Director of Foreign Policy Studies, Cato Institute; Eugene Gholz, Associate Professor and Distinguished Scholar at the Robert Strauss Center on International Security and Law, LBJ School of Public Affairs, University of Texas, Austin; John C. Hulsman, Senior Research Fellow, The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies; Richard K. Betts, Director, Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies, Columbia University; Moderated by Ted Galen Carpenter, Vice President for Defense and Foreign Policy Studies, Cato Institute.

SACRED TRINITY AND WASHINGTON RULES: AMERICA'S FOREIGN POLICY FOR OVER 50 YEARS. 1/13, 11:30am-2:00pm, Lunch, Washington, DC. Sponsor: Woman’s National Democratic Club (WNDC). Speaker: Col. Andrew Bacevich (retired), professor of International Relations and History at Boston University and the author of the recent Washington Rules: America's Permanent Path To War (2010).

EISENHOWER'S FAREWELL ADDRESS AT FIFTY: WAS HE RIGHT ABOUT THE "SCIENTIFIC-TECHNOLOGICAL ELITE"? 1/18, 4:30- 6:00pm, Washington, DC. Sponsor: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Speakers: Dan Greenberg, science journalist and author of several books on science policy; Gregg Pascal Zachary, author of the authoritative biography of Vannevar Bush; William Lanouette, a journalist on science policy and from 1991 to 2006 a senior analyst on energy and science issues at GAO; Dan Sarewitz, co-director of Consortium for Science, Policy, and Outcomes.

THE FAREWELL ADDRESS: 50 YEARS LATER. 1/18, 6:30-9:30, Washington, DC. Sponsor: The Newseum; the Eisenhower Institute of Gettysburg College; and the Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum. Speakers: Dana Priest The Washington Post, Evan Thomas, Newsweek; James Fallows, national correspondent at the Atlantic; and David Gergen, CNN and the Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum.