Eisenhower's farewell address

Dwight D. Eisenhower Farewell Address - 17 January 1961
CNM – CUT Advanced Group

Good evening, my fellow Americans.
We now stand ten years past the _______of a century that has __________four major wars among great nations. (…)

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of ______________ could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But we can no longer risk emergency _________________ of national defense. We have been ____________ to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly ___________ in the defense _____________. (…)

Now this ______________ of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total _______ -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every ____________, every office of the Federal government. We _____________ the imperative need for this development. Yet, we must not fail to comprehend its _______ implications. Our _____, resources, and __________ are all involved. So is the very __________ of our society.

In the ___________ of government, we must guard against the _____________ of _______________influence, whether __________ or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the ______________ rise of __________ power exists and will persist. We must never let the _________of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for__________. Only an alert and ____________citizenry can compel the proper __________of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together (…)

witnessed = observed, watched, spectated.
midpoint = the exact middle point.

improvisation = a spontaneous creation without planing or preparation.
establishment = public institution, a group in a society exercising power.
plowshares = part of a plow, blade of a plow that cuts into the soil.
compelled = forced.
engaged = involved.

influence = impact; control, hold, power, authority, mastery.
recognize =identify as already known, acknowledge the existence,
conjunction = coincidence, coexistence, simultaneity
grave = serious, severe, grievous.
structure = building, construction.
toil = n. hard physical work.
Statehouse = the building in which a State legislature holds its sessions. livelihood = subsistence or living.

meshing = becoming entangled, locking together with another.
acquisition = a recently acquired asset or object, possession, gain.
unwarranted = not justified or authorized, unwanted, illicit, criminal.
granted = (take for granted) assume that something is true.
sought = desired, wanted, searched (past tense of seek).
disastrous = catastrophic, tragic, devastating.
councils = a formally constituted advisory or administrative body.
misplace = put in the wrong place.
weight = a body's relative mass, pressure, force.
knowledgeable = intelligent and well informed.