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World Service,17 Jan 2018,9 mins

Eisenhower's Farewell Address

Witness History

Available for over a year

American president Dwight Eisenhower's farewell address in January 1961 is regarded as one of the greatest speeches made by a US president. In it, he warned Americans against the military industrial complex, a phrase that he coined for the first time, and not to live just for today. Eisenhower, who had been the allied commander in Europe during World War Two, was succeeded by his young Democratic rival, John F Kennedy, who was seen as representing the new post-war generation. Louise Hidalgo talks to Dwight Eisenhower's grandson and one of his speech-writers about that time. (Photo: President Eisenhower (left) and his vice-president Richard Nixon at the president's second inauguration in Washington. Credit: Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

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