The Military-Industrial Complex

This has been an amazing month for speeches and anniversaries of speeches. Last week the current President of the United States gave perhaps his greatest speech to date. On Thursday we will mark the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's Inaugural Address, and yesterday we also marked the 50th anniversary of perhaps the most important farewell address ever given by any President, including Washington. Dwight David Eisenhower, whose place in history is still evolving, warned us about an all to pervasive Military Industrial Complex; an idea that is still relevant and still part of our collective political consciousness. Journalist James Ledbetter, in his book Unwarranted Influence: Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Military-Industrial Complex, gives us the definitive analysis of that speech and it's place in history. My conversation with James Ledbetter: