While Ike's "Farewell Address" doesn't sensationalize the dangers of the time, and his delivery on television was remarkably steady and calm, one of the biggest motifs of the speech is facing up to the dangers threatening the United States. The first step toward getting out of a pickle is realizing you're in one, after all.

The biggest threat on everyone's mind was another world war, or a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union. Since everyone knew about the conflict with the Soviets—it was the #2 theme song of the 1950s after "Sh-Boom"—he didn't need to say anything particularly new about it. Still, he devoted a few paragraphs to the Red Menace anyway.

Weighing more heavily on Ike's mind were the dangers of allowing special interests, industrialists, and technology to subvert what he saw as the sacred mission and purpose of America. But as concerned as he was about these forces in the halls of government, he very simply gave the preventative cure: alertness, awareness, and a willingness to do the hard work of balancing the different components of the American system.

These two quotes sum up Ike's whole philosophy of facing up to these dangers:

• Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together. (IV.18)
• It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system-ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society. (IV.28)
  

Easier said than done, of course, but it's hard to argue with Ike's advice. Such "huge machineries" can only be properly wielded by a huge populace of educated, informed citizens who take their country's ideals seriously.

Yeah… how's that going nowadays?