Senator Barry Goldwater, The Will to be Strong: The Weakening of the Defense Department, September 23, 1964.

When he assumed the presidency, Lyndon Johnson demonstrated a commitment to anticommunism and the ideals of the New Deal. His policies sought to create the Great Society domestically while continuing his predecessors' Cold War battles. However, both of those goals proved elusive. In 1964, with a presidential election approaching, the political instability of South Vietnam was exacerbated by the successes of the Vietcong. Barry Goldwater, Johnsons Republican opponent in the upcoming election, attacked Johnson's policies as too accommodating. He also viewed Johnson's policies as misguided in their emphasis on domestic issues. Alternatively, he urged a return to a volunteer army that would provide the incentive of a respectable career, the use of greater force in combating communist threats abroad, and a reassessment of Cold War and defense policies. In short, Goldwater advocated cutting Johnson's Great Society programs, which he viewed as unnecessary handouts, and expanding defense spending. Equally important, he Republican candidate vehemently opposed any cooperation with communist powers, claiming that cooperation encouraged communist successes around the globe.

The Will To Be Strong

THE WEAKENING OF THE DEFENSE DEPARTMENT

By BARRY GOLDWATER, Senator from Arizona

Delivered before the American Legion National Convention, Dallas, Texas, September 23, 1964

DISTINGUISHED, COMMANDER, my fellow memberss of the American Legion, members of the auxiliary. I first want to thank the commander for having invited me to be here today. I really wanted to visit with you, and I sat by with-sort of like on pins, waiting for the letter that would invite me to come to Dallas to attend. this convention. Now, I'm most happy to be here, and I would like, if this is proper-going through channels as we are used to doing-to ask permission when I'm finished speaking to leave the platform and sit with my Arizona friends 'way in the back.

And I hope and pray that some day in the not too distant future we can entertain the American Legion national convention in Arizona where we have wonderful climate, wonderful people, lot of things to do, and we can keep you busy and give you a good time while you're doing it.

I want to talk today about peace. No man anywhere wants peace more than I do, and no man anywhere wants to avoid war more than I do. I know war, and I have sons and daughters and grandchildren who I do not want touched by war. .1 think one war in a man's life is par for the course.

And we can begin, I know, with the assumption that all Americans share the desire for peace, and they share also the responsibility for answering the terrible question of how we are to have and hold peace in a deeply troubled and a deeply divided world.

And we must, you must, and all of us must search our hearts and heads for an answer that rings true. But we must search for the answer with facts, not merely with wishes or with wishful thinking.

I believe that in the first place, we must recognize that it's not possible or at least not honest, to talk about peace without talking about and understanding Communism.

Now the great, harsh fact of today's troubled world is that Communism is at war, and it's at war against us, at war against all non-Communist nations.

The great, harsh fact is that Communism is the only major threat to the peace of the world anywhere in this world today, net we realize this the better.

The great, harsh fact is that Communism wants the whole In Cuba, in the Congo, at the Berlin wall, in Indonesia, Vietnam - wherever the flames of conflict are being fanned, Communism is the cause.

Now, the methods it uses in its unrelenting drive to con conquer the world are based solely upon expediency, What Communism will do, how far it will go, at any given moment, depends upon their hardheaded, cold-blooded assessment of the the risks that they must face.

If they can bury us, as they've promised to do - if they can win the world as they've said they will - if they can do this without nuclear war, then they will try to avoid nuclear war.

But remember this: It is not compassion or decency which prevents their attacking us. It's not concern for our children. It's just plain fear. They respect our power and they fear provoking its use against them.

Now, this is the reason that we must maintain peace, through preparedness.

But, you might ask, can we, in good heart and conscience, look forward to a cold war which will last forever unless it ends suddenly in nuclear destruction or take-over by a Communist dictator?

We can't, and I say we need not, look forward to such a bleak future. There is a rational solution to the problem which confronts us. The present policy that guides us, however, is based upon false answers. American foreign policy based on those false answers has made it altogether too easy for Communists to seize complete control of IS nations and enslave one - third of the world's population.

Now, the worst of the false answers is that the Communists will stop being hostile if we just accommodate them, if we can convince them that we really want to be friends. Now, according to this theory, then they will become friends. This naive assumption is based on a complete misunderstanding of Communism as we know it today. It puts us in the position of a lamb trying to convince a lion that he's not really hungry.

I might remind you that 30 years of tragic experience have proven this theory utterly false.

This thesis, mind you, is what convinced Franklin Roosevelt that he should recognize the Soviet Union, and it's what led to American concessions to Russia at the conferences in Yalta, Teheran and Potsdam.

It prompted so much aid - American aid - to Russia during and after World War 11 that we can honestly say that much of modern, industrial Russia is a creation of the American taxpayer.

This thesis directed the settlement of the Cuba crisis, the nuclear test ban treaty, and the sale of wheat to Russia - just to mention a few.

Now, it should be clear, I believe, to everyone that the "let's be friends" theory has not worked. Communism has not moderated its goals. It's continued to gain ground.

Now, the Communists have been stymied in Europe by the mighty shield of NATO which, incidentally, is cracking up under this present Administration, and they've been thrown back to the 38th parallel in Korea-but these reversals have been brought about by the use, or the threatened rise, of military force. Almost everywhere else, the Communists have gained ground.

Now, if we want to halt their gains, if we want to save America's future and freedom, we must be stronger than the enemy-not just by a little bit, but by far. We certainly can't make the Reds reasonable, but we can make Communism count the odds.

But merely possessing the weapons of strength is not the same as being strong. We need the will to be strong. All the weapons in the world can't save us if our will is weak.

Now, we must realize that the responsible use of power to deter those with hostile intent-is not nearly so likely to provoke all-out war as it is to prevent war by keeping the aggressor within bounds.

I needn't remind you of this, but sometimes it's necessary to remind the American people that whenever free world leaders have shrunk from responsible use of power at critical moments in history, they have permitted little problems to grow into gigantic and infinitely more dangerous problems. This, let me remind you, has always been true-from Munich to the Bay of Pigs-and it's high time that our leaders faced the fact.

If we follow in this country the notion that a "let's be friends" approach, coupled with a defense establishment we are reluctant to use, can save us from Communism, we will run a very, very grave risk of war.

Now, the balance of power can't remain static forever. The threat of a technological breakthrough by the Soviets must be considered. And if the Communists believe the odds favor them, they will not hesitate to hit us with their most fearsome weapons.

Therefore, the first and central duty of the Federal Government is to provide for the common defense, and in the present state of the world, military spending is and must be high. But it alone amounts to less than one-half of the total Federal expenditures. In the 12 months ending June 30, 1964, the Federal Government spent the astounding total of $120 billion, or nearly $650 for every man, woman and child in the United States. Of this amount, $55 billion was spent on our military forces. Nondefense expenses, however, amounted to $65 billion.

And more importantly, the sharp rise in Federal spending in the present Administration has been mainly for purposes other than our common defense. In 1960, the final full year of the Eisenhower Administration, the Federal Government spent $94 billion, of which $46 billion was for defense.

And in the four years since, total expenditures have risen by nearly $30 billion, or by about one-third, and this is what this Administration calls economy. Federal expenses, for example, on our military forces have risen by $10 billion, so two-thirds of the rise in expenditures was for other purposes. Nondefense expenditures alone rose by 40 per cent in the last four years.

Currently, the Administration proposes actually to cut our military spending in order to provide funds for sticking the Government's fingers in still a larger mess of pies-for handouts here, subsidies there, and all, no doubt, said to be for the good purposes but, like past efforts in these directions, likely to end up having effects quite the opposite of those intended, yet draining the public purse.

That way lies national suicide. There is no surer way to condemn this nation to the status of a second-rate power, incapable of exerting influence in the world at large, than to fritter away taxable capacity in do-gooder schemes that waste our substance. Let me remind you that the experience of Britain is a striking example of how this can happen. We must not let it happen here.

The defenses of our nation need to be strengthened, not weakened. We must be ready to spend more on them when it's needed, not less. And we mustn't try to save money by putting all our trust in untried missiles, while scrapping tried and true weapons.

And we can't afford to reduce our defense establishment in the hope that a friendly Russian regime will accommodate us by doing the same thing.

We mustn't let our guard drop because of a temporarily friendly mask.

We hear today that there is an argument going on between Red China and Russia. And because of this, many of the pacifists in Washington, many of the unilateral-disarmament people, say, "Let's take another look. Things are breaking our way. These people are becoming more kindly in our direction."

'Let me remind you what we have are Communists fighting Communists, and I don't give a darn who wins that fightwe're still going to have Communists as our enemies.

Because of this, we must seek true economy, not the false economy of weakening our defenses.

Now, I needn't remind you of this, but I want to. The core of our defense consists of the men who serve in the armed forces, and we are currently manning these forces by an outmoded draft that is inconsistent with the values of a free people, that is grossly inequitable and inefficient and that, besides, is unduly expensive.

Never before have we had a conscript army except in time of declared war. Always we have relied on volunteers, ready to serve their country.

Now, whether we like it or not, the present draft introduces uncertainty into the lives of all our young men and young women, makes it difficult for them to plan their careers with assurance and, most important of all discriminates grossly against many of the poor and the less-well-educated who cannot afford the various escape hatches that all of us know are now open. And it doesn't even meet the needs of our armed forces.

The low re-enlistment rate and resultant rapid turnover of men trained at great expense reduce the efficiency of the armed forces and impose heavy financial costs. It's long past time that we scrap these arrangements and return, in my humble opinion, to a volunteer army which induces men to serve by offering them an attractive career. That is a course of ac. tion, I might suggest, that's recommended by freedom and economy alike.

And when I talk about an attractive career, I mean just that. I entered the Army Reserves in 1930, and I saw the low esteem that the Army man was held in, the Navy man was held in, the Marine and later the Air Corpsman, was held in back in the 'thirties. And it took World War 11 to elevate the uniform to the place of dignity and pride that it should always occupy in the minds and hearts of American people, and I claim that we can build that again in this country.

And to those who say that dropping the draft in the near future would be an overbearing burden of money, all I say is as a businessman many, many times have I made investments in my business that I knew would be a loss at the outset but which I knew would be a profit in the long run.

And if we just create a military that is attractive to young men, so attractive that they say, "This is going to be my life. I'm not going to spend three years in it, four years in it, then get out and go to work, but I'm going to spend my life in it," then we will have a force that's worthy of its name and properly strong to defend our country.

Now, there are serious charges that must be placed against the present civilian leadership of the Defense Department on both counts.

On the count of freedom, the present Secretary of Defense must be charged with mistake after mistake in evaluating the intentions of Communism and in understanding the dynamics of Communism.

His efforts to turn the Defense Department into a Disarmament Department, his participation in the massive misevaluation of Soviet intentions which led to the Cuban missile crisis, are parts of the indictment on this score.

His ceaseless attempts to downgrade professional military men and his persistent attempts to turn basic decisions-basic defense decisions-to political purposes must also be included in the indictment.

On the count of economy, the present Secretary of Defense must be charged with mistake after mistake in seeking to save pennies and dollars at the expense of the weapons, equipment and plans upon which the lives of our citizens and our citizens soldiers may depend. And a careful accounting, I am willing to predict, will show that even the high claims for saving will have to be lowered or denied.

Now the humor-ridden award, for example, of the contract for the TFX aircraft is a $16 billion instance of the present Secretary's deliberately, and against all professional military advice, ordering on his own say-so the second-best airplane at the highest price.

Now, there was no saving and no security there.

There can be no second-best in our defense, no matter the cost.

And this sorry record of the present civilian administration of the Department of Defense has been piling up in the hearings of the committees in both the Senate and the House. Now technical writers have exposed much of this record and it's to be hoped that all who are genuinely interested in the defense of this nation will support efforts to continue the exposure, despite the efforts of the Secretary of Defense to divert attention by slick, figure-juggling performances.

Let me remind you, there is more at stake here than the pet theories of the White House's pet Cabinet officer. Peace and freedom and the future of your world and your children's world is at stake.

And I am speaking for peace when I say we must build our strength and show the will to halt the Red's aggression. I am speaking for peace when I say we must quit helping the Reds-by sending them wheat, for example-to keep their oppressive and unsound system alive.

Their system has so many intrinsic faults it would collapse if it wasn't braced from the outside as we've been bracing it.

These are old words to you. But appease an aggressor and try to make friends with him and eventually you'll have to go to war with him-unless you're willing to hand over your freedom without a fight. And I don't think Americans are.

Three times in the lives of most of us in this chamber, the way of weakness has led us to war under similar administrations. Don't let it happen again. The next war--and God forbid that it will ever come-would be more devastating than all the others put together.

Don't let it happen again. I speak, as you speak, for peace, not war, when I say that America must take a firm line with Communist leaders until their evil system ceases to threaten the world and threaten the freedom of man and the peace of the world.

My fellow members of the American Legion and members of the auxiliary: I didn't have the opportunity of presenting the newest member of the auxiliary-so new that she hasn't even her cap yet and she says she hasn't paid her dues-we'll get with that-my wife, Peggy. Would you

I want to on behalf of Peggy and myself thank you for these wonderful roses. They are most apropos. Thirty years ago tonight we spent the second night of our honeymoon in the Baker Hotel.

Now the situation is a little different now, but we're going to spend it here tonight again.

I want to take this opportunity as a proud member of this organization in congratulating the commander for the outstanding job that he's done for all of us and for America during his term of office and I wish you well, sit, as you go along.

Thank you.