These few highlights point up our steady military gains.  We are rightfully gratified by the achievements they represent.  But we must remember that these imposing armaments are purchased at great cost.

National Security programs account for nearly sixty percent of the entire Federal budget for this coming fiscal year.

Modern weapons are exceedingly expensive.

The overall cost of introducing Atlas into our armed forces will average $35 million per missile on the firing line.

This year we are investing an aggregate of close to $7 billion in missile programs alone.

Other billions go for research, development, test and evaluation of new weapons systems.

Our latest atomic submarines will cost $50 millions each, while some special types will cost three times as much.

We are now ordering fighter aircraft which are priced at fifty times as much as the fighters of World War II.

We are buying certain bombers that cost their weight in gold.

These sums are tremendous, even when compared with the marvelous resiliency and capacity of our economy.

Such expenditures demand both balance and perspective in our planning for defense.  At every turn, we must weigh, judge and select.  Needless duplication of weapons and forces must be avoided.

We must guard against feverish building of vast armaments to meet glibly predicted moments of so-called “maximum peril.”  The threat we face is not sporadic or dated:  It is continuous.  Hence we must not be swayed in our calculations either by groundless fear or by complacency.  We must avoid extremes, for vacillation between extremes is inefficient, costly, and destructive of morale.  In these days of unceasing technological advance, we must plan our defense expenditures systematically and with care, fully recognizing that obsolescence compels the never-ending replacement of older weapons with new ones.

The defense budget for the coming year has been planned on the basis of these principles and considerations.  Over these many months I have personally participated in its development.

The aim is a sensible posture of defense.  The secondary aim is increased efficiency and avoidance of waste.  Both are achieved by this budgetary plan.

Working by these guide lines I believe with all my heart that America can be as sure of the strength and efficiency of her armed forces as she is of their loyalty.  I am equally sure that the nation will thus avoid useless expenditures which, in the name of security, might tend to undermine the economy and, therefore, the nation’s safety.

Our own vast strength is only a part of that required for dependable security.  Because of this we have joined with nearly 50 other nations in collective security arrangements.  In these common undertakings each nation is expected to contribute what it can in sharing the heavy load.  Each supplies part of a strategic deployment to protect the forward boundaries of freedom.