General Dwight David Eisenhower

"Peace, It's Wonderful,' he said,
'borrowing a phrase from the Rev. Major J. (Father) Divine.'"

A portion of The Great Bronze door of The Shrine to Life at
The Mount of the House of the Lord

"The General (Eisenhower) opened his news conference yesterday by explaining that he wanted to say something that was expected of him and that he had discussed with his political advisers

It was the topic, "Peace, It's Wonderful", he said,
"borrowing a phrase from the Rev. Major J. (Father) Divine."

The title and clipping taken from The New York Times of Sunday, June 8th, 1952.

"I can't conceive of anything more important to the American people than security and peace in this troubled world," he went on, "The lack of peace," he said, "is responsible for many other ills, such as recurring deficits, inflation and the diversion of a large amount of productive capacity to producing war material.

"This morning I am going to take only a very few minutes of this time in my own right because I want to do something which is apparently absolutely expected of me.

"For some weeks past, both when I was abroad, on the way home and when I got here, I have been bombarded with a lot of advice about the very great disadvantage there would be for me if I should ever start talking about Peace, it is Wonderful'. So since that seems to be expected, as expressed at least in the fears of my friends, I am going to talk for a moment about "Peace, It is Wonderful"!

I cannot conceive in this day and time, of anything that is more important to any American citizen than the question of the
secure peace in the world. We justifiably worry about such things as recurring deficits, vast expenditures by our Federal Government, a tremendous part of which goes into these sterile, negative formations we call military organizations.

The General continued speaking about international peace and then said: "Ladies and gentlemen, when once we get to that place that we say that we may now live in peace and tranquility and devote our substance and our productive capacity to the things that our founding fathers thought we were going to be devoted to, the happiness and welfare of the whole nation, the raising of spiritual and material living standards, then we will have solved the great problems of our time."

The General then gave a very fine discourse on world peace.