Viewed from the distance of a television screen or a headline, President Eisenhower's address to the American Society of Newspaper Editors (see below) was a striking definition of the kind of world the U.S. wants to live in. But in perspective, the speech had an even broader significance in the context of U.S. history. It marked a new, determined attempt by the U.S. to define its own nature and its purposes, in more specific terms than it had used since Lincoln's day.
The self-definition was no byproduct of foreign policy. As Eisenhower made clear in his first campaign speeches, he is...
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