"As we look at the problem of allocating priorities within the NATO nations, we need not necessarily make the choice between social programs and defense expenditures. It’s possible to accommodate both requirements simultaneously. During the Eisenhower years in the United States, we did both concurrently. At that time, the United States invested 10% of its gross national product in defense. Unemployment was the lowest it had been in two decades. The inflation rate was the lowest in two decades, and there were no overriding social problems resulting from that allocation of priorities. The defense effort, in conjunction with the effort to build the interstate highway system of the United States, resulted in the creation of sufficient jobs to minimize the social problems that the country might have been faced with. Nor did we accumulate the enormous national debt that one might expect from that experience. The parallels with today are not exact, of course, but it could well be that the experiences of the past can help us chart our course for the future."