“If you want total security, go to prison,” a Facebook post credits 34th U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower with saying. “There you're fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking is freedom.”
Readers asked us to authenticate the quote, so Snopes reporter Bethania Palma tracked it down. It’s a loose paraphrase of something Eisenhower actually said in 1949, she writes, “a time in history sandwiched between the defeat of fascism in Europe and the escalating post-conflict Cold War.”
It was a warning to Americans never to bow to any dictatorial government.
The Daily Debunker delivers top stories from Snopes.com to your inbox. Subscribe.
