The Trump administration's plans to slash science funding could end up liberating researchers from the corrupting influence Dwight Eisenhower warned about.

In President Dwight D. Eisenhower's famous 1961 speech about the dangers of the military-industrial complex, he also cautioned Americans about the growing power of a "scientific, technological elite."

"The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by federal employment project allocations and the power of money is ever present," warned Eisenhower.

The federal government had become a major financier of scientific research after World War II, and Eisenhower was worried that the spirit of open inquiry and progress would be corrupted by the priorities of the federal bureaucracy.