"88," White Power for "Heil Hitler"

[Dave Wilton]

> What, however, is the etymological fact (if we know)? In the back of
> my mind lurks a military-explosives origin, not a sexual one.

It's military in origin. "More bang for the buck" is generally credited to
Eisenhower's Defense Secretary Charles Wilson (the man who also gave us
"What's good for General Motors is good for the country"). The original
association was with the "New Look" foreign policy and the military strategy
of "massive retaliation." I don't, however, have Wilson's original quote.
Safire says that it was in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations c.
1953.