James
William Fulbright was born in Sumner, Missouri, on 9th April, 1905.
The following year he moved with his parents to Fayettesville, Arkansas.
After graduating from the University of Arkansas in 1925, he attended
Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar.
On
his return to the United States Fulbright studied
law at the George Washington University and was admitted to the District
of Columbia bar in 1934. Later that year he became an attorney at
the United States Department of Justice. Later he taught law at the
University of Arkansas (1936-39).
A
member of the Democratic Party, Fulbright
was elected to the House of Representatives in 1942. The following
year he persuaded fellow representatives to adopt the Fulbright Resolution,
a measure that encouraged the United States participation in what
was to become the United Nations.
In
1944 Fulbright he successfully won a seat in the Senate. Two years
later he encouraged Congress to pass the Fulbright Act, a scheme that
provided for the exchange of students and teachers between the United
States and other countries.
Fulbright
was concerned about the activities of Joseph
McCarthy and in 1954 he was the only senator to vote against an
appropriation for the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which
was chaired by McCarthy.
In
1959 Fulbright became chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.
In this post he was highly critical of President John
F. Kennedy when
he gave the order for the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. He was also
strongly opposed to U.S. involvement in Vietnam.
These views on politics were strongly expressed in his books, Old
Myths and New Realities (1964), The
Arrogance of Power (1966), The
Pentagon Propaganda Machine (1970) and The
Crippled Giant (1972).
In
the 1974 Democratic primary in Arkansas,
he was defeated by Dale Bumpers. After leaving the Senate he worked
for the law firm of Hogan and Hartson in Washington. James William
Fulbright died on 9th February, 1995.
(1)
J. William Fulbright, interview in the New
York Times (30th April, 1985)
The biggest lesson I learned from Vietnam is not to trust our own
government statements. I had no idea until then that you could not
rely on them.
(2)
J. William Fulbright, speech
(26th June, 1986)
I’m sure that President Johnson would never have pursued the
war in Vietnam if he’d ever had a Fulbright (student) to Japan,
or say Bangkok, or had any feeling for what these people are like
and why they acted the way they did. He was completely ignorant.
(3)
J. William Fulbright, Arrogance of Power (1966)
The attitude above all
others which I feel sure is no longer valid is the arrogance of power,
the tendency of great nations to equate power with virtue and major
responsibilities with a universal mission. The dilemmas involved are
preeminently American dilemmas, not because America has weaknesses
that others do not have but because America is powerful as no nation
has ever been before and the discrepancy between its power and the
power of others appears to be increasing.
We are now engaged in a
war to "defend freedom" in South Vietnam. Unlike the Republic
of Korea, South Vietnam has an army which is without notable success
and a weak, dictatorial government which does not command the loyalty
of the South Vietnamese people. The official war aims of the United
States Government, as I understand them, are to defeat what is regarded
as North Vietnamese aggression, to demonstrate the futility of what
the communists call "wars of national liberation," and to
create conditions under which the South Vietnamese people will be
able freely to determine their own future. I have not the slightest
doubt of the sincerity of the President and the Vice President and
the Secretaries of State and Defense in propounding these aims. What
I do doubt - and doubt very much - is the ability of the United States
to achieve these aims by the means being used. I do not question the
power of our weapons and the efficiency of our logistics; I cannot
say these things delight me as they seem to delight some of our officials,
but they are certainly impressive. What I do question is the ability
of the United States, or France or any other Western nation, to go
into a small, alien, undeveloped Asian nation and create stability
where there is chaos, the will to fight where there is defeatism,
democracy, where there is no tradition of it and honest government
where corruption is almost a way of life. Our handicap is well expressed
in the pungent Chinese proverb: "In shallow waters dragons become
the sport of shrimps."
Early last month demonstrators
in Saigon burned American jeeps, tried to assault American soldiers,
and marched through the streets shouting "Down with the American
imperialists," while one of the Buddhist leaders made a speech
equating the United States with the communists as a threat to South
Vietnamese independence. Most Americans are understandably shocked
and angered to encounter such hostility from people who by now would
be under the rule of the Viet Cong but for the sacrifice of American
lives and money. Why, we may ask, are they so shockingly ungrateful?
Surely they must know that their very right to parade and protest
and demonstrate depends on the Americans who are defending them.
The answer, I think, is
that "fatal impact" of the rich and strong on the poor and
weak. Dependent on it though the Vietnamese are, our very strength
is a reproach to their weakness, our wealth a mockery of their poverty,
our success a reminder of their failures. What they resent is the
disruptive effect of our strong culture upon their fragile one, an
effect which we can no more avoid than a man can help being bigger
than a child. What they fear, I think rightly, is that traditional
Vietnamese society cannot survive the American economic and cultural
impact
The cause of our difficulties
in southeast Asia is not a deficiency of power but an excess of the
wrong kind of power which results in a feeling of impotence when it
fails to achieve its desired ends. We are still acting like boy scouts
dragging reluctant old ladies across the streets they do not want
to cross. We are trying to remake Vietnamese society, a task which
certainly cannot be accomplished by force and which probably cannot
be accomplished by any means available to outsiders. The objective
may b e desirable, but it is not feasible.
If America has a service
to perform in the world - and I believe it has - it is in large part
the service of its own example. In our excessive involvement in the
affairs of other countries, we are not only living off our assets
and denying our own people the proper enjoyment of their resources;
we are also denying the world the example of a free society enjoying
its freedom to the fullest. This is regrettable indeed for a nation
that aspires to teach democracy to other nations, because, as Burke
said! "Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn
at no other."
There are many respects
in which America, if it can bring itself to act with the magnanimity
and the empathy appropriate to its size and power, can be an intelligent
example to the world. We have the opportunity to set an example of
generous understanding in our relations with China, of practical cooperation
for peace in our relations with Russia, of reliable and respectful
partnership in our relations with Western Europe, of material helpfulness
without moral presumption in our relations with the developing nations,
of abstention from the temptations of hegemony in our relations with
Latin America, and of the all around advantages of minding one's own
business in our relations with everybody. Most of all, we have the
opportunity to serve as an example of democracy to the world by the
way in which we run our own society; America, in the words of John
Quincy Adams, should be "the well-wisher to the freedom and independence
of all" but "the champion and vindicator only of her own."
If we can bring ourselves
so to act, we will have overcome the dangers of the arrogance of power.
It will involve, no doubt, the loss of certain glories, but that seems
a price worth paying for the probable rewards, which are the happiness
of America and the peace of the world.
Last
updated: 8th September, 2002
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