Background
James William Fulbright was born on April 9, 1905, in Sumner, Missouri, United States. He was the son of Roberta (Waugh) and Jay Fulbright.
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book
The Pentagon propaganda machine
(Senator J. W . Fulbright is uniquely qualified to write t...)
Senator J. W . Fulbright is uniquely qualified to write this book. Time after time, as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, he has confronted the well-staffed, well-oiled, profusely finananced PENATAGON PROPAGANDA MACHINE. Recently, he has tried to counter the most highly-powered publicity campaigns that the Pentagon has ever waged, those for the Antiballistic Missle System and the Vietnam war. Now Fulbright tells the inside story of how the miltary public relations apparatus works. It's all here!
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0871405229/?tag=2022091-20
J. William Fulbright, Vietnam, and the Search for a Cold War Foreign Policy
(J. William Fulbright was the longest serving and most pow...)
J. William Fulbright was the longest serving and most powerful chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was also the most prominent, and the most effective, of the first American critics of the Vietnam War. Fulbright's criticism was particularly galling and damning to Lyndon Johnson because Fulbright was a principled internationalist who could not be dismissed as an ideologue. Fulbright used hearings by the Foreign Relations Committee as a forum in which to advance his powerful critique of the war. This book is an abridgement of Randall Woods' prize-winning biography of J. William Fulbright. This edition presents the full story of Fulbright's role as one of the leading congressional opponents of the Vietnam War.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0521588006/?tag=2022091-20
James William Fulbright
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also known as
J. William Fulbright
Education
James William Fulbright received his bachelor of arts degree at the University of Arkansas in 1925. Attending Oxford University as a Rhodes scholar, he won a bachelor of arts degree (1928) and a master of arts degree (1931). George Washington University awarded Fulbright a bachelor of laws degree in 1934.
Career
During the following years after studies James William Fulbright made a tour of Europe, developed his interest in international affairs. After serving as a special attorney in the antitrust division of the United States Department of Justice (1934 - 1935), he joined the faculties of George Washington University (1935 - 1936) and the University of Arkansas (1936 - 1939). Fulbright served as president of the University of Arkansas from 1939 to 1941.
A member of the Democratic party, Fulbright entered the United States Congress as an Arkansas representative in 1943 during World War II. That September the House of Representatives adopted the Fulbright resolution that favored creation of the "appropriate international machinery with power adequate to establish and to maintain a just and lasting peace, " as well as United States participation in that effort.
Fulbright entered the Senate in 1944 and gained much influence during his long tenure (1959 - 1974) as chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. The Mutual Educational Exchange Program, the Fulbright Act, was established by the United States Congress on August 1, 1946. This legislation authorized the use of United States -owned foreign currencies obtained from the sale of post-war surplus military equipment to finance grants for Americans to study, teach, or conduct research abroad, as well as for foreign citizens to study in the U. S. Since 1949 more than 100, 000 nationals have participated in these exchange programs. It was later administered under the Mutual Educational and Cultural Exchange Act of 1961 which provides the legislative authority for the program. The program operates in more than 135 countries and binational commissions were established by executive agreements in 43 countries.
Fulbright rose to prominence as a member of the Senate Banking and Currency Committee and the Foreign Relations Committee. As a United States senator, Fulbright gained much influence during his long tenure (1959 - 1974) as chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Despite his attacks on the Vietnam War, Fulbright won his fifth term as senator in 1968 with a surprising 59 percent of the Arkansas vote. During the mid-1960 Fulbright published his foreign policy views in Prospects for the West (1963), Old Myths and New Realities (1964), and The Arrogance of Power (1967).
Running for his sixth term as senator in 1974, Fulbright was defeated in the Arkansas Democratic primary, and he resigned from the United States Senate at the end of the year. The Office for United States -Polish Educational Exchanges was established on March 22, 1990, after a binational agreement was signed between the governments of Poland and the United States, later known as the Polish-United States Fulbright Commission. The Commission's mission is to offer qualified Polish and American nationals the opportunity to exchange significant knowledge and educational experience in fields of consequence to the two countries. It also aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of Polish-American relations and to broaden the means by which the two societies can further their understanding of each other's culture.
In January 1992 the Polish-United States Fulbright Commission put notices in a number of Polish newspapers inviting former fulbrighters to contact the Commission. Some 160 alumni declared their wish to join the association. The Polish Fulbright Alumni Association (PFAA) and its Statute were registered by the Polish Court in February 1993. When Fulbright died in February of 1995, more than 250, 000 scholarships had been awarded bearing his name.
Achievements
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While a United States senator, James William Fulbright sponsored the Fulbright Act of 1946, providing funds for the exchange of students, scholars, and teachers between the United States and other countries. His efforts to establish an international exchange program eventually resulted in the creation of a fellowship program which bears his name, the Fulbright Program. He became a leading critic of United States foreign policy, particularly of United States involvement in the Vietnam War.
Fulbright had been awarded Poland's highest award for a foreigner, the Order of Service of the Polish Republic. He was given Foreign Language Advocacy Award (1987), Award for Distinguished Contributions to Asian Studies by Association for Asian Studies (AAS) in 1985. In 1996, The George Washington University renamed a residence hall in his honor.
Works
book
-
The Pentagon propaganda machine
(Senator J. W . Fulbright is uniquely qualified to write t...)
-
J. William Fulbright, Vietnam, and the Search for a Cold War Foreign Policy
(J. William Fulbright was the longest serving and most pow...)
-
The Pentagon propaganda machine
Politics
As chairman of the former committee he conducted an investigation of the stock market in 1955. But Fulbright emerged primarily as one of the Senate's leading critics of American foreign policy, which he believed to be unnecessarily rigid and unproductive. In 1959, becoming chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Fulbright urged Congress to widen the scope of executive action and criticized the State Department for its rigidity in negotiations with the Communist powers. On domestic issues Fulbright remained moderate; on civil rights he was orthodox from a Southern point of view, yet without a trace of bigotry.
By 1963 the problem of Vietnam was beginning to dominate America's external affairs. Long convinced that American fears of communism were being transformed into a positively antirevolutionary posture in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, Fulbright attempted to curb the foreign interventions of the Lyndon Johnson administration. In his 1965 committee hearings on Johnson's decision to send troops into the Dominican Republic, he argued that the President's advisors had exaggerated Communist participation in the Dominican revolution. In 1966 Fulbright's committee conducted a search investigating United States involvement in Vietnam and held hearings on United States relations with China. Eventually he denied the President's right to send American forces into hostilities without congressional approval.
Views
Quotations:
Fulbright also related his opposition to any American tendencies to intervene in the affairs of other nations:
"Power tends to confuse itself with virtue and a great nation is particularly susceptible to the idea that its power is a sign of God's favor, conferring upon it a special responsibility for other nations - to make them richer and happier and wiser, to remake them, that is, in its own shining image. Power confuses itself with virtue and tends also to take itself for omnipotence. Once imbued with the idea of a mission, a great nation easily assumes that it has the means as well as the duty to do God's work. "
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
On October 21, 2002, in a speech at the dedication of the Fulbright Sculpture at the University of Arkansas, Bill Clinton said,
"I admired him. I liked him. On the occasions when we disagreed, I loved arguing with him. I never loved getting in an argument with anybody as much in my entire life as I loved fighting with Bill Fulbright. I'm quite sure I always lost, and yet he managed to make me think I might have won. "
Connections
In 1932 James William Fulbright married Elizabeth Williams, and they had two daughters. In 1985 she died. On March 10, 1990 he married Harriet Mayor.
References
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Born
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Died
February 9, 1995 (aged 89) -
Resting place
Evergreen Cemetery, Fayetteville, Arkansas, United States -
Nationality
American -
Political Party
Democratic