J. William Fulbright, who died yesterday at 89, was one of the great U.S. senators of this half-century. In using his chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to attack the Vietnam policies of President Lyndon B. Johnson, a fellow Democrat, he changed the chemistry of executive-legislative relations in dealing with international affairs. His legacy lives today in the tensions between Congress and the White House over presidential authority to commit U.S. forces abroad.
A senator from Arkansas, Mr. Fulbright's career was bracketed by the Cold War. He was in the forefront of the resistance to the Red-baiting of Joe McCarthy, drawing from the Wisconsin Republican the taunt that he should be called "half-bright." A Rhodes scholar, Bill Fulbright relished the insult.
When he was a young lawmaker, he was able to secure congressional approval for a program to send American scholars abroad and bring foreign students here to this country. With this effort, he saw his own surname enter Webster's as a noun. Thousands of "Fulbright Scholars" or just plain "Fulbrights" are scattered the world over.
Although Mr. Fulbright became a father figure of the anti-war movement, he was not always a dove. Recent disclosures from the Kennedy archives find him advocating an "all-out invasion" of Cuba after the Castro takeover. He also was floor leader in Senate passage of the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin resolution, a document Mr. Johnson used to justify escalating U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia.
Mr. Fulbright came to believe this was the worst vote of his career. He felt he had been duped and misled by LBJ, and with increasing anger he turned from loyalist to foe of his president. The animus that developed between him and Secretary of State Dean Rusk, a fellow Southerner who died only seven weeks ago, was splashed across the country in televised hearings. When Senate Republican leader Everett Dirksen rallied to Mr. Johnson's side, Mr. Fulbright caustically advised him not to be so "generous" in giving away the Senate's prerogatives in foreign policy. It was a sentiment that was to lead to the 1973 War Powers Resolution, a Senate assertion of power that has been rebuffed by every president since.
An independent cuss, a deft writer, a droll speaker, a smart politician with a checkered career in the racial conflicts of his era, a Southerner who challenged the military traditions of his region, a man who could appeal to idealists and yet lobby for some very dubious Arab interests, J. William Fulbright was always complicated and interesting. His famous warning to his fellow citizens to be wary of a national "Arrogance of Power" came from a man who was arrogant himself -- and for good cause.