Chapter VI

THE AMERICAN PEOPLE THE PRINCIPLE PROBLEM?

Senator Fulbright takes a dim view of the American people. He indicates that the curbing of the people, or the manipulation of the masses, may be the primary problem of the President. The masses are all potential McCarthyites who are easily infected with the virus of extremely radical rightwingism. “In the long run, it is quite possible that the principal problem of leadership will be, if it is not already, to restrain the desire of the people to hit the Communists with everything we’ve got, particularly if there are more Cubas and Laos. Pride in victory, and frustration in restraint, during the Korean war, led to MacArthur’s revolt and McCarthyism.”[119] This is the most charitable interpretation of McCarthyism which the Senator has ever made. For in effect he is saying that McCarthyism is the result of the desire for victory over Communism, and the frustration which comes when the leaders try to restrain people from winning this victory.

We think that the principal problem is Communism and not the American people.

The memorandum went on to say that the people cannot be trusted on foreign policy. They tend to “obey the impulse of passion” and “to abandon a mature design for the gratification of a momentary caprice.” Thus the Senator thought that if foreign aid was “laid before the people in a referendum, it would be defeated.” The Senator obviously does not want what _he thinks_ is the people’s will to be carried out. The people want simple solutions, they want to scourge devils or lash out at the enemy.[120]

The Senator, it is plain to see, does not have a very high opinion of the American people and their ability to govern themselves. Is not this a lack of confidence in our republican form of government?

_How Much Is the Senator For Civilian Control?_

Senator Fulbright says that he has a “strong belief in the principle of military subordination to civilian control.”[121] So does this reviewer. Furthermore, civilian control ultimately means the _sovereignty of the people_. Thus it ultimately means the civilian control of the President and of all other politicians and statesmen.

Does the Senator believe as strongly in the civilian control of politicians as well as of the military? It does not seem that the Senator is too well pleased with this bedrock principle of our constitutional system. In a TV interview July 30, 1961, he said, concerning the question of Red China and the U. N. and the recognition of Communist Outer Mongolia, that: “The sentiments of this country have been developed to such a pitch our President has no freedom of action in this field.”[122] Again: “... we will not recognize Red China, because of the price of dissension within our own ranks at home; it is too great to pay ... I think we have no freedom of action in this field because of domestic politics.”[123]

If he thought that he could get by with it would the Senator thwart the will of the people concerning Red China and Outer Mongolia? Would he like to have the freedom to act in these matters contrary to what he knows to be the will of the people?

As a matter of fact, the Senator wants us to recognize Outer Mongolia. He thinks that it might help us learn more about the relationship between the U.S.S.R. and Red China. Obviously he would urge the President to recognize Outer Mongolia if he thought that the people would stand for it.

The American people, in my judgment, have good reason to be against the recognition of Outer Mongolia. _First_, around five thousand of her troops fought Americans and the U.N. forces in Korea.[124] _Second_, it is one of the oldest of the satellites of the U.S.S.R. _Third_, it is recognized as a loyal Communist country by Red China. For example, a Communist paper recently carried an article entitled: “China Salutes Fraternal Mongolia.”[125] In trade talks around the first of March, 1961, it was emphasized by Peking that the cooperation between Mongolia and China was “on the basis of the principles of proletarian Internationalism.” Marshall Malinevsky, who is chief of the Russian Army, “described the bond between Mongolian, Chinese and Russian Armies as ‘cemented in blood’.” _Fourth_, the Premier of Outer Mongolia in a broadcast on April 24, 1961, emphasized their loyalty to Lenin. Furthermore, he said: “In their struggle for building a new life, our people always leaned and continue to lean upon the disinterested all-around aid of the Soviet Union, the first country of triumphant Socialism.” _Fifth_, if we recognize Outer Mongolia, Japan will likely do likewise. This will help increase the sentiment of neutralism in Japan.[126] _Sixth_, it would have a bad psychological effect in Asia. The Foreign Secretary of the Philippines, Felix Berto Serrano, said that it would be “an example of the softening of the U.S. attitude toward Communism in this part of the world.” The Foreign Minister of Thailand, Phanat Khoman, said that it would have an adverse affect on free world morale.[127]

The Senator thinks that if the people were given a choice in the matter, they would defeat foreign aid. He may or may not be right. But is he not saying that what he thinks is the will of the people should not rule in this matter?

_Attitude Towards America_

The Senator attacks those individuals who, he says, run down America. “Implicit in much of the propaganda of the radical right is the assumption that our free society is permeated with corruption and decay.”[128]

There is much that is right in America. We believe that it is the greatest country in the world. The principles on which it is founded are the principles which when followed produce progress and prosperity.

On the other hand, there is enough crime, corruption and decay to cause all thoughtful Americans real concern. For example, J. Edgar Hoover has called our attention to these matters countless times.

We shall not enter into a discussion of this except to point out that the Senator himself has some hard things to say about America.

In the speech at Stanford University he said: “In the last few years American statesmen and scholars have been turning their thoughts toward an effort to re-define the national ‘purpose,’ to interpret our national life and politics in terms of goals. The genesis of this quest for a clear national objective was a feeling that somehow the American people had strayed from their historic course into a blind alley of aimlessness and frustration. In an era of unexampled affluence, the American people, by and large, are not happy. In the years since World War II, we have attained our private purposes almost too well at home, but beyond our personal material needs we have not yet recognized an objective or purpose which inspires our real interest. At home we have become immersed in the crass delight of extravagant consumption, puerile faddism, and callow amusements.”

“The quest for a definition of the national purpose has been generated by this sense of malaise. If our people were engaged in vigorous and meaningful activity, it is quite possible that we would not now be troubling ourselves with a quest for abstract definition and articulation.”[129]

Rightwing extremism, he says, has great appeal to the American public, and in times of crisis it has “great mass appeal”. The people are the ones who need to be restrained in our conflict with communism. The people do not have enough understanding to back an adequate foreign policy.[130] The people are misled by simple solutions and need some devils to scourge. “The radicalism of the right can be expected to have great mass appeal during such periods. It offers the simple solution, easily understood: Scourging of the devils within the body politic, or, in the extreme, lashing out at the enemy.”[131]

On September 1, 1960, Senator Fulbright said: “I believe that such a study would conclude that America’s trouble is basically one of aimlessness at home and frustration abroad.”[132]

In the light of these contentions of the Senator, he is hardly the one to defend America against the charge, which he says is made by the “radical right,” that our “free society is permeated with corruption and decay.” Has the “radical right” said anything harder about America than has the Senator? If not, why should they be classified as radical, and the Senator not also be grouped with them in this matter.

_The Manipulated Masses?_

Not only does the Senator think that the problem is to restrain the people, but that the people should be “directed” into backing whatever the President’s program happens to be. He does not trust the people; his statements make this clear. They must be “directed”. “Fundamentally, it is believed that the American people have little, if any, need to be alerted to the menace of the cold war. Rather, the need is for understanding of the true nature of that menace, and the direction of the public’s present and foreseeable awareness of the fact of the menace toward support of the President’s own total program for survival in a nuclear age. There are no reasons to believe that military personnel generally can contribute to this need, beyond their specific, technical competence to explain their own role. On the contrary, there are many reasons, and some evidence, for believing that an effort by the military, beyond this limitation, involves considerable danger.”[133]

Frankly at times we are not sure what is the President’s own total program. It has vacillated, for example, concerning Laos and Cuba. Are we to be “directed” into it, as the President unfolds it, or shapes it, from time to time?

Senator Fulbright has attacked the competency of the people. He laid down in his secret memorandum, in our judgement, the ideological basis for a program of Pavlovian conditioning of the American people to accept whatever is decided on in the White House, the State Department and by a small group of advisors.[134]

The Senator thinks that the people are susceptible to radicalism. He says that extremely radical rightwingism “already has great appeal to the public. In the future it may well have much greater appeal.”[135] So the problem is to “direct” them into the President’s own total program. This program, the Senator implies, _is quite different_ from the general program for victory and survival which is discussed in the memorandum and repudiated as being rightwing. For he thinks that the rightwingers are raising an obstacle to the “public acceptance of the President’s program.”[136]

Carried out to its logical conclusion, we believe that the memorandum, and the way in which it was formed and implemented, introduces a new concept into our government, a concept which would replace the Constitution and the sovereignty of the people. The President, the State Department and a few advisors are the ones who through their own will and wisdom formulate the policies which shall be followed. This they are to do independently of the people, for the people are too deficient in understanding; they are so immature that they follow the momentary caprice; they tend to obey the impulse of passion and thus the “Radicalism of the right can be expected to have great mass appeal during such periods” as the “long twilight struggle”. Furthermore, our age is complex, therefore, the public must either be ignored or conditioned so that they will follow the leader. In directing the people into the President’s program, the military should engage in the cold war only to the extent that it can help do this in explaining their own strictly military role. After speaking of the need for the direction of the people’s awareness, that there is a danger, into support for the President’s program, he said: “There are no reasons to believe that military personnel generally can contribute to this need, beyond their specific technical competence to explain their own role. On the contrary, there are many reasons and some evidence, for believing that an effort by the military, beyond this limitation, involves considerable danger.”[137] Does this mean that when the military cannot be used as a rubber stamp it must not be used in waging the cold war?

It should be remembered that this basically anti-constitutional concept—against the Constitution in that it distrusts and wants to “direct” the people, rather than accept the sovereignty of the people—was set forth in a secret memorandum. The other members of the Foreign Relations Committee did not see it. It was sent directly to the President and the Secretary of Defense, and has had an influence on a very important policy.

Walter Lippmann, who is highly regarded by Senator Fulbright, said that there was a tendency of Government “insiders” to view the criticism of the “outsiders” as that of ignoramuses who were not enlightened by secret files and conferences. He said: “I tell the critic, you be careful. You will be denouncing the principle of democracy itself, which asserts that the outsiders shall be sovereign over the insiders. For you will be showing that the people themselves, since they are ignoramuses because they are outsiders, are therefore incapable of governing themselves.

“Furthermore, Lippmann declared that as far as the affairs of the world are concerned, those who regard themselves as insiders are actually outsiders since none of them read all of the U.S. papers and they have no access to the records of foreign governments that are equally important and if one is to have the total wisdom the insiders indicate they have.”[138]

_An Out-Moded Constitutional System?_

Senator Fulbright seems to want to change our system of government so that it will be run by one man, the President. He has unlimited confidence in the President as a man who is above partisan politics and who is of high moral calibre _by virtue of the fact_ that he is President. He views our constitutional system as out of date. Thus in his Stanford speech, July 28, 1961, he said:

“The President is hobbled in his task of leading the American people to consensus and concerted action by the restrictions of power imposed on him by a constitutional system designed for an eighteenth century agrarian society far removed from the centers of world power. It is imperative that we break out of the intelligent confines of cherished and traditional beliefs and open our minds to the possibility that basic changes in our system may be essential to meet the requirements of the twentieth century.

“The ability of this nation to preserve the value system which constitutes the core of our national interest has come to depend principally on our ability to cope with world wide revolutionary forces. If we are to deal with these forces successfully, we must be able to act quickly and decisively on the one hand and persistently and patiently on the other. ‘Our American task,’ wrote Walter Lippmann in a recent article, ‘is to generate superior national strength. For this we must have a powerful and purposeful National Government.... There is no getting away from the fact that, as Lord Acton said, power corrupts. But also, there is no getting away from the fact that powerlessness invites confusion, demoralization, and defeat.’

“The fact that is needed is Presidential power. He alone, among elected officials, can rise above parochialism and private pressures. He alone, in his role as teacher and moral leader, can hope to overcome the excesses and inadequacies of a public opinion that is all too often ignorant of the needs, the dangers, and the opportunities in our foreign relations.

“Public Opinion, wrote Lippmann in _The Public Philosophy_, consistently lags a generation behind in its attitudes and assessments of international relations. The tyranny of public opinion, he says, imposes upon our policy-makers a ‘compulsion to make mistakes.’ The poet Yeats was not wholly wrong when he laid down this harsh pronouncement on public opinion: ‘The best lack all conviction—the worst are filled with passionate intensity.’

“These views may be extreme but they are not wholly without merit, and I point to them in order to stress the point that public opinion must be educated and led if it is to bolster wise and effective national policies. Only the President can provide the guidance that is necessary, while legislators display a distressing tendency to adhere slavishly to the dictates of public opinion, or at least to its vocal and highly organized minority segments.”[139]

Lippmann’s statement concerning the “insiders” and “outsiders” ought to be recalled in this connection. We should also remember his criticism that President Eisenhower was a defeatist who lacked faith in our people and in our system.[140] Why, then, should he contend that what is needed is more Presidential power? Why should Senator Fulbright maintain the same thing?

In a news conference in Washington, President Eisenhower said on May 10, 1962, that: “I believe that the problem of the Presidency is rarely an inadequacy of power. Ordinarily, the problem is to use the already enormous power of the Presidency judiciously, temperately and wisely.”[141]

With all due respect to the President of the United States, whoever he may be at any given time in our history, we do not believe that any President is wise enough, knows enough or is good enough to occupy the position to which Senator Fulbright would elevate him. Of course, with the attitude which Fulbright has toward the masses, it is logical that he should accept the Fuhrer (Fuhrer means “leader”) principle. The masses must look to _the leader_. He must be their teacher and their moral leader.

“We got rid of kings back there in 1776, Senator.”[142] The Senator talks like a reactionary who wants to go back to kings and their “divine right” to rule.

Senator Fulbright thinks that legislators are slaves of public opinion, but the President is exempt from such. We ask: In our Republic shouldn’t the legislators and the President be subject to public opinion under law? If they are not to be responsive to the will of the people within the framework of our constitutional government, to whom and to what are they to be responsive?

Has the Senator from Arkansas forgotten that less than two years ago President Kennedy was a Senator, and thus a legislator; and legislators, according to Fulbright, display a “distressing tendency to adhere slavishly to the dictates of public opinion, or at least to its vocal and highly organized minority segments.” Just because this particular Senator was elected President did he therefore become so transformed that he rose above “parochialism and private pressures”? Did he become overnight the “teacher and moral leader”, the “only” one who can “provide the guidance that is necessary”? Does the Senator think, if Nixon had been elected President, that automatically on his shoulders would have descended the wisdom, the knowledge and the unlimited goodness which would be necessary in one who is to be our Leader in morality, our Teacher and our Guide? As a matter of fact, we know that the Senator does not believe that Mr. Nixon, if he had been elected, would have metamorphized into the Leader which Senator Fulbright claims that the President by the very nature of the case becomes. On February 1, 1960, Senator Fulbright reprinted in the _Congressional Record_ an article by James Reston which was critical of Mr. Nixon. Senator Fulbright said of the article that “it is seldom in this stolid and humorless era that an observer of our political scene sees through the absurd double talk of so much of the political speeches with which we are entertained.” Reston, however, had done so concerning Mr. Nixon.[143] And yet, Senator Fulbright’s concept of the Presidency is such that he must believe, if he follows his position to its logical conclusion, that Mr. Nixon would have ceased all double talk, and have become the teacher and the moral leader of the nation if he had been elected!

Did Senator Fulbright think that President Truman was the moral and educational leader of the people just because he was President? Of Truman he said in 1951: “For a long time we have been walking on opposite sides of the street, neither of us nodding to the other. He has often thought me wrong and unspeakable, while I have sometimes thought him wrong and incomprehensible.”

“I have spoken with him on official business only once in several years.”[144]

Senator Fulbright did not think that because President Eisenhower was in the office of President that he was therefore qualified as the leader and teacher of the people. He thought that Eisenhower was confused and engaged in the lucrative business of making and selling tranquilizer pills.[145] He spoke of the absence of leadership on the part of the President.[146] A veto message was described as “unworthy of his great office and beneath the dignity of the Congress to which it was sent. It is not factual. It is intemperate. It was obviously designed to catch newspaper headlines and radio and television news blurbs.”[147] The President himself; the Senator said, was unaware of the vastness of the Soviet challenge. “In defense, in our domestic economy, and in our foreign relations, the administration seems to be unaware of the depth and scope of the Soviet challenge. There is no evidence that the administration is now or ever will be willing to urge the American people to take in one notch on our belt to deal with a Soviet challenge which confronts us in missiles, arms, and just downright capacity to produce.”[148] “I believe that the people of America will rise to the needs of our situation if they are clearly told what is at stake. They certainly would be willing to be taxed if it is necessary to survival. But I am not sure the administration agrees with even that simple proposition.”[149]

With high commendation, Senator Fulbright inserted an article by Joseph Alsop into the _Congressional Record_ which indicated that he thought that President Eisenhower did not have, to say the least, the balanced judgment necessary for guiding aright the ship of state. Of a reason advanced by the President concerning test bans, Alsop said: “Surely this singular choice of reasons for a high policy decision of truly immeasurable import, reveals a mind gripped by one idea to the point of total obsession. Surely it shows a man driven by a single purpose almost to the point of mania.”[150]

Senator Fulbright further charged that President Eisenhower did not have the proper attitude toward Congress and that he did not take them into his confidence. Perhaps the Senator thought that there were too many secret memorandums floating around! At any rate he said: “I believe that a great deal of this stems from the President’s attitude toward Congress, particularly toward the Democratic Members of Congress. He has shown very little disposition to take them into his confidence, now or at any other time.

“I believe that legitimately leaves many people with the feeling that we do not know all that we ought to know. I asked Mr. Kohler about the letter which Khrushchev had written, and Mr. Kohler said flatly that he could not discuss it. I said that it had appeared at least in part in the Herald Tribune, and that it was strange indeed that it could be revealed to Miss Higgins of the New York Herald Tribune, but not to a committee of the Senate. He said that he could not discuss it. Apparently he was under orders not to discuss it in any respect with the committee. That did not leave a very good taste in my mouth. It is a mystery to me why a letter, unless it was specifically agreed that Mr. Khrushchev considered it a personal and confidential letter, should not be released. Having been released, or leaked, as the new term is, to the Herald Tribune, I do not know of any reason why it should not be made available to the committee, and to the public, for that matter, in a more official manner than the way in which it was.

“With reference to the statement of the Senator regarding what Mr. Tsarapkin said, I have only seen a summary of it which Mr. Farley brought to me and said:

“‘This is all that can be released now.’

“I do not quite understand why that should be true. Maybe the Senator’s explanation would be a violation of an understanding. That is possible. However, I must agree with the Senator that a little more frank discussion, and taking the public into their confidence, certainly the Senate of the United States, particularly the Committee on Foreign Relations, would be a very healthy step.”[151]

Senator Fulbright also thought that President Eisenhower was forcing uniformity of viewpoint in his administration. Men under him were either muzzled or suffered the consequences. Or at least the Senator indicated this in an insertion, with high praise, of an article by Joseph Alsop which said: “In this administration, uniformity of viewpoint is virtually enforced. Independent-minded persons who do not take their viewpoint, readymade, from the White House have always been condemned as non-team players. Soon or late, they have always met the fate of General Gavin, General Ridgway, and Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor.”[152]

As late as March 22, 1960, Senator Fulbright, in a speech before the Annual Dinner of the Harvard Club of Washington, D. C., commended a high military official for disagreeing with the President. And, furthermore, Senator Fulbright seems to cast scorn on the idea that it was not for Generals to reason why! As the Senator put it: “Gen. Bernard Schriever has also said that there is ‘very much evidence’ that Russia has greatly strengthened its bomber defenses. But the aircraft that might not be able to get through may not even be able to demonstrate their impotence. ‘For,’ states Gen. Thomas Power, Chief of the Strategic Air Command, ‘our bomber bases are vulnerable to surprise attack.’

“Generals are not to reason why. Their Commander in Chief complains that, ‘too many generals have all sorts of ideas.’

“Yet mankind moves on ideas. Men with ideas are the makers and shakers of the world. The larger their number serving the country the more fruitful and vigorous the country. But few men of ideas come to Washington. They are not likely to seek service in a government which is scornful of their kind.”[153]

The Senator seemed to agree with the idea that “President Eisenhower leads a dangerously sheltered life as Chief Executive of the Nation.”[154]

Lyndon B. Johnson also commended, on February 16, 1960, the idea that public debate by military officials was good. He reprinted a letter from a Harvard professor, Henry A. Kissinger, that: “The President says he deplores public argument by military experts regarding our defense policy. Prior to this, he had called his critics parochial and had invoked his superior expertise in the subject. It is impossible, of course, for laymen to pass judgment on a debate of such technical complexity. They have a right to insist, however, that the categories of the debate be properly put.”[155]

In the light of these considerations, it is a serious question as to what has happened to Senator Fulbright within the last year or so that has led him to think now that President Kennedy is in office, that the office of the Presidency has automatically raised the President above the temptations and mistakes that not only beset legislators—and Kennedy was a Senator less than two years ago—but also above those which beset Eisenhower. What makes the Senator, in the light of his previous criticisms of Eisenhower, think what is needed in this country is more power for the President? After all, the Senator might reflect, President Kennedy will not be President forever, and what if after we have conferred far greater powers on the President, while Kennedy was in office, someone like Eisenhower or Truman, of whom the Senator was so critical, became President!!

In denouncing those whom he labeled as “fanatics” and “extremists” of the right, in a speech in Los Angeles on November 18, President Kennedy said: “They call for a ‘man on horseback’ because they do not trust the people.”[156] And yet, Senator Fulbright calls for more power for the President, because the people are so ignorant that they need the Leader. Wouldn’t this position make the Senator, in this matter, akin to the rightwing “fanatics”? As Joseph Alsop said, in regards to a position President Eisenhower had taken, “perhaps it would have been better to assert, at the outset, that it is always wrong for any nation to trust any leader, instead of trusting the hard facts.”[157]

Former President Herbert Hoover has indicated that more than one loss to communism has taken place because the man in the position of the Presidency, along with his selected advisors, entered into agreements without an opportunity being given to the Congress or to the people to know of, to discuss or to pass on these matters. “Executive agreements, Mr. Hoover said, had spread communism over the earth, turned over the Baltic States to Soviet Russia, partitioned Poland at the Teheran Conference, surrendered 10 nations to slavery at Yalta and set in motion the communization of Mongolia, North Korea, and all China. One result of these ‘unrestrained Presidential actions’ is a worldwide shrinking of human freedoms. Another has been a steady encroachment on powers of the legislative branch by the executive.”[158]

Senator Fulbright would lead us away from our constitutional system to a system wherein the power would be concentrated in the hands of the President. “The power that is needed is Presidential power.” “Only the President can provide the guidance that is necessary....” But this is not to lead us to a newer and higher form of government, than that of our so-called out-moded “eighteenth century agrarian society” constitutional system. It is to lead us back to the concept of dictatorship, of the Fuhrer.

The leader, of course, would have his small, select group of advisors. In such a set-up, government by secret memorandums would likely be the order of the day.

We trust that Senator Fulbright, who is influential in the present administration, will not influence President Kennedy to accept this concept of our constitutional system, nor this idea of the role of the President.

The Senator knows that power tends to corrupt and that absolute power corrupts absolutely, for he himself once said: “Wherever there is power there is the possibility that it will be used and the danger that it will be misused. This assumption, expressed in Lord Acton’s maxim that ‘power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,’ is common to all effective democracies. This principle is one of instinctive distrust of power itself wherever it exists. It has nothing to do with the motives of any group or individual who may wield it. It has been directed against big business, big labor, and big government, and now, inevitably, it is directed against our big Military Establishment.”[159]

Why, then, does the Senator want to give to the President far more power than the Constitution now allows and the President now has? For what does the President need more power?

_Backing the President_

The Senator said that the need is for the public to be directed into the support of the President’s own total program.[160] Does this apply to the Senator?

As a candidate, President Kennedy said he would do something about Cuba. He was going to do something, i.e. back an invasion. But Senator Fulbright’s opposition to our backing an invasion had an influence, according to some, on the President which helped induce him to modify his plans. Thus the invasion was doomed to failure.

President Kennedy emphasized that we would stand firm in Berlin.[161] On a TV program on July 30, 1961, the following exchange took place:

“Mr. Scali. In any negotiations over Berlin, Senator, would you be willing to accept any concessions on the part of the West which closed West Berlin as an escape hatch for refugees in any way?

“Senator Fulbright. Well, I think that that might certainly be a negotiable point. The truth of the matter is I think the Russians have the power to close it in any case. I mean we are not giving up very much because I believe next week if they chose to close their borders, they could, without violating any treaty right I know of. We have no right to insist that they be allowed to come out. As I said I don’t understand why the East Germans don’t close the border because I think they have a right to close it. So why is this a great concession? You don’t have that right now.”[162]

The question dealt specifically with the West making some concessions which would close the escape hatch. The Senator thought “that might certainly be a negotiable point.” He made it clear that we could not negotiate with them as to whether they had the power to close it, so he was not implying we should negotiate concerning their power; nor, as he also put it, their right to close the escape hatch. The only thing left to negotiate was, as the question specifically said, whether the West should make any concessions “which closed West Berlin as an escape hatch for refugees in any way.” In other words, the Senator indicates that we should negotiate as to whether or not the West should help—by making concessions on our part, since obviously we could not make concessions for the Russians—close the escape hatch and thus in effect whether the West should help the Communists guard the prison house in which the Communists have their slaves.

The East German Communists made use of the Senator’s statements, and commended him. On August 3, 1961, in East Berlin _Neues Deutschland_ had the following heading for an article: “U. S. Senator Against Trade in Human Beings.” He was quoted as saying that: “the East Germans have the right to close their borders.” The paper stressed that the Bonn government was very much upset with Senator Fulbright’s proposal, as they put it, to hold “serious negotiations on Berlin with the USSR.” On August 4 the same paper said: “But the man seems to be a realistic politician.” “Apparently Fulbright is aware of the fact that the man-trap of West Berlin is an untenable situation, that it must and will be closed.”

We wonder whether the President felt that the Senator’s speech upheld the President’s position on Berlin.

The Senator later explained that this was not what he meant. It was, however, what he said. We quote the entire explanation which was made in the Senate on August 4, 1961.

“Last Sunday, I appeared on the ABC network television and radio program, ‘Issues and Answers.’ In the course of that program one of the exchanges led to an unfortunate and erroneous impression of my views. When asked if I thought the West should make any concessions on the question of the flight of East German refugees to West Berlin, I responded that this, too, is something that could be discussed, because—and this is the point—the East Germans have the ability to control travel _within_ East Germany.

“The imposition of tighter travel restrictions by the East Germans on travel of East German citizens within East Germany could restrict access of East German citizens to all of Berlin, thus depriving a large number of potential refugees from East Germany (as distinguished from East Berlin) of this convenient means of escape.

“As I pointed out in the TV and radio interview, I know of no agreements to which the Western Powers are party which prohibit the East Germans from restricting the travel of East German citizens within East Germany (outside of Berlin). It is to that point of reference that my response was intended in the interview.

“I certainly did not intend to imply that the West should execute any agreement whereby the West would assist in enforcing any restriction imposed by East Germany on travel within East Germany nor that the West should consider changing existing agreements and consent to closing West Berlin to refugees wishing to enter.

“The right of persons to move freely within all sectors of Berlin is entirely another matter and is guaranteed by post-war agreements signed by the United States, Britain, France and the Soviet Union. I do not consider such right to be negotiable.”[163]

According to Constantine Brown, Germans and other Europeans have raised the question: “How can we reconcile what your President tells us with what his own important party leaders and especially the chairman of the most important Foreign Relations Committee, Mr. Fulbright, says in public, on the floor of the Senate and in radio and television interviews?”

“The suspicions of what may be termed a schizophrenic foreign policy started some time ago when Senator Mansfield, the majority leader, and later Senator Fulbright urged negotiations on Berlin after Mr. Kennedy had taken a formally strong stand on that very matter.”[164]

We wonder if the Senator has set the public a good example of clearly and wholeheartedly backing the President’s program in such matters as we have mentioned?

In a review of some of our history Senator Fulbright took the position that it was important for the people themselves to bring to bear pressure on the President, instead of always following the leader. “Moreover, throughout the whole of this process, while much was done by the action of individual Presidents, a great deal was done as a direct result of congressional action or by the direct play of public pressures, rising from a people whose life was being progressively democratized.

“The key point is that the conduct of foreign affairs did not appear to be an elite function, limited to specialists in and around the Executive. Neither the electorate nor the Congress was ever overawed by the Executive claim to exclusive knowledge, or its claim that it would be against the national interest to disclose the facts relevant to a foreign policy decision. Foreign policy was debated in remote frontier outposts as well as in seaboard cities, with a shrewdness and a knowledge of great power rivalries that astonishes any modern reader who browses through the records of these debates preserved in our National Archives.”[165]

Now that the Senator’s secret memorandum has been made public, the people can study it, debate it and continue to exercise their sovereignty. It is through knowledge and action based thereon that the civilian control can be maintained over the government and thus over the military. Those who do not believe that our constitutional system is out of date will surely want to examine closely the Senator’s position.[166] In fact, the Senator himself once emphasized the necessity of debating issues. “Too many people are given a practical veto over policy. There is an inhibition of the kind of free debate out of which a fundamental national agreement emerges.” “Nonpartisanship does not mean the absence of debate on foreign policy.” “I do not think it is possible for a democratic country to have a viable, effective policy unless it is founded on the widest possible public discussion. Debate is a necessary ingredient of policymaking.”[167]

FOOTNOTES:

[119] _Congressional Record_, August 2, 1961, p. 13437, col. 2,t.

[120] _Ibid._, p. 13437.

[121] _Congressional Record_, August 2, 1961, p. 13436, col. 2,b.

[122] _Ibid._, August 1, 1961, p. 13219, col. 2,t.

[123] _Ibid._, p. 13219, col. 2,m.

[124] _Commercial Appeal_, August 1, 1961. Report of speech of Congressman Frank J. Becker. This same news item said that Senator Fulbright was for the recognition of Outer Mongolia.

[125] _Peking Review_, July 14, 1961, p. 7.

[126] See the American-Asian Educational Exchange’s recent report on Communist China and Asia, July, 1961. See also _The Worker_, October 1, 1961, p. 6. _World Marxist Review_, July 1961, p. 3.

[127] _Chinese News Service_, August 1, 1961, pp. 3-4. For some additional comments see Thomas J. Dodd’s speech in the _Congressional Record_, August 2, 1961.

[128] _Congressional Record_, August 21, 1961, p. 15357, col. 3,m.

[129] Speech of Senator Fulbright before the 1961 Summer Cubberly Conference of Stanford University, Stanford, California, July 28, 1961. Mimeographed copy, pp. 1-2.

[130] _Congressional Record_, August 2, 1961, p. 13437, col. 2,m.

[131] _Ibid._, p. 13437, col. 2,m.

[132] _Ibid._, September 2, 1960, p. A6708, col. 2,b.

[133] _Ibid._, August 2, 1961, p. 13437, col. 2,b. Dr. Robert T. Oliver, of Pennsylvania State University, expressed his opinion on October 24, 1961, that: “Democratic and totalitarian governments are becoming more and more alike in their methods of governing—through the manipulation of public opinion by control of secrecy and publicity.” (_Congressional Record_, Jan. 15, 1962, p. A141, col. 2,t.)

[134] See Edward Hunter, speech on the Manion Forum. 1961. Reprinted in the _Congressional Record_, Feb. 6, 1962, pp. A906-907.

[135] _Congressional Record_, August 2, 1961, p. 13437, col. 1,b.-2,t.

[136] _Ibid._, p. 13437, col. 1,b. See also p. 13436, col. 3,b.

[137] _Ibid._, p. 13437, col. 3,t.

[138] _Ibid._, January 18, 1960, p. 578, col. 3,m. Dr. Robert T. Oliver, who served over twelve years in the inner councils of the government of Korea, dealing with matters of foreign policy, said: “On the whole, however, the significant facts concerning all the major international issues are completely available to anyone who takes the trouble to keep up with the news.” (_Ibid._, Jan. 5, 1962, p. A140, col. 3,b.)

[139] Speech of Senator Fulbright before the 1961 Summer Cubberly Conference at Stanford University, Stanford, California, July 28, 1961, pp. 7-8. When he was a Senator, Kennedy made it clear that the Presidency conferred no wisdom in his criticism of Eisenhower. (_Congressional Record_, June 14, 1960, p. 11630, col. 3,t.) The question is raised in my mind as to whether or not Senator Kennedy, who spoke of the “missile gap” and other “gaps” in our defenses during the campaign for President, was really that ignorant of our defense posture? Yet, within a few months after he became president—and certainly before anything that his administration did could have changed the picture basically—we “learned” that there was no “missile gap” and that our defense posture was strong. (See the article by David Lawrence in the _Congressional Record_, Jan. 16, 1962, p. A241, cols. 2 and 3.)

Senator Fulbright himself said “In a democratic system, such as ours, the people do have much to say about policy, and they decide who shall govern them. How, may I ask, can our people be expected to discharge their duty as citizens of a self-governing republic, if they are not told the truth about their affairs? It would be easier, more pleasant, and I am sure more popular, to join those who pretend that all is well, that the summit meeting was a triumph for the West and that the Japanese fiasco only demonstrates once again the viciousness of the Communists.” (_Ibid._, June 28, 1960, p. 13672, col. 2,m.)

[140] Column of February 11, 1960. _Congressional Record_, February 19, 1960, p. 2761, col. 3,t.

[141] _U.S. News and World Report_, May 21, 1962, p. 15.

[142] _Evening Tribune_, San Diego, California, Editorial, August 14, 1961.

[143] _Congressional Record_, February 1, 1960, p. 1519, col. 2,m, Senator Fulbright once accused Nixon of “deceiving the American people”. Quoted in _The Arkansas Historical Quarterly_, Winter, 1961, p. 328.

[144] _Congressional Record_, April 26, 1951, p. 4409, col. 3,m.

[145] _Ibid_, September 9, 1959, p. 17250, col. 3,m.

[146] _Ibid._, April 24, 1959, p. 5932, col. 3,b.

[147] _Ibid._, August 12, 1959, p. 14272, col. 1,m.

[148] _Ibid._, March 18, 1959, p. 3948, col. 1,m.

[149] _Ibid._, p. 3948, col 1,b.

[150] _Ibid._, February 8, 1960, p. 1978, col 3,m.

[151] _Ibid._, March 28, 1960, p. 6207, col. 2,m.

[152] _Ibid._, February 8, 1960, p. 1978, col. 3,b.-p. 1979, col. 1,t.

[153] _Ibid._, March 28, 1960, p. A2708, col. 2,m.

[154] _Ibid._, March 28, 1960, p. A2708, col. 2,b.

[155] _Ibid._, February 16, 1960, pp. A1250, col. 3,b. A1251, col. 1,t.

[156] As quoted in the _U.S. News and World Report_, December 4, 1961, p. 4, col. 1,b.

[157] _Congressional Record_, February 19, 1961, p. 2769.

[158] _Congressional Record_, August 16, 1954, p. A6075, col. 3,m. See the entire speech in Herbert Hoover, _Addresses Upon the American Road_, August 10, 1954, pp. 74-84.

[159] _Ibid._, August 21, 1961, p. 15357, col. 1,t. Speech before the National War College, August 21, 1961.

[160] _Ibid._, August 2, 1961, p. 13437, col. 3,t.

[161] Compare Constantine Brown, _Congressional Record_, September 5, 1961, p. A6963.

[162] _Ibid._, August 1, 1961, p. 13218, col. 2,t.

[163] Statement by Senator Fulbright before the United States Senate, August 4, 1961. It is regrettable that the right to move freely within all sectors of Berlin has been abrogated by the Communists without any negotiations. J.D.B.

[164] _Congressional Record_, September 5, 1961, p. A6963, col. 2,m.

[165] Speech by Senator Fulbright at the 10th anniversary banquet of the _Reporter_ magazine. April 16, 1959. _Congressional Record_, April 17, 1959, p. 5543, col. 2,m.

[166] Compare Constantine Brown, “Remaking the Constitution?” _Ibid._, September 12, 1961, p. A7150, col. 2.

[167] Senator Fulbright, _Congressional Record_, April 17, 1959, p. 5542, col. 3.