Volume 8, Number 1 · January 26, 1967
Fulbright: The Timid Opposition
By I.F. Stone
Fulbright's effectiveness as a brake on the widening war in the crucial months ahead will depend on the effectiveness of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, its staff and his capacity as chairman. Fulbright is talking about the possibility of more Vietnam hearings this year, but the record in the past is not encouraging. Though the Committee contains some of the ablest and most liberal members of the Senate—Aiken of Vermont and Case of New Jersey on the Republican side; Mansfield, Morse, Gore, Church, Clark, and McCarthy on the Democratic side—most of them seem to be cloakroom crusaders, brave in private, cautious in public, fitfully aroused and poorly informed. Judging by the record, the staff seems to be lethargic; either it does a poor job of briefing the members before a hearing or the Senators then ignore the questions and memoranda prepared for them. I and other newspapermen blushed at their clumsy performance in interrogating Arthur Sylvester, Assistant Secretary of Defense 'for Public Affairs,' i.e., propaganda, last August 31, when their blunderbuss methods enabled this skillful newsman-turned-bureaucrat to evade the real issues in Pentagon efforts to manage the news.
Feature, 3509 words
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