FULBRIGHT: A COMPLEX MAN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000200880001-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 3, 1999
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: November 1, 1966
• Content Type: NSPR

S E N A T O R FULBRIGHT.
Portrait of a Public Philoso.
pher. By Tristram Coffin.
E. P. Dutton & Co. 378
pages. $6.95.
Cone of the momentous
events of an eventful year,
perhaps not as fully recog-
nized as it should have been,
has been the debate on the
nation's Viet Nam policies.
Spread over many months,
i taking place in many forums,
the dialogue has been marked:
by controversy and in the
center of it has been Sen. J.
William Fulbright, D-Ark., the
chairman of the Senate For-
eign Relations Committee.
As the debate has been so
.little understood and so often
misinterpreted, so has Ful-
..bright's role in it, if not in
revoking the discussion at
CPYRGHT
SENATOR h'ULBRIGIIT
least in giving it intelligent the well-known Washington
direction and high standing. , writer who has a gift for
Both the Issues involved and interpreting and making sense
the man whom President out of contemporary affairs.
Truman once described as "an More than this, however,
overeducated Oxford S.O.B.," this "Portrait of a Public
now have been placed, most Philosopher" is the first full-
) fortunately, in perspective. length biography of the junior
This has been accomplished Arkansas senator, and a most
in a remarkably satisfying engaging one. What emerges
1 biography by Tristram Coffin,___.. from these pages is a portrait
`~01 0
of a man whose public care
reflects rare insight and ever
rarer courage.
For those who have beet
surprised by the vehemence o
administration's course in Viet
Nam, the author makes it
clear there is a consistency in
the senator's actions. It goes
back to the senator's earliest
days in Congress and it covers
the Lebanon crisis of the
Eisenhower administration,
the disastrous Bay of Pigs
affair, and the Johnson ad-
ministration's Dominican Re-
public adventure.
Fulbright, as those acquaint-
ed with him know, is a com-
plex individual. More often
than he has wished, he has
found himself involved in
controversy, as in the Viet
Nam debate. For him the
reasons are simple and com-
pelling, as he revealed in a
talk with the author. "I am
very concerned about my
country," he said. "I have
never felt this way before. I
wake up at night and I think:
We are capable of so much
progress, so much good, and
we toss away men, money,'
resources, goodwill like pen-
nies into a savage war-for
what? This could have been
the golden age of America." '
Coffin traces in some detail
the development of Fulbright's
break with President Johnson,
his good friend, over Vietnam-
ese policies. Perhaps he has
given to that break more of a'.
finality than it merits, politics
and political figures being
what they are. (Fulbright, it
may be noted, was on hand to
welcome the President home
from his Asian trip.) But that
there has been a cleavage
deep and perhaps momentous
cannot be questioned.
This is more a biography'
than a critical examination- of
the Viet Nam issue. So if what {
Coffin has written appears
one-sided in Fuibright's favor,
that becomes understandable.
It is the story of a thinking
man who grew up in comforta.
ble circumstances in North-
east Arkansas, starred in
football and tennis at the
University of Arkansas, was a
Rhodes scholar, law teacher
and president of the university
there before he became a
legislator. It is the story of a
man responsible for the
Fulbright scholarships, of one,
according to the author, who
was so upset when the late
,John F. Kennedy sought to
reach him for what Fulbright
throught was a request to
STATINTL
;0Gt&80001-6
approved For Release 1999/09/17 : CIA-RDP76LOO1,
d a
an
nsas piney
woods. -CECIL HOLLAND.