University of Oslo

Oslo, Norway

15 February 2005

 

Harriet Mayor Fulbright

It is a true pleasure to be back in Norway and to be talking about a subject of prime interest to me. Senator J. William Fulbright Spent 30 years in the United States Senate and 15 years as the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, the longest tenure of any Senator in history.  He was known as The Thinker and often reminded his listeners that he was a professor before he became a politician.  His ideas were often reviled by his contemporaries, but even now many turn to his writings for guidance on current international issues. In my view they are every bit as relevant and important today as they were over forty years ago.

Fulbright was a wonderful listener with a brilliant mind, and the lasting quality of his ideas come from his studied approach.  Whatever he proposed was only submitted after careful research, often through hearings that he considered a means to educating the public as well as himself and his fellow congressmen.  In fact the single most important role of a legislator in a democratic system was, in his opinion, that of educator.  "My own belief ... is that the basic issues of foreign policy - as distinguished from its details and technicalities - are well within the grasp of ordinary citizens, provided these issues are explained, clearly and accurately, by competent and responsible leaders...  To the extent that issues fall beyond the people's experience, or in instances of conflict between groups in which the larger interest of the community is unclear, the political leader has a greater responsibility - to identify the larger interest and to explain it.  It then becomes his responsibility to lead and to educate."

So in 1945 right after the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan he called to the Senate chambers not only military and political experts to testify on the long-term effects of the event but physicians, psychologists, environmentalists and scientists.  What he heard so appalled him that he felt compelled to look for some means, any means, of preventing another world war.  Atomic warfare was no longer an acceptable continuation of diplomacy by other means.  In a world with nuclear weapons, the enemy cannot be destroyed because the true enemy is war itself.

The program which grew out of the hearings is the one he considered his greatest accomplishment: namely, the international education exchange program which bears his name, signed by President Truman on August 1, 1946.  It became clear to him, especially as he looked back on his experiences as a Rhodes Scholar, that if we could get to know one another and learn to exchange ideas, then perhaps we might not be so willing to exchange bullets.  The program started modestly with small boat-loads of students moving to and from the United States. 

The chorus of participants around the world has grown to over one quarter million alumni from every academic discipline – over 90,000 Americans and more than 130,000 citizens from over 140 countries around the world.  More and more countries now share the cost of the program, making it the one of the most economical efforts ever undertaken by the U.S. Government.  In fact, over 50 years of the Fulbright Program cost the U.S. taxpayer less than 4 days of the Defense Department at today's spending level.  And its effect has been invaluable.  As Fulbright said, “Educational Exchange can turn nations into people, contributing as no other form of communication to the humanizing of international relations.  Man’s capacity for decent behavior seems to vary directly with his perception of others as individual humans with human motives and feelings, whereas his capacity for barbarism seems related to his perception of an adversary in abstract terms, as the embodiment, that is, of some evil design or ideology.”

Fulbright's interest in education was not, however, confined to the international sphere. He considered the education of all citizens to be the essential cornerstone of a democracy.  Only with a thoughtful responsible committed citizenry can a democratic country ensure all who live and work within its confines the chance for a decent, productive and satisfying life.  Education in his view was the best instrument in the struggle to break down the barriers of prejudice and xenophobia, to increase knowledge of self and in so doing, to gain a better perception of others. 

And the underlying purpose of education, whether within one’s own community or in a faraway setting, was the achievement of a full and satisfying life in a democratic society free from the fears and ravages of war.  “The making of peace is a continuing process that must go on from day to day, from year to year, so long as our civilization shall last.  Our participation in this process is not just the signing of a charter with a big red seal.  It is a daily task, a positive participation in all the details and decisions which together constitute a living and growing policy.”  And let me stress that his view of peace was not warm and fuzzy. “Peace is not a negative, static concept.  It is not a tranquil state of felicity and blessedness.  It is a positive method of adjusting the endless conflicts inherent in the nature of restless and energetic men.  The institution of law based on justice and adaptable to the ever-changing life of man has been such a method in the history of mankind.”

And he added an important element to his thoughts on law. “In our quest for world peace the alteration of attitudes is no less important, perhaps more important, than the resolution of issues.  It is in the minds of men, after all, that wars are spawned; to act upon the human mind, regardless of the issue or occasion for doing so, is to act upon the source of conflict and the potential source of redemption and reconciliation.  It would seem, therefore, that there may be important new things to be learned about international relations through the scholarship of psychologists and psychiatrists.”

As we move relentlessly toward an ever more interdependent world, “extreme nationalism and dogmatic ideology become luxuries that the human race can no longer afford.  It must turn its energies now to the politics of survival.  If we do so, we may find in time that we can do better than just survive.  We may find that the simple human preference for life and peace has an inspirational force of its own, less intoxicating perhaps than the sacred abstractions of nation and ideology, but far more relevant to the requirements of human life and human happiness.”

It goes without saying that the government he envisioned was some form of democracy, and he stressed that it should not only allow for but encourage expressions of dissent.  As Fulbright said, “In a democracy dissent is an act of faith.  Like medicine, the test of its value is not in its taste but its effects.”  In fact, democracy flourishes when its citizens feel free to dream and discuss the impossible. ”We must dare to think ‘unthinkable thoughts,’ he wrote.  “We must learn to explore all of the options and possibilities that confront us in a complex and rapidly changing world. We must learn to welcome rather than fear the voices of dissent.  We must dare to think about ‘unthinkable things,’ because when things become ‘unthinkable,’ thinking stops and actions become mindless.  If we are to disabuse ourselves of old myths, and to act wisely and creatively upon the new realities of our time, we must think and talk about our problems with perfect freedom, remembering, as Woodrow Wilson said, that ‘The greatest freedom of speech is the greatest safety because, if a man is a fool, the best thing to do is to encourage him to advertise the fact by speaking.’

Senator Fulbright not only thought unthinkable thoughts but felt compelled to make them public when his country’s policies were in his view seriously flawed.  In the mid-1960’s, for instance, Fulbright tried to convince President Johnson that the war in Vietnam was not in the interests of the Unites States for many reasons.  As long as the discussion was in private, Johnson remained cordial, but as soon as Fulbright made his views public, Johnson's intense hostility toward him was perhaps the greatest trial of his political life.  President Johnson lashed out at him in many ways, including engineering a cut in the Fulbright Program funds of 70%.  As we all know the Program survived the attack and grew considerably afterward, but the two men, who were close friends until that time, never spoke again, and this hurt Fulbright deeply. 

Slowly more and more began to realize that his ideas on the Vietnam conflict held more validity than was realized at the time.  One of his constituents even wrote him a letter almost two decades later:

Dear Senator Fulbright:

I have never voted for you.  I have never missed a chance to belittle you.  But deep inside me there is a nagging suspicion that I have been wrong.  As this world plunges headlong toward what may well be its own destruction, it gets increasingly harder to hear lonely voices such as yours calling for common sense, human reason and a respect for brotherhood of man.  But be of good cheer, my friend.  Keep nipping at their heels.  This old world has always nailed its prophets to trees, so don’t be surprised at those who come at you with hammers and spikes.

Know that those multitudes yet unborn will stand on our shoulders.  And one among them will stand a little higher because he is standing on yours.

In sum, Senator Fulbright’s activities in the fields of education, democracy and peace and his thoughts on freedom of speech and dissent and the arrogance of power are as relevant today as they were half a century ago, and we forget them at our peril.  As he said,

“Our future is not in the stars but in our own minds and hearts.  Creative leadership and liberal education, which in fact go together, are the first requirements for a hopeful future for humankind.”  I want to give all of you my heartfelt thanks for your commitment to these ideas.