American Foreign Policy - International Organization for World Security

              (Not printed at Government expense)
 
United States of America
Congressional Record
PROCEEDINGS AND DEBATES OF THE CONGRESS, FIRST SESSION


American Foreign Policy—International 
Organization for World Security

SPEECH OF HON. J. WILLIAM FULBRIGHT
OF ARKANSAS 

IN THE SENATE OP THE UNITED STATES 
Wednesday, March 28, 1945

Mr. FULBRIGHT. Mr. President, 
myths are one of the greatest obstacles 
in the formulation of national policy. A 
myth of some plausibility is being currently 
revived at the expenses of this 
Senate. The Senate is being held solely 
responsible for the failure of the United 
States to join the League of Nations. 
This myth is a half-truth, and a very 
dangerous half-truth. At home it is 
being used to disparage our system of 
government. Abroad it is being used to 
explain any hesitation we may show in
 joining a system of world security. The 
Senate of the United States, it is said, 
cannot be relied upon.
As I see it, the responsibility for the 
rejection of the League of Nations does 
not belong solely to the Senate. The 
American people must share that 
responsibility. The perfectionists among the 
liberals, quite as much as the reactionaries, 
contributed to our failure. One has 
merely to read again what was said a 
generation ago by our liberal press. Few
people were against a league. But they 
did not like this league, nor did they like 
the other fellow's league. All of 
them seemed to want a league which 
suited them. The Senate of the United 
States has, I believe, been unjustly 
maligned.
The responsibility that I would attach 
to this body is that, in rejecting the 
League of Nations, it did not suggest 
some alternative method of establishing 
and maintaining order in the world. 
Negation is not enough for this 
aggressive and restless world. As the poet 
says, a world is dying and another world 
is struggling to be born, and the job of 
creating that new world belongs as much 
to the Senate as to any other agency in 
the entire world. We shall be negative 
again at our own peril, and we shall 
in¬vite the same travail and tribulation 
which has kept all mankind in agony for 
5 long and terrible years. In peace, as 
well as in war, victory will not come to 
the negative, defensive strategy. A certain 
boldness, a positive resourcefulness, 
is essential to win any battle in war or 
peace. General Patton, General 
Eisenhower, General Hodges, and Admiral 
Nimitz are proving that today.
Under our Constitution this body has 
the right, and the duty, to advise the 
Executive on matters of foreign policy. 
If it cannot consent to the measures 
presented by the Executive it seems to 
me imperative that it offer our Nation 
and the world an alternative. If it feels 
inadequate to this task, then certainly 
it should proceed immediately to accede 
to the rising demand of the people, that 
the House of Representatives be given a 
part in this responsibility. It is very 
unbecoming of the Senate to act the part 
of the dog in the manger.
I am sure that some will say that we 
must rely upon the State Department 
to formulate our foreign policy. I do 
not think we can afford to entrust this 
function exclusively to the State 
Department. In the first place, it is no 
longer possible to separate foreign from 
domestic policy. The two are much too 
closely intertwined, too interdependent, 
to be regarded as unrelated and 
separate problems. I know that the welfare 
of the cotton farmers in Arkansas is 
directly, and inevitably, dependent upon 
the maintenance of a free flow of 
international commerce. When that flow is
interrupted by war, as at present, or by 
a short-sighted tariff like the 
Smoot- Hawley measure, then we become 
involved with huge, unmanageable 
surpluses and such makeshifts as subsidies 
and loans to cotton producers. No; I 
do not think a few polished and 
cultured gentlemen, in the dark and 
dignified recesses of the State Department 
should be entrusted, exclusively, with the 
formulation of our foreign policy. I 
hasten to add that I am encouraged by 
the recent infusion of new blood into 
the Department and by the favorable 
reports of the work of Assistant 
Secretaries Rockefeller and Clayton at Mexico 
City. Improvement has been made, but 
much remains to be done.
Our long-range policy, if we are to 
have one, must be based upon a sound 
appraisal of the true interests of this 
Nation as a whole. There is a 
tendency, on the part of professional 
diplomats, to become ultracynical and to 
reduce all human interests and desires to 
the single element of material power. 
Being detached from the everyday life 
of our citizens, they forget that many 
people, in fact, I think the majority, 
would prefer to live in peace with their 
children, at home, than to have all the 
money, power, and glory in the world.
I am confident that the representatives 
of the people in this body, and in the 
House of Representatives, can much 
more accurately evaluate the true 
desires and interests of our people than 
can the traditional diplomat who, in the 
nature of things, is isolated from the 
common man.
I intend no reflection upon the 
character of any man in our executive 
department; but it is inherent in their 
background and their position, that they 
be ultra conservative and reluctant to 
commit our people to any change in the 
status quo or to the assumption of any 
new responsibilities. Only recently we 
have had an example where the 
participation of the distinguished senior 
Senator from Texas [Mr. CONNALLY] and
the distinguished senior Senator from 
Vermont [Mr. AUSTIN] added backbone 
and courage to the decisions of our 
representatives at Mexico City. I should 
like to read at this point from an 
editorial in the Washington Post of March 
6, describing the part played by these gentlemen:

SENATORIAL COOPERATION

MEXICO CITY, Monday, March 5.—The Job of 
advising and consenting, which Is the 
Senate's prerogative in our treaty relations with 
the world, has been given a new definition at 
Mexico City. Hitherto the initiative in 
treaty making has been retained by the 
Executive. All Presidents have been jealous 
of it. But at Mexico City Senator AUSTIN 
took the ball as soon as he arrived here, and 
we were treated to the spectacle of a Senator 
determining the administration's approach to 
the continental security pact, and an 
opposition Senator at that. It was the earnest 
and disinterested Vermonter who framed the 
formula on which action was taken Saturday 
at Mexico City. Senator CONNALLY made 
senatorial Intervention complete by adding 
to the declaration what might be called the 
Connally reservation. Not the slightest 
resentment has been caused by this senatorial 
intervention; indeed, it has been welcomed, 
for, as Assistant Secretary Rockefeller says, 
"The administration wants to know what it 
can deliver to our Latin-American friends." 
Senator AUSTIN'S work Is especially the object 
of comprehensive compliments.
Senators with the experience and 
confidence in their understanding of their 
people, such as these Senators 
undoubtedly have, naturally tend to be 
courageous and bold in their approach to 
matters of vital interest to their people. To 
them diplomacy is not merely a game of 
chess to be played by skillful maneuvers 
and double talk. They know the very 
lives of their people are involved, and 
they are not afraid to take risks to 
protect them.