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Congressional Record United States of America PROCEEDINGS AND DEBATES OF THE 85th CONGRESS, SECOND SESSION Vol. 104 No. 11 WASHINGTON, THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 1958 Senate OUR CURRENT CRISIS—AND THE NEED FOR EDUCATION Mr. FULBRIGHT obtained the floor. Mr. MANSFIELD. Mr. President, will the Senator from Arkansas yield, so that I may suggest the absence of a quorum. Mr. FULBRIGHT. I shall be glad to yield. Mr. MANSFIELD. Then, Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll. The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll. Mr. MANSFIELD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. FULBRIGHT. Mr. President— If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do and how to do it. When Abraham Lincoln spoke those words in his house-divided speech, a century ago, the Nation was fast drifting toward the abyss of a tragic and disastrous war. Lincoln sensed that a policy of Presidential firmness and candor might foster a national self-awareness— the indispensable preliminary to any "saving act of Government. But, President James Buchanan, a tired and amiable man with tired policies, continued to spread the contagion of his own confusion over the land. Today, what was true in 1858 is again true, but on a vastly larger scale, and in a vastly more menacing form. The then issue of slavery has changed into the global conflict of cold war: A war in which military strength, or weakness, is a consequence rather than a cause of how things stand on the economic, political, educational, and cultural sectors of the battlefront. Meanwhile, one unnerving similarity to the America of a century ago remains in being: It is that the peril of the Nation increases daily because of the way the incumbent administration has dulled, and continues to dull, the Nation's awareness of the danger it faces—the danger that is posed by two leading questions: How strong is the Soviet Union today? How strong is it likely to be tomorrow? When Sputniks I and II rang out with alarming answers to these two questions, the national will of America was poised to rally around the Presidency. Indeed, that is the traditional American reaction to a national emergency—as can be recalled from personal experience when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and when the Communists attacked Korea. In 1941, and again in 1950, the American people expected the President of the hour to proclaim the formidable truths of what the Nation faced, however unpleasant. He was expected to frame, to win approval for, and to execute the measures for overcoming the emergency. And Presidents Roosevelt and Truman, each in his own way, did just that. No less was expected of the Eisenhower administration—if the emergency implications in Russia's scientific achievements were to be met and mastered. Yet months dropped-away, and what we received instead was the same bland diet of sugar-coated half-truths that has made us fat and immobile in the past 5 years; 5 years when we should have been muscular, resilient, and ever on the move scouting the terrain ahead. In the passing months, if there was any informed public discussion on the highest matters of state since the first earth satellite was launched, no thanks were due to administration sources. They were due, rather, to the aroused energy of individual Members of the Congress or of private persons. The highest officials of the administration, for their part, continued in their old ways. They made their own inner councils the judge, the jury, and the repository of the records of their own actions, never taking the people into their full confidence. If they asked for support for this or that measure, they withheld a disclosure of the facts material to an informed public discussion of the merits of the proposal, or they so distorted the meaning of the facts as to make them a caricature of the realities they are meant to stand for. As an example of this, the Gaither report, developed for the express purpose of evaluating our strength relative to that of the Soviet Union, was suppressed on the ground that its unpleasant truths might cause the people to panic. But in the next breath, Mr. Hagerty, the President's press secretary assured the Nation that the report does not say that the United States is weak now. If so, we are left to conclude that the report was not released because the Nation might panic from joy over the evidence of our strength. What a fantastic, dreamlike performance it has been. Nor has the case changed very much for the better since the President's state of the Union message was delivered. The message, to begin with, is merely a printed catalog of good intentions. It is not the specifics of any action program. The experiences of the past 5 years should teach us by now that we would be well advised to withhold any hosannas about a proposed program until we see it in concrete form, and until we see whether the administration is willing to go the limit in fighting for its adoption. For the evidence of the past is that this administration has a chronic habit of not following through. Anyway, from what administration sources have already put out about the details of their space-age program, it is, at bottom, a program calling for a minimal instead of a maximum effort on the part of the United States. For the ruling principle to which it is tailored— as administration sources have made clear in conferences with congressional leaders—is this: That the Soviet Union—our challenger—is a warped society, wracked by internal strains, and fated for an early and inglorious collapse. In the circumstances, all we have to do is the very little that is required to keep our own motors idling until the inevitable crackup occurs to the Soviet Union. Mr. LONG. Mr. President, will the Senator yield? Mr. FULBRIGHT. I yield to the Senator from Louisiana. Mr. LONG. As a matter of fact, is it not true that from time to time some of us have been advised by administration sources, particularly by the Secretary of State, that we can almost expect the Soviet Union to crack up any day? Mr. FULBRIGHT. In his testimony before the Committee on Foreign Relations 2 years ago, that was clearly the implication to be drawn from his testimony. I shall refer to that in the next paragraph of my prepared statement. Mr. LONG. My impression of the Secretary's statement at that time was to the effect that the fact the Soviet Union had lasted that long was a cause for wonder. Mr. FULBRIGHT. I think the Senator's statement is well taken. It is worth remembering that the doctrinal line here was laid down by the administration less than 2 years ago. Shortly after the 20th Soviet Congress, that is, we were told by Secretary Dulles that the Russian system was a failure; that they were reexamining their creed from A to Z; that the Soviet Union was making no progress in penetrating the Middle East; and that all in all, their policies had miscarried. Since this was said, any fact, however, random, has been seized by administration sources and woven into the design if it can be made to fit the doctrinal theory of Soviet weakness. Thus we are told that so much of the Soviet effort has gone into heavy industry and so little into consumer goods that its economy is out of balance; that its people are dissatisfied and will become disaffected. After all, they have only 100,000 automobiles a year, compared to our 6 million. It is suggested, furthermore, that Russian intellectuals cannot be regimented and controlled forever; that their demands for freedom may cause the government to turn its attention to some solution of Russia's internal troubles, thereby halting the push toward external aggression and subversion. Additionally, it is suggested that the proof of internal political tension and instability is to be found in the dismissal of Malenkov, Molotov, Kaganovich, and Zhukov. Each of these men represent sources of power that Khrushchev has alienated—so the argument goes—with the result that they are now merely biding their time for a disruptive counter attack on his present rule. It is neither pleasant nor popular to contest this theorizing. The man who does so, by pointing to the facts of Soviet strength, risks every manner of false charge. Inevitably, it will be said of him that he has lost faith in America; that he is an apologist for the Soviet way of doing things; that he wants America to make itself over along Soviet lines; or that he means to panic America into a preventive war designed to smash the Soviet Union before its power increases any further. Nevertheless, precisely because I feel that the stuff of greatness has not gone out of the bones of Amer¬ica; precisely because I feel that our democratic society is equal to the emerg¬ency it faces, provided it knows what it is dealing with, let me here try to sketch the character of Soviet strength, and the specific areas of weakness in the American establishment, for the tests ahead. I would admit straight off that the Soviet system may, in fact, have to be altered. In the long run, it may even collapse. But, as the saying goes, in the long run too, all of us shall be dead. Anyway, what counts most of all in the life of nations, is the pace and timing of events. And right now, when the world all around us is being hammered into new shapes, nothing on the line of vision points to a collapse of the Soviet, system. True, the Soviet ideology has been, can be, and may be further repudiated by events. But the Soviet power system is something else again. Within, and external to, Russia, that power system
Object Description
Title | Our Current Crisis and the Need For Education |
Abstract | Fulbright speech explaining the need for the United States to regain and maintain its intellectual advantage in response to the scientifc achievements of the Soviet Union. Fulbright argued for an increased emphasis on education both domestically and abroad to counter current and potential Soviet/Communist advances. |
Creator | Fulbright, J. William |
Date | January 23, 1958 |
Audience of Speech | United States Senate |
Institution Where Speech Was Given | United States Senate |
City and State | Washington, D.C. |
Subject |
Education Communism International Relations Domestic Policy Educational Exchanges |
Item Location | J. William Fulbright Papers (MS F956 144, Series 71, Box 12, File 9) |
Rights | Please contact Special Collections for information on copyright. |
Digital Publisher | University of Arkansas Libraries |
Series Title | A Calm Voice in a Strident World: Senator J.W. Fulbright Speaks |
Description
Title | Our Current Crisis and the Need For Education |
Abstract | Fulbright speech explaining the need for the United States to regain and maintain its intellectual advantage in response to the scientifc achievements of the Soviet Union. Fulbright argued for an increased emphasis on education both domestically and abroad to counter current and potential Soviet/Communist advances. |
Creator | Fulbright, J. William |
Date | January 23, 1958 |
Audience of Speech | United States Senate |
Institution Where Speech Was Given | United States Senate |
City and State | Washington, D.C. |
Subject |
Education Communism International Relations Domestic Policy Educational Exchanges |
Transcript | Congressional Record United States of America PROCEEDINGS AND DEBATES OF THE 85th CONGRESS, SECOND SESSION Vol. 104 No. 11 WASHINGTON, THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 1958 Senate OUR CURRENT CRISIS—AND THE NEED FOR EDUCATION Mr. FULBRIGHT obtained the floor. Mr. MANSFIELD. Mr. President, will the Senator from Arkansas yield, so that I may suggest the absence of a quorum. Mr. FULBRIGHT. I shall be glad to yield. Mr. MANSFIELD. Then, Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll. The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll. Mr. MANSFIELD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. FULBRIGHT. Mr. President— If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do and how to do it. When Abraham Lincoln spoke those words in his house-divided speech, a century ago, the Nation was fast drifting toward the abyss of a tragic and disastrous war. Lincoln sensed that a policy of Presidential firmness and candor might foster a national self-awareness— the indispensable preliminary to any "saving act of Government. But, President James Buchanan, a tired and amiable man with tired policies, continued to spread the contagion of his own confusion over the land. Today, what was true in 1858 is again true, but on a vastly larger scale, and in a vastly more menacing form. The then issue of slavery has changed into the global conflict of cold war: A war in which military strength, or weakness, is a consequence rather than a cause of how things stand on the economic, political, educational, and cultural sectors of the battlefront. Meanwhile, one unnerving similarity to the America of a century ago remains in being: It is that the peril of the Nation increases daily because of the way the incumbent administration has dulled, and continues to dull, the Nation's awareness of the danger it faces—the danger that is posed by two leading questions: How strong is the Soviet Union today? How strong is it likely to be tomorrow? When Sputniks I and II rang out with alarming answers to these two questions, the national will of America was poised to rally around the Presidency. Indeed, that is the traditional American reaction to a national emergency—as can be recalled from personal experience when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and when the Communists attacked Korea. In 1941, and again in 1950, the American people expected the President of the hour to proclaim the formidable truths of what the Nation faced, however unpleasant. He was expected to frame, to win approval for, and to execute the measures for overcoming the emergency. And Presidents Roosevelt and Truman, each in his own way, did just that. No less was expected of the Eisenhower administration—if the emergency implications in Russia's scientific achievements were to be met and mastered. Yet months dropped-away, and what we received instead was the same bland diet of sugar-coated half-truths that has made us fat and immobile in the past 5 years; 5 years when we should have been muscular, resilient, and ever on the move scouting the terrain ahead. In the passing months, if there was any informed public discussion on the highest matters of state since the first earth satellite was launched, no thanks were due to administration sources. They were due, rather, to the aroused energy of individual Members of the Congress or of private persons. The highest officials of the administration, for their part, continued in their old ways. They made their own inner councils the judge, the jury, and the repository of the records of their own actions, never taking the people into their full confidence. If they asked for support for this or that measure, they withheld a disclosure of the facts material to an informed public discussion of the merits of the proposal, or they so distorted the meaning of the facts as to make them a caricature of the realities they are meant to stand for. As an example of this, the Gaither report, developed for the express purpose of evaluating our strength relative to that of the Soviet Union, was suppressed on the ground that its unpleasant truths might cause the people to panic. But in the next breath, Mr. Hagerty, the President's press secretary assured the Nation that the report does not say that the United States is weak now. If so, we are left to conclude that the report was not released because the Nation might panic from joy over the evidence of our strength. What a fantastic, dreamlike performance it has been. Nor has the case changed very much for the better since the President's state of the Union message was delivered. The message, to begin with, is merely a printed catalog of good intentions. It is not the specifics of any action program. The experiences of the past 5 years should teach us by now that we would be well advised to withhold any hosannas about a proposed program until we see it in concrete form, and until we see whether the administration is willing to go the limit in fighting for its adoption. For the evidence of the past is that this administration has a chronic habit of not following through. Anyway, from what administration sources have already put out about the details of their space-age program, it is, at bottom, a program calling for a minimal instead of a maximum effort on the part of the United States. For the ruling principle to which it is tailored— as administration sources have made clear in conferences with congressional leaders—is this: That the Soviet Union—our challenger—is a warped society, wracked by internal strains, and fated for an early and inglorious collapse. In the circumstances, all we have to do is the very little that is required to keep our own motors idling until the inevitable crackup occurs to the Soviet Union. Mr. LONG. Mr. President, will the Senator yield? Mr. FULBRIGHT. I yield to the Senator from Louisiana. Mr. LONG. As a matter of fact, is it not true that from time to time some of us have been advised by administration sources, particularly by the Secretary of State, that we can almost expect the Soviet Union to crack up any day? Mr. FULBRIGHT. In his testimony before the Committee on Foreign Relations 2 years ago, that was clearly the implication to be drawn from his testimony. I shall refer to that in the next paragraph of my prepared statement. Mr. LONG. My impression of the Secretary's statement at that time was to the effect that the fact the Soviet Union had lasted that long was a cause for wonder. Mr. FULBRIGHT. I think the Senator's statement is well taken. It is worth remembering that the doctrinal line here was laid down by the administration less than 2 years ago. Shortly after the 20th Soviet Congress, that is, we were told by Secretary Dulles that the Russian system was a failure; that they were reexamining their creed from A to Z; that the Soviet Union was making no progress in penetrating the Middle East; and that all in all, their policies had miscarried. Since this was said, any fact, however, random, has been seized by administration sources and woven into the design if it can be made to fit the doctrinal theory of Soviet weakness. Thus we are told that so much of the Soviet effort has gone into heavy industry and so little into consumer goods that its economy is out of balance; that its people are dissatisfied and will become disaffected. After all, they have only 100,000 automobiles a year, compared to our 6 million. It is suggested, furthermore, that Russian intellectuals cannot be regimented and controlled forever; that their demands for freedom may cause the government to turn its attention to some solution of Russia's internal troubles, thereby halting the push toward external aggression and subversion. Additionally, it is suggested that the proof of internal political tension and instability is to be found in the dismissal of Malenkov, Molotov, Kaganovich, and Zhukov. Each of these men represent sources of power that Khrushchev has alienated—so the argument goes—with the result that they are now merely biding their time for a disruptive counter attack on his present rule. It is neither pleasant nor popular to contest this theorizing. The man who does so, by pointing to the facts of Soviet strength, risks every manner of false charge. Inevitably, it will be said of him that he has lost faith in America; that he is an apologist for the Soviet way of doing things; that he wants America to make itself over along Soviet lines; or that he means to panic America into a preventive war designed to smash the Soviet Union before its power increases any further. Nevertheless, precisely because I feel that the stuff of greatness has not gone out of the bones of Amer¬ica; precisely because I feel that our democratic society is equal to the emerg¬ency it faces, provided it knows what it is dealing with, let me here try to sketch the character of Soviet strength, and the specific areas of weakness in the American establishment, for the tests ahead. I would admit straight off that the Soviet system may, in fact, have to be altered. In the long run, it may even collapse. But, as the saying goes, in the long run too, all of us shall be dead. Anyway, what counts most of all in the life of nations, is the pace and timing of events. And right now, when the world all around us is being hammered into new shapes, nothing on the line of vision points to a collapse of the Soviet, system. True, the Soviet ideology has been, can be, and may be further repudiated by events. But the Soviet power system is something else again. Within, and external to, Russia, that power system |
Item Location | J. William Fulbright Papers (MS F956 144, Series 71, Box 12, File 9) |
Rights | Please contact Special Collections for information on copyright. |
Digital Publisher | University of Arkansas Libraries |
Series Title | A Calm Voice in a Strident World: Senator J.W. Fulbright Speaks |
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