
          The Price of Empire by J. William Fulbright, with Seth P. Tillman. (Pantheon Books, 1989. xi, 243 pages. $17.95)
          By Dunbar, LeslieLeslie Dunbar
          Vol. 11, No. 4, 1989, pp. 27-28, 30
          
          Radicals would do well to read this book by the Arkansas
aristocrat; it could teach them not to be so restrained.
          Americans generally, and Southerners in particular, ought to read
this gently worded but unsparing "J'accuse," for the American
political mind which Fulbright depicts menaces our nation's future,
and the world's, too.
          Fulbright says: Since World War II our "obsession" (a word he
repeatedly uses) with Communism and the Soviet Union has sustained an
arms race; that it can almost not be turned off because of the
economic and political interests now built into it; that every advance
in arms has subtracted from our security; that in these years since
1945 we have been as provocative as have the Russians; that there is
no alternative to detente; and that he cannot still his "suspicions"
that whenever in the past better relationships between the Russians
and us seemed in prospect "something unusual happened," and not by
pure coincidence.
          I think all except the suspicion is right, and it may be that if I
knew more, about the U-2 overflight and the shooting down of the
Korean airliner, I'd agree with that also.
          He says: Our political processes have become diseased, our mode of
nominating presidential candidates and then electing one of them is
both uniquely American and without sense--when we "get a president
with intellect and character--it is something of an accident"--and
that the dominating role of television is a principal cause, requiring
enormous funds and inevitably demeaning and debasing campaigning. I
think all that is incontestably right.
          He says: Attitudes must change, before there can be sound
progress. Southerners above all must know how hard that is. Once--and
for long, long years--it was established principle in the South to
ground political policies explicitly on race. No longer. Yet so deeply
embedded are the advantages of being white that the South without open
admission usually follows political directions that protect those
advantages. Perhaps we are ascending from that, but it is a long
climb, and millions are injured along the way. If we by similar
resolve eliminated anti-Communism as a declared policy touchstone, we
would still have to deal with all those who have advantage in its
survival, the profit takers, the workers, the Pentagon careerists, the
Congressmen who have tasted influence under its shadow.
          The South has, now as in the past, a plenty of political figures
who have served the cause of anti-Communism and the arms race
assiduously. Why has the South traditionally been so war-minded? Why
must it stay that way? Leave aside the economic stake, in plants and
bases. Is there from being reared in the South a destiny that leads
its political sons and daughters to become, in truth, the go-fers of
the Pentagon and the CIA and the National Security Council?
          Well, it may be so. It would be interesting to have responses to
Fulbright's book from such current senators as Nunn, Gore, Robb, from
all those who tell us so regularly that we--you and I--will support
only presidential candidates who are "strong" on defense." Well,
again, maybe. If so, there loom dark questions asked in starkest form
in Fulbright's chapter on "Our Militarized Economy": "We have
become a militarized 

economy...Millions of Americans have acquired a
vested interest in these expensive weapons systems; they provide
profit for large corporations and livelihoods for working people. The
same people acquire, indirectly, a vested interest in the foreign
policy that has committed us to a spiraling arms race with the Soviet
Union, made us the world's largest arms seller...Violence has become
the nation's leading industry...Yet this militarization of the economy
is undermining us internally..." Again, I think Fulbright is
right, and am grateful to him for saying these truths well and
forcefully.
          If people care to change this, they might think back on that
earlier great attitudinal challenge which confronted the
South. Difficult and slow and unfinished as that has been, it
nevertheless was set in motion, and it still moves. It had three prime
movers, none of whom were political leaders: tenacious courtroom
lawyers; victims speaking and acting in clear and mounting protest;
and the legitimizers of dissent. A movement for sane military and
foreign policies cannot now have the first--the "law" is probably on
the other side and with the present Supreme Court undoubtedly is; but
surely there is the potential for effective protest, and Fulbright's
book can be for that a warming light and ignition.
          The entire book is a plea for rational discussion, for the opening
of minds and discarding of myths, for the legitimizing of
dissent. There is little of that in the United States, not at any rate
within Mr. Bush's "mainstream." When did we last hear among its masses
a vigorous debate on the merits of NATO and whether it should be kept
alive; or on "forward defense"; or on the Monroe Doctrine, for that
matter? We go on year after year, assuming the necessity of such
policies as political--and indeed, moral--givers. Without that wall of
dogma being breached, and policies brought out for debate, there is no
progress. Some celebrate the role of Southern businessmen in uprooting
old-fashioned white supremacy but in fact they were neuters, until
liberals across the South, mainly women, made secure the right within
Southern public life to dissent; the acceptable right to talk, debate,
question.
          Senator Fulbright of Arkansas was of no help in those days. Some
have said, would say, that he played an ignoble role. To his present
honor, he makes no fancy defense. He simply wanted to be--he is clear
about this--re-elected, and Arkansas voters exacted a price in racial
conformity for his freedom to work at those issues which really
interested him. (He had signed the Southern Manifesto in 1956, filed
an amicus brief supportive of resistance in the 1958 case, Cooper
v. Aaron, had avoided as far as he was able any contact with the
school crisis which had wracked Little Rock. He had also been the only
senator in 1954 to vote to cut off appropriations for Joseph
McCarthy's witchhunting committee.) Brooks Hays, for the mildest of
acts, had been driven out of the House by a write-in candidate, and
thereafter could, we read, play "no significant or interesting role
in Arkansas affairs." Fulbright did not want that fate. He, as it
were, rests his case on the mercies of his liberal countrymen--not
since he opposed McCarthy has he had friends among conservatives, nor
among cold-war Democrats since he opposed the Dominican invasion of
1965 and gradually moved into opposition on Vietnam--his case being
that what else he stood for and accomplished made his continuance in
office a benefit.
          We can all ponder that with some profit. Consider: It is not
inconceivable, far from it, in fact, that there are members of
Congress today who would largely agree with the need to rise above
anti-Communism and a militarized society, and yet hold their tongues
and vote to the contrary because they have decided that their own
re-election is important to some other good cause; combatting poverty
or extending civil rights, for example, or befriending nation-building
in Africa (a continent which, incidentally, Fulbright never
mentions). Politics is always made of choices. Fulbright would believe
and say that some things are of first importance, and of course that
is right. I think human dignity yields place to no other. Fulbright
might, too, in principle, but is aristocratic in his valuations. To
him, both great or bad actions and policies occur in virtually every
situation because of what some few leaders do. I think he is wrong
about that. I think he never before now, never during his long
Congressional career, had a realistic chance of stamping his values on
American foreign policies. The nice irony is that he may now have, as
millions of new people, unencumbered by the interests which have
supported the dogmas of post-World War II foreign policies, come into
civic participation through the civil rights revolt he stepped aside
from.
          Those voters, in the South and Southwest, may go, however, in any
of several ways. Lord help us if they follow the "mainstream" of
Southern politics. It is an appalling mess. On virtually every one of
the great contemporary issues--interventionist foreign policies,
covert actions abroad, the Pentagon's budget, environmental
protection, abortion, the treatment of the poor--the trends of

Southern politics are opposed to the common good. The prospect of new
Southern seats in Congress after the 1990 census is, as of now, a
dreary, scarifying one, promising more Republicans--and the Republican
party and especially its Southern branch have become the first
monolithically ideological major party in American history--and
possibly a couple of Democrats of near likeness.
          There is much more in this book than I have been able to
suggest. There are delightful vignettes about past Arkansas
elections. There are many and candid reflections on personalities with
whom he shared Washington's power. There are deeply interesting
passages on some notable events, such as the Kennedy's assault on Cuba
(he was less opposed than one might believe) and Watergate (the worst
side of which he says was that it derailed detente).
          There is serious discussion of governmental structure; he is
fundamentally critical of the separation of powers, though he narrows
his criticism to executive-legislative relationships, never discussing
how his favored parliamentary system (as in Britain) would co-exist
with an independent judiciary and the power of judicial review, nor
how it would adapt to our federal system.
          His own pessimism is strong, and made stronger yet by this
country's relationship with Israel, which he calls a "garrison state,"
and also a "client state" of the United States, that paradoxically
through the great influence of the American Jewish community is
enabled to dictate our Middle East policies. The worst of this, in
Fulbright's estimation, is that Israel perceives continued animosity
between the United States and the U.S.S.R. to be in its interest, in
its struggle with Arab states and factions, and works to keep that
alive. Here too, there is at the very least' an urgent need to
establish free, robust debate.
          Finally, that need is what The Price of Empire is about: the
necessity of unfettered and thoughtful debate. Never mind that he
attained his own dearest legislative victory--the "Fulbright
scholarships"--by avoiding debate, getting it through, he notes, "as
quietly as possible." A necessary tactic. His faith for the future
embraces two courses: international organization--with all its
shortcomings, "I still believe in the United Nations"--and education,
especially that which brings Americans and other nationals into closer
knowledge of each other.
          Such hopes as he permits himself depend, he writes, on the
possibility of "strong and intelligent leadership." Fulbright is
living proof that liberal aristocrats, or aristocratic liberals, may
still survive. Would that they might abound!
          "Everything therefore comes back to the way in which we find and
then choose our leaders." Plato would have agreed with him. So
might Thomas Jefferson. So may we all, once we build a true democracy
from which to choose.
          
            The degree or nature of Mr. Tillman's role is never
described; all opinions, one assumes, are those of both men.
            Leslie Dunbar is the book editor of Southern Changes.
          
        