J. William Fulbright Quotes
There has been a strong tradition in this country that it is not the function of the military to educate the public on political issues.
J. William Fulbright, 1905-1995, U. S. Senator (Democrat, AR), Chairman, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Remark, 1961
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The only soldier ever so honored
There is frequently a disagreement between the military and civilian leaders just as there are disagreements among most political personnel. Hawks, and people who have had experience in the military tend to think that military advice on military matters should be determinative with the President and Congress. Others tend to believe that military advice should be considered, but if it were always adhered to, there would be no point in having civilian control over the military. See {639667} for an example of when military leadership advice prevailed and it was a mistake.
The irony is that it is just for the lack of this fundamental principle that Napoleon eventually became the Government and the Military in France.
America is almost unique among nations where the military has never been a force that either dominated or controlled the government or acted independently from it. The Founding Fathers knew well the history of Europe and other nations, and built many checks into our Constitution and our traditions with George Washington, setting the example for American military men forever after.
In 1776 General Charles Lee imposed a loyalty test on inhabitants of New York in the name of the new government. Four distinguished public men wrote this letter.
In principle few disagree. However, in practice the norm of American polity is that the civilian leaders must consult the military and or intelligence leaders and take their advice seriously. If they President and his civilian leadership to not take the advice, they pay a heavy political price as there is a sometimes contradictory norm that says that you must allow the military experts to run the battles. In the given case, the Iraq War, the President and Vice President made the decision to invade Iraq. However, if we believe them literally, they were heavily influenced by the intelligence agencies who assured them that Iraq had a nuclear weapon about to be completed. It was a “slam dunk” in the words of the CIA director— {633093}. JFK as a young president did not feel that he could override the CIA and DOD people who had assured him that the Bay of Pigs lading would trigger a massive uprising in Cuba. He was misled but had to take the responsibility for the fiasco where not a single person in Cuba rebelled. The President can and should override the best military advice when it is wrong, but how does he know? If he does, he always pays a short term price—even if he is right, for that is not clear for some time. Politics in a democracy is not easy in a democracy.
3 years later he led America on a huge invasion and nation building project in Iraq. It turned out that had he listened to his own advice and not flip-flopped, the huge cost of the Iraq War might have been avoided.
Civilian control of the Military did not just pop in to the Constitution 11 years later. This and many other fundamental ideas had come from the State Constitutions and other documents.
Many of the fundamental principles of government that were in the United States Constitution, were already in the Constitutions of different states. Vermont had a substantial number of them. When we speak of the Constitution as a “revolutionary document” it was to the rest of the world but not to many Americans who had these concepts in their state constitutions and had been living with them for some time.
James William Fulbright was an American politician, academic, and statesman who represented Arkansas in the United States Senate from 1945 until his resignation in 1974. As of 2021, Fulbright is the longest serving chairman in the history of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. He is best known for his staunch multilateralist positions on international issues, opposition to American involvement in the Vietnam War, and the creation of the international fellowship program bearing his name, the Fulbright Program.
