Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 10, 1995 TAG: 9502100119
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Fulbright was an early mentor to Bill Clinton, who worked as clerk in Fulbright's Senate office while a student at Georgetown University and who, years later, awarded Fulbright the nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. If it weren't for Fulbright, Clinton said Thursday at the White House, ``I don't think I'd be here today.''
Fulbright was the architect of the Fulbright scholarships, an international exchange program in which nearly a quarter of a million students and teachers from more than 120 countries have gone abroad to study. He considered its creation, first financed by the sale of U.S. war property left overseas after World War II, among his finest achievements.
Because of it, he was particularly revered in Japan. The Democrat from Arkansas was one of the few American legislators of this century whose name was known around the world.
As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Fulbright presided over televised hearings in 1966 and 1967 that gave the stamp of legitimacy to anti-war sentiments then sweeping through the streets and campuses of America. The hearings helped turn the country against the war.
While others said the fall of Vietnam would threaten U.S. security, Fulbright said the war had choked domestic reform and was ``turning the Great Society into a sick society.''
The hearings made Fulbright an unlikely hero to a generation one-third his age.
On the other great issue of his time, Fulbright dragged his feet or opposed civil rights legislation. He felt he could not remain in the Senate if he championed the cause of black Americans.
But Fulbright stood up early to Sen. Joseph McCarthy, whose readiness to label any critic a communist sympathizer made colleagues cringe.
In 1954, Fulbright cast the only vote against providing money to McCarthy's investigations committee.
James William Fulbright was born April 9, 1905, and grew up in Fayetteville, Ark.
He became a halfback for the Arkansas Razorbacks and a Rhodes Scholar. He toured Europe, obtained a law degree, married, became a law professor at Arkansas, and, in 1939 at 34, was appointed university president.
by CNB