Can Fulbright Be Re-elected?
McCORD, ROBERT S.
Can Fulbright Be Re-elected? by ROBERT S. McCORD SOME of the people in Arkansas who like their politics raw are even now smacking their lips over the prospects for 1968. It goes something like...
...The more trouble Fulbright can have with the President, the more votes he can get in Arkansas...
...However, if the war continues as a stalemate and the casualty lists keep growing, Fulbright's position on the war will look better and better to more and more Arkansas voters...
...McMath, a Marine Corps major general, supports the President's position down to the last napalm bomb and is critical of Fulbright's position when asked, although he includes no criticism in his prepared speech...
...Those people might blame LBJ or they could blame Fulbright because if it wasn't for people like Fulbright, the President might have gone ahead and done what needed to be done and cleaned up this war in thirty days...
...Faubus would be a "formidable opponent" if he should run against Fulbright...
...Faubus is a bit more blunt and frank than Mr...
...ROBERT S. McCORD is the editor of The Times of North Little Rock, Arkansas...
...Here, too, there is disagreement, although you would naturally expect that in view of what really amounts to a worsening condition in the conflict, many of his critics would now admit that he had been right all along...
...It should be noted, however, that Fulbright's situation is different from that of any of the other so-called Senate doves who are under attack...
...There are almost none in his part of the state, and he has been closer to many African exchange students than he has to rank and file Negroes back home...
...It is for these reasons that two well-known and practical politicians in Arkansas, whose only bond is their Democratic political affiliation, recently said they did not think Fulbright would be beaten...
...North Little Rock Mayor William F. Laman, who once was re-elected by a seven to one margin, said he didn't think the Senator's position on the Vietnam war had hurt him...
...Actually, Fulbright knows little about Negroes first-hand...
...It is not hard to find examples of the Senator's "indifference" and failure to play the game of politics...
...If Rockefeller continues at this pace, Faubus will be sorely tempted to take on the multi-millionaire and leave Fulbright to some wild reactionary like Jim Johnson, who might carve up the Senator a bit but by no means finish him off...
...Bowker's chief complaint is that in time of war the country needs unity, not criticism...
...Editor Jay Jackson of the Van Buren County Democrat in Clinton thought otherwise...
...As "Mutt" Jones put it, "I don't think he's just showing off his general's uniform...
...I tried the idea out recently on a highly-placed Democrat in Washington, who happens to be close to both the President and Senator Fulbright...
...Fulbright has a world of integrity but at this time his views don't match those of his constituents," Bowker said...
...Jerry D. Jewell of Little Rock, a young and articulate Negro dentist who heads the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Arkansas, isn't at all sure that this would happen...
...But now that the war has gone on so long, he has gained strength...
...Although he denies it publicly, McMath certainly is behaving as though he were going to run for Senator...
...If North Vietnam's resistance should crumble under the bombing, Fulbright probably would be in serious trouble, especially if a master politician like Orval Faubus took him on...
...I would parallel Senator Fulbright's vote against the 1964 Civil Rights Act with Governor Faubus' call-up of the National Guard at Central High School in 1957...
...His [Fulbright's] indifference hurts him as much as Vietnam or anything else," he said...
...Here are three current ones: An agricultural group that asked him to speak at its annual dinner got a terse note declining the invitation—a note that arrived several weeks after the dinner had been held...
...Dr...
...However, those who know Faubus best say that a freshman's seat in the House of Representatives would not satisfy a man who was elected governor six times in a row and who, other than Senator Fulbright, is the best-known politician Arkansas has ever produced...
...by ROBERT S. McCORD SOME of the people in Arkansas who like their politics raw are even now smacking their lips over the prospects for 1968...
...Even though people don't like him, they admire him for what he's doing...
...Whether they like him or not, Ar-kansans think of Senator Fulbright as a sort of natural resource...
...A woman told a reporter recently that she had lived in Fayetteville for nineteen years and had never seen him...
...Louis Globe-Democrat "The bottom one's stuck— does it show...
...Convinced that the President uses the ruthless tactics attributed to him by his critics, these forecasters predict that Mr...
...Many are disappointed with his first ten months, which have been marked by false starts, rough stops, and tilting at windmills...
...People like Or-val Faubus say that Fulbright is in trouble...
...Last year I talked to many people and wrote about their reactions...
...Faubus, age fifty-seven, is keeping everyone guessing with cleverly-written ambiguities issued from his Ozark Mountain retreat...
...Senator Fulbright, if he draws a tough opponent, will have to court the Negro vote in 1968...
...Jewell told me...
...One of them, Charles Sanders, editor of the Springdale Daily News published near Fayetteville, the Senator's home town, said positively that Fulbright would beat Faubus...
...It's my impression that these national politicians from Arkansas seem to be hurting until people start to vote," Jones said...
...One would suppose, however, that in any showdown with Orval Faubus, who was the first governor to resist school desegregation...
...Some people in Arkansas think that President Johnson, or persons close to him, might be egging on former Governor Sid McMath—who has made more than 100 speeches since coming back from a brief tour of duty in Vietnam—to oppose the Senator...
...They will vote for him because deep down in their hearts, they don't want their sons killed in Vietnam...
...They realize, as I do, that Arkansas has the best balanced team of any state in the union...
...And certainly no one would argue that the line-up of Fulbright, Senator John L. McClellan, and Representative Wilbur Mills is not impressive and productive...
...Fulbright couldn't overcome the Faubus magic," he said...
...So have other politicians like Jim Johnson, the segregationist former judge who probably will think seriously about running against Fulbright if Faubus does not...
...And they recognize what his seniority means...
...He asked questions that needed to be asked," the Mayor said...
...Riley...
...Senate—a man of this stature is not easily or effectively attacked on street corners...
...The $1.3 billion Arkansas River navigation project—the largest project ever undertaken by the Corps of Engineers—is just one example of the handiwork of these Arkansans...
...Conjecture number three is that Fulbright, the leader of the opponents of this nation's participation in the Vietnam war, is so far out of step with his constituents that for the first time he is really vulnerable...
...Indications point the other way, but no one really knows because his only tough race was his first one in 1944...
...He mentioned the death of a soldier whose parents live in his neighborhood...
...The two led the field in the first primary, with Fulbright winning by a margin of only 32,000 votes in the runoff, which turned out to be a real grudge fight...
...This is easily understandable...
...S. W. Bowker, a North Little Rock insurance man and past president of a Chamber of Commerce, said he thought that Fulbright had lost ground and that if Faubus ran against him Faubus would win...
...If anyone could beat Fulbright, Orval Faubus could," Jones said...
...Three newspapermen who publish papers in different parts of the state were asked for their opinion about a Faubus-Fulbright race...
...Jewell said...
...There is much truth in this...
...Sometimes change is good just for the sake of change," Dr...
...There's a river of conjecture flowing from that statement...
...Many factors complicate the making of a reasonable judgment of what will happen to Fulbright in 1968...
...It's less likely that I'll run for Congress than it would be that I'd run for governor or the Senate...
...A one-time Rhodes Scholar who gave America its first international scholarship program, who stood in the Senate—almost alone for a time— against McCarthyism, who has attained worldwide recognition as a dominant voice in the pursuit of a creative American foreign policy, who is recognized as the best-informed chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee in the history of the U.S...
...My only criticism is that he didn't ask them two or three years ago...
...If you don't believe it, you ought to come to Washington with me some time when I'm trying to get something for North Little Rock...
...No chance is given the Senator's only announced candidate thus far in the Democratic primary...
...We wouldn't have anything today without the Civil Rights Act...
...Could Faubus beat Fulbright...
...Laman does not think that Faubus will run against Fulbright but it is his view that it does not matter who runs against him: "I don't think anyone could give Fulbright any trouble...
...What would Fulbright be like on the stump...
...Most political observers, for instance, credit Negroes with electing Governor Winthrop Rockefeller last year over his segregationist opponent, Democrat Jim Johnson...
...What he said six months ago sounds better today...
...He won that contest 252,000 to 129,000, but there are those who thought the margin should have been greater...
...Is he an educated segregationist...
...As with most Negroes, Dr...
...And at least three different times, he has turned down invitations to speak to the Arkansas Press Association in order to remain in Washington...
...No, said Dr...
...Then he will have to go because these are the hardest kind to deal with...
...Fulbright did come home and make a few speeches, but he did not really campaign...
...The President wants to have someone he can talk to as the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and it's not likely that he would do anything to get rid of such a person...
...The change from the poll tax to a voter registration system has made the Negro vote, estimated at about 115,000 out of a total of 750,000, a new and significant factor in Arkansas...
...Riley said that for a while, many people had the idea that Fulbright had gone too far...
...In 1950, he had no opposition, and in 1956, just one year after he had humiliated Senator Joseph McCarthy and helped to put an end to his influence (another issue that many thought had killed Fulbright politically), the Senator had no opposition in the primaries and drew only a token Republican opponent, whom he beat five to one...
...What helps Fulbright Justus in The Minneapolis Star ''Sometimes I Think This Might Become an Issue'' the most is for President Johnson to keep on saying nasty things about him...
...However, he said that there were capable people in the state who might yet decide to run for the Senate, but he didn't identify them...
...Senate...
...If I run for anything," he said recently, "I'm not sure what it will be...
...Among many of the local political professionals, this conflict between the President and Senator Fulbright is most significant...
...Six months ago I think the Senator was in trouble," he said...
...The only thing that everyone seems to agree on is that Faubus will run for something...
...Probably the most significant test of Fulbright's popularity is whether it is going up or down as the Vietnam war continues...
...In the general election campaign, Winthrop Rockefeller brought in Barry Goldwater to help a right-wing orthopedic surgeon try to defeat Fulbright...
...Johnson will arrange it so that someone will get in the race against Fulbright and that this opponent will be given all the money and encouragement he needs to win...
...Many blacks will never forgive him for maintaining silence and skipping off to Europe when the nation's first test of school desegregation came in his home state and resulted in defiance by Governor Faubus...
...The state has one of only two B-58 Strategic Air Command bases in the country, one of the three Titan II missile installations, a half-dozen Federal hydroelectric projects that would make any state's mouth water, and there is not a major business in the state that has not profited greatly from the prestige and power of Senator Fulbright and his Arkansas colleagues...
...Don't worry your head about that," he said...
...Conjecture number one is that Faubus will run in the Democratic primary against J. W. Fulbright, who is just completing his fourth term in the U.S...
...The Idaho "Victory in Vietnam Committee" seeks to recall Senator Frank Church and the right-wingers blast away at Senator Wayne Morse every day in Oregon...
...According to this source, the President dismisses some of Fulbright's criticism by stressing the documented fact that "Fulbright has never gotten along with any President...
...If the former governor does not run, Newton thought that Fulbright was home free...
...The people go to the polls and support them—privately...
...Governor Rockefeller told reporters recently that if the Vietnam war changed for the better, Ful-bright's stock would go down...
...In South Arkansas, Robert Newton, editor of the Warren Eagle-Democrat, was certain of the outcome of a Faubus-Fulbright race in his county...
...But Dr...
...After being swept into office in 1948 as a GI reform governor, McMath's political sun has dipped to the point where he has lost the last three elections, one of them against Arkansas' senior Senator, John McClellan...
...I doubt if he knows twenty-five persons in this county...
...As one of the poorer states, Arkansas has few possessions that it can deeply be proud of...
...The status of the war when it is time for the election will be the most important one...
...Not so...
...Faubus lost his...
...Dr...
...Bob Riley, a political science professor, thinks that "the longer the war waxes on, the more Fulbright's views are accepted...
...But few would give McMath much of a chance...
...He said Faubus would carry the county if he opposed Fulbright...
...A rural school board member in Pulaski county, whom no one had ever heard of, ran against Fulbright in the Democratic primary in 1962...
...There is no doubt that Fulbright's attitude toward the war—especially his opposition to the bombing and his use of words like "arrogance," "brothel," and "impeachment"—have hurt him among the rank-and-file voters who say he has gone too far in his criticism...
...The signs, subtle though they might be, seem to indicate at this moment that there will be no Faubus-Fulbright contest this time around...
...I don't really think there's too much difference between them...
...Many political observers think that Faubus will run for governor again, and a few even think that he will take on John Paul Hammer-schmidt, the state's first Republican Representative, who was elected last year along with Winthrop Rockefeller, the state's first Republican governor in modern times...
...But no one took this surgeon seriously and he was mowed down, three to one...
...They save their invective for other politicians, and even those who dislike him intensely seldom, if ever, express their feelings in public...
...I cannot see how a man who can see the ills of the Vietnam war so clearly cannot see the ills of segregated housing...
...He is Foster Johnson, a Little Rock book salesman, who also ran against John McClellan last year...
...For the first time since he has run for office...
...Then there is the general understandHesse in The St...
...He had just served one term in the House of Representatives after having been unceremoniously fired as president of the University of Arkansas by Governor Homer Adkins for refusing to do the latter's bidding...
...He received only 91,746 votes, as compared to 310,526 for McClellan, who did not condescend to campaign...
...He is good on his feet, but he does not suffer fools lightly, and it is obvious to anyone who knows him that he does not take kindly to the joshing and the tedium that go with a political campaign...
...Fulbright decided to try for the Senate in 1944, and one of the three other persons who filed just happened to be Adkins...
...It goes something like this: "If Orval Faubus takes on Bill Fulbright, it'll be the gol-darndest fight we've seen around here in a long time...
...Jones said, however, that Fulbright's Vietnam position has made him more vulnerable than ever before...
...Fulbright could have stayed in Congress as long as he wanted to if this Vietnam war had not come along and he had not advocated things that to me seem to be too much in line with the Russians' view...
...Senator Fulbright would receive nearly all of the Negro vote—and he might...
...His support of Southern positions on civil rights undoubtedly has created votes for him among whites, but whether they equal the number of Negro votes he may lose is questionable now that the Negro voter is more plentiful and more sophisticated...
...Ranking next to it is the job that Governor Rockefeller does in his first term as governor...
...In politics, rhythm is important...
...I don't know which is the greater evil...
...ing of the importance of seniority and the team effort in bringing some of the Federal bacon back to Arkansas...
...Jewell sees no one among the potential candidates he would prefer over Senator Fulbright today...
...He [Fulbright] would be defeated today because the majority of people in Arkansas don't support his position," McMath said...
...On the other hand, because of his views on foreign policy, Fulbright is identified as a liberal among conservative Arkansans who are not likely to regard him as one of their own solely because he usually goes along with other Southern Senators on civil rights legislation...
...I would have to think about it to make a decision between these two men," Dr...
...State Senator Guy ("Mutt") Jones, an outspoken conservative who is about as different from Senator Fulbright as anyone you could find among Arkansas' contemporary political leaders, is more cautious than the Mayor but agrees that Fulbright probably will be re-elected...
...But Fulbright's not a politician...
...But there is nothing so nasty going on in Arkansas toward Bill Fulbright...
...I went back to two of them a year later and found their positions unchanged...
...The President and Fulbright have known each other for a long time and they respect each other...
...Conjecture number two is that Bill Fulbright, age sixty-two, would be a fearsome campaigner...
...Jewell's chief criticism of Senator Fulbright revolves around his failure to take advantage of his great prestige and position to speak out for equal opportunity for Negroes...
Vol. 31 • November 1967 • No. 11
