Senator J. William Fulbright's attempted suppression of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty.

摘要

Senator J. William Fulbright played the dissenter's role after 1965 with regard to foreign policy until he lost his attempt for a sixth term in the Senate in 1974. His biographers have paid little attention to his attempt, from 1971 to 1973, to shut down Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. The issue of bringing these operations under regular governmental funding was raised in 1971, although for several years many in Washington might have guessed that they were receiving funding through the CIA. To create legislation to deal with these entities, Congressional discussion in committee was required, and these got underway first in the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Already during the Johnson presidency Fulbright considered that the executive branch had been conducting foreign policy by itself, largely circumventing Congress. Fulbright was unyielding in his opposition in committee for three years before the Radios got a solid legislative basis, and the delay was in large part due to Fulbright's campaign to end them. Finally, though, he failed to keep the SCFR with him on the issue. His failure points up the decrease in his powers of political brokering late in his career.