Changes

On July 30, 1961, two weeks before the erection of the [[Berlin Wall]], Fulbright said in a television interview, "I don't understand why the [[East German]]s don't just close their border, because I think they have the right to close it."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-13683551.html?name=Gerechtigkeit+unerreichbar |title=DER SPIEGEL 52/1993 - Gerechtigkeit unerreichbar |publisher=Spiegel.de |date=1993-12-27 |accessdate=}}</ref><ref>''Congressional Record — Senate'', August 1, 1961, pp. 14222-14224.</ref> Fulbright's statement was reported as a three-column spread on the front page of the East German Communist Party newspaper ''Neues Deutschland''.<ref>The [[West German]] reception of his statement was extremely negative. A cable from US Embassy Bonn reported that "rarely has a statement by a prominent American official aroused so much consternation, chagrin and anger." [[Willy Brandt]]'s Press Secretary Egon Bahr is quoted as saying: "We privately called him Fulbricht," after [[Walter Ulbricht]], who was the General Secretary of the East German Communist Party at that time.<br>''Berlin in Early Berlin-Wall Era CIA, State Department, and Army Booklets'', T.H.E. Hill (compiler), 2014, pp. xviii, xix, 279, 283.</ref>

On July 30, 1961, two weeks before the erection of the [[Berlin Wall]], Fulbright said in a television interview, "I don't understand why the [[East German]]s don't just close their border, because I think they have the right to close it."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-13683551.html?name=Gerechtigkeit+unerreichbar |title=DER SPIEGEL 52/1993 - Gerechtigkeit unerreichbar |publisher=Spiegel.de |date=1993-12-27 |accessdate=}}</ref><ref>''Congressional Record — Senate'', August 1, 1961, pp. 14222-14224.</ref> Fulbright's statement was reported as a three-column spread on the front page of the East German Communist Party newspaper ''Neues Deutschland''.<ref>The [[West German]] reception of his statement was extremely negative. A cable from US Embassy Bonn reported that "rarely has a statement by a prominent American official aroused so much consternation, chagrin and anger." [[Willy Brandt]]'s Press Secretary Egon Bahr is quoted as saying: "We privately called him Fulbricht," after [[Walter Ulbricht]], who was the General Secretary of the East German Communist Party at that time.<br>''Berlin in Early Berlin-Wall Era CIA, State Department, and Army Booklets'', T.H.E. Hill (compiler), 2014, pp. xviii, xix, 279, 283.</ref>

In 1965, Fulbright became a major critic of the [[Vietnam war]] though he had co-authored the original 1964 [[Gulf of Tonkin Resolution]] giving [[President Johnson]] authorization to use military force in Vietnam. As chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Fulbright held several series of televised hearings on the Vietnam War, including the testimony of Vietnam veteran and future [[Democrat]] presidential nominee Sen. [[John Kerry]]. Kerry said US servicemen in Vietnam were sent {{quotebox|"to die for the biggest mistake in history," and that the military had "created a monster" in the form of violence-prone American soldiers, and recounted that soldiers had personally recollected stories of having "personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads" of Vietnamese people and rampaging across Vietnam "[razing] villages in fashion reminiscent of [[Genghis Khan]]."<ref>[http://www.richmond.edu/~ebolt/history398/JohnKerryTestimony.html John Kerry's Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, April  22, 1971], Editorial Notes by Dr. Ernest Bolt, University of Richmond.</ref>}} That these acts were "not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command." <ref>Ibid.</ref>

In 1965, Fulbright became a major critic of the [[Vietnam war]] though he had co-authored the original 1964 [[Gulf of Tonkin Resolution]] giving [[President Johnson]] authorization to use military force in Vietnam. As chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Fulbright held several series of televised hearings on the Vietnam War, including the testimony of Vietnam veteran and future [[Democrat]] presidential nominee Sen. [[John Kerry]]. Kerry said US servicemen in Vietnam were sent {{quotebox|"to die for the biggest mistake in history," and that the military had "created a monster" in the form of violence-prone American soldiers, and recounted that soldiers had personally recollected stories of having "personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads" of Vietnamese people and rampaging across Vietnam "[razing] villages in fashion reminiscent of [[Genghis Khan]]."<ref>[http://www.richmond.edu/~ebolt/history398/JohnKerryTestimony.html John Kerry's Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, April  22, 1971], Editorial Notes by Dr. Ernest Bolt, University of Richmond.</ref>}} That these acts were "not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command."<ref>Ibid.</ref>

Two years after authoring the use of force resolution in Vietnam, Fulbright published ''The Arrogance of Power'', in which he attacked the justification of the use of force in Vietnam, Congress's failure to set limits on it, and the impulses which gave rise to it. Fulbright's scathing critique undermined the [[deep state]] consensus that U.S. military intervention in [[Indochina]] was necessitated by [[Cold War]] [[geopolitics]].

Two years after authoring the use of force resolution in Vietnam, Fulbright published ''The Arrogance of Power'', in which he attacked the justification of the use of force in Vietnam, Congress's failure to set limits on it, and the impulses which gave rise to it. Fulbright's scathing critique undermined the [[deep state]] consensus that U.S. military intervention in [[Indochina]] was necessitated by [[Cold War]] [[geopolitics]].