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→Cold War communism
==Cold War communism==
==Cold War communism==
According to [[Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.]], Fulbright was [[President John F. Kennedy]]'s first choice as [[Secretary of State]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Schlesinger |first=Arthur M., Jr. |title=Journals 1952–2000 | year=2008 |publisher=[[Penguin Books]] |page=98 |isbn=978-0-14-311435-2 |quote=Elizabeth Farmer told me this evening that, at five this afternoon, it looked as if it would be Rusk in State, with Bowles and Bundy as Undersecretaries. (Ken, by the way, told me that Jack had called him on the 7th and talked seriously about Mac as Secretary.) I asked why Rusk had finally emerged. Elizabeth said, 'He was the lowest common denominator.' Apparently Harris Wofford succeeded in stirring up the [[Jew]]s and [[African Americans]] so effectively that the uproar prevented a Fulbright nomination for secretary of state.}}</ref>
According to [[Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.]], Fulbright was [[President John F. Kennedy]]'s first choice as [[Secretary of State]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Schlesinger |first=Arthur M., Jr. |title=Journals 1952–2000 | year=2008 |publisher=[[Penguin Books]] |page=98 |isbn=978-0-14-311435-2 |quote=Elizabeth Farmer told me this evening that, at five this afternoon, it looked as if it would be Rusk in State, with Bowles and Bundy as Undersecretaries. (Ken, by the way, told me that Jack had called him on the 7th and talked seriously about Mac as Secretary.) I asked why Rusk had finally emerged. Elizabeth said, 'He was the lowest common denominator.' Apparently Harris Wofford succeeded in stirring up the [[Jew]]s and [[African Americans]] so effectively that the uproar prevented a Fulbright nomination for secretary of state.}}</ref>
Along with fellow Southern Democrats such as [[Allen J. Ellender]] and [[Sam Ervin]], Fulbright opposed [[Joseph McCarthy]], and had done so as early as 1951, as he had been responsible for the confirmation of Philip Jessup to the United Nations, a left-wing professor with communist ties that McCarthy had revealed during hearings.<ref>https://historyhalf.com/race-and-party-politics-part-ii-senator-fullbright-and-justice-black/</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>
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>