Senator Fulbright's secret memorandum

"Senator Fulbright's Secret Memorandum" by James D. Bales is a political critique written in the mid-20th century. It challenges Senator J. William Fulbright’s confidential call to curb military involvement in Cold War public education and speech, arguing that such restraints weaken national defense and serve leftist and communist purposes. The work defends military speakers and conservative institutions and promotes a strategy of sustained, “protracted” conflict against communism. The opening of the work frames the memo as a major Washington controversy: Bales notes strong support from socialists and communists, criticism from many others, and a growing climate of censorship that he says even touches reservists; he insists Fulbright owns the memo’s contents and cites the President’s acknowledgment of that. He then sketches the background of American apathy about communism, the Eisenhower-era Code of Conduct and 1958 National Security Council directive that mobilized the military to educate both troops and civilians, and the 1961 Defense curbs—attributed to Fulbright’s memo—that restricted talks on communist aims and tactics. After recounting how the memo, initially secret, was leaked and placed in the Congressional Record, Bales argues it effectively seeks to overturn the 1958 policy by deeming the military unqualified and constitutionally barred from public anti-communist education. He says the memo unfairly targets Eisenhower, the armed forces, General MacArthur, the American people, and numerous anti-communist figures and institutions, and he counters with defenses of their competence and role. The section closes by introducing the dispute over “protracted conflict,” contrasting a critical view from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists with statements by Defense Secretary McNamara that Bales uses to justify a sustained ideological and psychological struggle against communism. (This is an automatically generated summary.)