Standards to Maintain

"There is a presumption," intoned Democratic Senator William Fulbright, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, "that career foreign-service officers nominated for ambassadorial posts have some qualifications. There is, however, no such presumption that noncareer nominees are qualified. The burden on noncareer people is to prove to the committee that they are qualified." Arkansas' Fulbright was talking to young (33) Ogden Rogers Reid, former publisher of the New York Herald Tribune, who has been nominated by President Eisenhower as U.S. Ambassador to Israel. Fulbright had every intention of using "Brownie" Reid to prove his argument that noncareer ambassadorial nominees must show that they have "some special unusual qualities" to justify confirmation. He notably failed in his aim.

Chairman Fulbright opened last week's hearings on the Reid nomination with the announcement that he had "15 or 20 minutes of questions." He then proceeded to grill Reid for 5 1/2 hours. Asked Fulbright: "Tell the committee where you had your formal education." Reid cleared his throat, said he had been formally educated at Yale.

Question: "Did you make good grades?" Answer: "Well, I believe I was relatively close to the dean's list part of the time." Question: "Could you estimate where you stood in your class from the top or the bottom?" Answer: "No, sir, I never checked on that." Fulbright, Rhodes scholar and onetime president of his alma mater, the University of Arkansas, was incredulous. Asked he: "You weren't interested in trying to learn?" (In fact, Yale does not rank its students.)

New Excursion. Fulbright kept boring in, drew an admission that Reid had not graduated with his class because his senior thesis had been unsatisfactory. Purred Fulbright: "What was the thesis about?" Said Reid in a small voice: "The thesis was about lobbying, sir, lobbying in Congress." A little later Fulbright began reading excerpts from an Esquire article about Brownie Reid's Yale career. Among them, quoting a Yale roommate's recollection: "Brownie didn't spend more than a dozen nights on campus, and to keep in physical condition he relied on bar bells and flying his Widgeon."

Finished with his excursion into Brownie's schooldays, Fulbright began probing into Reid's business affairs--and those of the Herald Tribune, owned for years by the Reid family, but recently taken over by U.S. Ambassador to Britain John Hay Whitney. Did Reid think he had "worked" his way up to his position as publisher? Well, he had worked on general assignment for a year, been responsible for the Trib's European edition for six years. Had not the paper lost $800,000 last year? Reid admitted it was "in the red." Asked Fulbright sarcastically: "In view of this outstanding success, why did Mr. Whitney determine to let you out of the paper?" Reid said he himself had made the decision, so as to give Whitney complete freedom of action. Sneered Fulbright: "I don't see how that proves your efficiency as a director of the paper when as part of that deal you are leaving the paper."

As the inquisition wore on, a surprising fact became evident: Bill Fulbright's strategy was backfiring, making senatorial friends for Witness Reid. Even Oregon's erratic Democratic Senator Wayne Morse praised Reid's behavior as a witness. Vermont's Republican Senator George Aiken was delighted when Reid reeled off the one sentence he knows in Hebrew: "Anakhnu rotsim shalom, bejn kol hame-dinot baolam [We want peace between all states of the world]." By last weekend it appeared certain that Brownie Reid would win Senate confirmation.

Greater Visibility. Increasingly, in the Senate as a whole, there was muttering about Fulbright's Foreign Relations chairmanship. Complained Wisconsin's Republican Alexander Wiley, himself a former Foreign Relations chairman: "You know what's wrong with Fulbright, don't you? Being committee chairman has gone to his head." But those who knew Bill Fulbright better thought he had a higher aim: that of returning the Foreign Relations Committee, more or less in eclipse since the days of Arthur Vandenberg and Walter George, to its historic position of greatness. That would be fine for the committee, but there is considerable doubt that it might be so fine for the U.S. In his effort, Fulbright has necessarily worked toward giving himself greater visibility. As his visibility increases, more and more people, of all races and creeds throughout the world, will come to realize that the head of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee is an undeviating Arkansas segregationist. And for someone whose announced purpose is to raise the standing of the U.S., that is a precious poor example to put up before the world.

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