J. William Fulbright

My long tenure in the Senate, much of it under less than tranquil and serene circumstances, may have compromised my capacity for objective judgment of a legislator's role in our democratic system. But today, in face of the skepticism voiced in some quarters about the fate of the SALT II agreement, together with the developments in Iran, I confess to increasingly serious misgivings about the ability of the Congress to play a constructive role in our foreign relations. Though these misgivings are far from confined to the Congress, I find myself haunted by Alexis de Tocqueville's famous statement nearly a century and a half ago: "I do not hesitate to say that it is especially in the conduct of their foreign relations that democracies appear to be decidedly inferior to other governments. . . . Foreign politics demand scarcely any of those qualities which are peculiar to a democracy; they require, on the contrary, the perfect use of almost all those in which it is deficient."