Fullbright's Chief of Staff's oral history on his view of the SFRC

Googling to find more on how they SFRC chairs and Presidents interacted - I found this fascinating oral history of Fullbright'e lead staffer - given in 1983. (To prevent others having the same confusion - the Senator Al Gore mentioned at the end is Gore's father - and was not ambiguous in 1983!) http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/Marcy_interview_8.pdf

He speaks of many things - including what it takes to be a powerful voice. It is interesting that he found Percy too reluctant to disagree with Reagan - and attributed part of Fullbright's power to his split with LBJ. He also has an interesting discussion on the earlier history when the SFRC tended to be a committee with the chairs of other committees there (including a fascinating discussion on the relationship of Finance and SFRC - reading that it was interesting that not only is the current chair of Finance not on SFRC, but Kerry is the only one on both.)

He speaks of the popular Governor of Arkansas winning the primary against Fullbright. It is easy to see parallels to Weld/Kerry, with Weld getting far more coverage than Kerry - which had a much better outcome. With the possibility of Kerry heading SFRC, under a President Obama, this seemed to be relevant.

Speaking of what makes a powerful SFRC have a powerful voice, he says:

"MARCY: Well, it takes time. It takes personality. It takes hard work. It takes an ability to have other individuals recognize a
person as an individual who knows what he or she is talking about. One of the problems of the Senate is that senators have so many constituencies that the have to worry about. They have to worry about agriculture, about trade, about labor problems. It's very difficult for a senator to become recognized as a great authority on anything. Fulbright very much confined his work to issues of foreign policy. He'd make pro forma speeches on agriculture and rice and things of that sort. Those were the sorts of things that his domestic staff would put into his hands and he would do his domestic duties. But on these other issues, the foreign policy issues, he thought about them, he read about them. I was going to say he knew the figures, that's not quite right, because that's one of the problems. To come back a little bit, there is a distinction between knowing the nuts and bolts and realizing that the nuts and bolts are there because of a policy or the lack of a policy.
I think Fulbright was a leader because he managed to keep his eye on the fundamental, basic, policy issues. To come back to our Church example earlier; the issue of a Soviet brigade in Cuba was certainly not a fundamental policy issue in the framework of the overall impact that approval of a SALT treaty would have had. I think sometimes that leadership comes from a person's voice. Walter George had a tremendous resonant voice, and when he would say some simple thing it sounded like it came from God himself. Those things are characteristics of leadership. And I think leadership within the Senate means that you can't be anyone's person. You cannot jump to attention when the president or the Secretary of State takes a position. You can't just say, "That's right." When one believes the president is right, you say it's right, but then people listen to you because they know very well that if you think a policy is wrong, that it ought to be changed you speak up, you say it. Too many senators, I think, keep quiet if they disagree with the president, or they make some innocuous statement. You can't lead that way"

Kerry is nearly unique in his willingness to dissent when the policy is wrong - and he will do it in the measured respectful way he did in 1971 and in the Bush years - and in the years in between. In fact, one of the only negatives any of us mentioned on SoS was that public dissent and independence is limited.

You clarify very well what the SFRC position entails. I wonder how many Senators (obviously not Kerry) are unclear as to what the SFRC chair does?

That being said, I don't expect Kerry to dissent too much from Obama's policies because they share so much of the same foreign policy philosophy, but I'll be paying close attention to whenever they do disagree.

As to dissenting, like you I hope there is substantial agreement - and there certainly was in their rhetoric. I also think Obama will have Kerry as one of many experts he will listen to. I don't think they will always agree - they didn't in the Senate. At this point, I think we all know more about Kerry's foreign policy views - because a) he has articulated them far more often and over a very long period of time. and b) we are obsessive ( or at least come close :) . ) Kerry himself has said they have the same fp DNA - and they obviously had many discussions. I suspect that Kerry's influence will be more often in arguing in private, but there will likely be times where he argues respectfully for changes.

but what you posted is why i am leaning towards Kerry staying in the Senate.

or some other person we might have never heard of but who has been a strong foreign policy professional - even someone like Nickolas Burns, who I don't even know as a Democrat or republican. During the election, I thought it silly that in every thread on Obama's potential cabinet - the cabinet was filled with 2004 and 2008 candidates - yet if you look back at other cabinets they rarely had any of the other candidates. (Look at Bill Clinton's cabinet.) That also was NOT what was described as Lincoln's cabinet of rivals.

Richardson might be too colorful. He also seemed to really anger Biden at times in the debate - when he tried to claim more experience. The fact is that Biden's and Dodd's experience in foreign policy was more than his one year as Ambassador to the UN and the fact that he did work on fp at the end of his 14 years in Congress.

but i'm wondering if Obama wants people who are older in these positions. at least for the first term. one of the reasons for Richardson might be if he is looking to add diversity. Susan Rice would bring that also.

the problem with Richardson might be the Wen Ho Lee stuff . it never came up in the Primary but it could be because he didn't make it that far.

i think Kerry is one of the best for the job and if he were not to become SFRC Chair i think it would be more likely for Obama to pick him. but with the Chair job they might feel they have someone they want in that position.

they may also feel they can work with Kerry better than with Feingold.

Feingold can be naive, remember how he went along with Republicans on the Clinton impeachment thing. he didn't vote to convict but he thought they should be heard and took it seriously when everyone knew the whole thing was a joke.

One Richardson plus was said to be that he has executive experience. His leadership here was abysmal. It also bothers me that I really doubr if Lee's name was Paul Smith he would have been almost assumed to be guilty. From what I remember he was treated very very badly. Then add in that NM did not cover itself with honor in the 2004 election. In both it goes beyond mistakes into bad behavior.

With Kerry, it might be the fact that he is NOT pushing for the job. Given that he is without a doubt qualified - no sensible person has said he isn't and that he more than anyone else has done a huge amount for Obama. There would likely have not even been a run without the 2004 speech and without the Kerry endorsement and strong work as a surrogate, HRC likely would have been the nominee.

I don't think anyone took impeachment as a joke. It was right to hear it in the Senate - and the other Democrats knew the vote was there for that. Clinton, by lying under oath, put the Democratic Senators in a bad position - you can read each of their speeches - all had reasons that it did not rise to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors, but they all had paragraphs registering their anger at both the affair and lying about it. (Kerry said The President behaved without common sense, without courage, and without honor.)

The speculation tonight has gotten silly(Hillary Clinton? gosh, Keith, you don't really believe this rumor, do you?) . I think that a lot of the "leaks" from "Obama advisors" have got to be deliberate smokescreens.
That said, I loved Doug Brinkley's eloquent recitation of JK's obviously superior qualifications on Hardball tonight. :)