THERE are very few people in the world who know as much as J. William Fulbright about United States foreign policy. The outspoken Arkansas Democrat served in the Senate from 1945 to 1974, holding the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for his last 16 years, longer than any other senator in history. He also developed the educational exchange program that bears his name and, as a freshman member of the House, sponsored a war-time resolution that supported America's entrance into the United Nations.

The Price of Empire

J. William Fulbright

New York: Pantheon Books

$17.95

As a senator, Fulbright came up with some of the most controversial interpretations of U.S. policies and events, ranging from the McCarthy hearings of the 1950s to the Guatemalan intervention in 1965 to the war in Vietnam. Fulbright's thoughtful policy analyses and objections earned him the animosity of some colleagues in the Senate, as well as some executive officials, but that seems to bother Fulbright little, if at all. He begins his new book The Price of Empire, "If I am remembered, I suppose it will be as a dissenter."

Fulbright's dissenting views about U.S. interventions have irked some policymakers in the past, but, more importantly, they have led to a creative understanding of the United States' role in the world. So when the former senator reflects on the current state of U.S. foreign policy in his new book, he is able to draw on a wealth of knowledge and experience. Littered with anecdotes, The Price of Empire is a series of enlightening reflections on the key points and trends in U.S. foreign policy since the Second World War.

Unlike the America-in-Decline school of theorists, Fulbright refuses to admit that the United States is doomed to fall from its status as a predominant world power. Instead, he tries to come up with solutions to the problems that complicate U.S. foreign policy. Whether the issue in question is the Middle East, Vietnam or U.S.-Soviet relations, Fulbright sees the dilemma in terms of what can be done about it.

Although Fulbright is widely respected for his fairness in foreign policy, the most interesting and disappointing story he tells is about how he could not support Civil Rights legislation in the 1940s. The senator writes that he wanted to support the legislation but adds that he had to come out against it in public because he feared losing an election to Arkansas Gov. Homer Adkins. In what amounts to a poor rationalization of his actions, Fulbright defends his statement that Blacks did not deserve to vote and his opposition to the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education as the only way he could stay in office and gradually educate his constituents, which he says he thought would be the most effective way to solve the problem:

I don't think that the `gradualist' school that I belonged to, looking back now, will receive the approval of history. It was discredited by those who were for the legislation that directly attacked the civil-rights injustices. Those laws certainly did help. They should have passed. But I also believe that the gradualist approach was not without merit.

It is ironic that a senator who was so distinguished for his open-minded analyses of foreign policy was so intolerant when it came to domestic issues.

MANY of the foreign policy problems that Fulbright discusses have been covered in other books by other writers. What is surprisingly new is his call for a drastic movement toward a parliamentary system in the United States. The senator devotes his second chapter largely to the question of how the U.S. political and constitutional systems are incompatible with an effective foreign policy.

According to Fulbright, every four or eight years, the key foreign policy players in the executive branch are replaced, often by people with little or no experience in the field. The result is what Fulbright calls a "government of amateurs." In contrast, a parliamentary system, where the heads of the various executive departments come from the legislature, has the advantages of consistency and continuity of both policies and actors.

To make his point, the former senator tells of the time he was considered for the post of Secretary of State under President John F. Kennedy '40. If he were to head the State Department, Fulbright would have had to resign his Senate seat. After his four or eight years in office were up, he would be out the federal government. After considering the situation, Fulbright went to a presidential advisor and said that he would prefer not to be appointed.

While the parliamentary system Fulbright recommends has certain advantages, it also has many problems. If Congress were to elect the president/prime minister (as, Fulbright notes, James Madison suggested in the first draft of the Constitution), there would be none of the checks and balances that keep our system free from tyranny. A parliamentary system also might become a tool to keep the power in the hands of a small, self-perpetuating body removed from the people.

Fulbright does not adequately address these difficulties in the text, but he correctly points out that there is not a proper dialogue about the Constitution's effectiveness, particularly in the realm of foreign policy. The primary reason for this is that most Americans have accepted the Constitution as holy writ, free from error and blasphemous to criticize:

I suggested while serving recently on a committee to consider our constitutional system that we consider modifying the separation-of-powers principle and move toward adapting some of the features of the parliamentary system....With the exception of a few members, they were no more willing to question the validity of the principle of separation of powers than to discuss the virginity of the Virgin Mary. We have come to regard our constitutional system as we regard the Bible. Like the Chinese emperor of old, our presidential office, if not the presidents themselves, is perceived as invested with the mandate of heaven. It is a matter of blind faith, not common sense.

THE U.S. will probably not adopt a parliamentary system in our lifetime, but Fulbright's penchant for asking questions about the unquestionable is certainly useful. In the 1980s, the U.S. political leadership in both parties has become more and more concerned with image and less and less involved with policy innovation and change. The decline of substance in favor of appearance has turned political leadership into static "followership," where politicians use opinion polls and television rather than their consciences to determine what they think. This problem can be solved only by politicians who measure their success by how much they have educated their constituents, instead of how often they are reelected.

Fulbright sees the next few years as an excellent opportunity to improve relations with the Soviet Union, an opportunity that will become reality only if our leaders are open-minded enough to measure the Soviets by what they do, rather than what they can do Fulbright is heartened by the transformation of President Reagan from antagonist to cautious friend of the Soviets and hopes that President Bush can adopt Reagan's new manner of thinking about the Soviets.

The key to improving U.S. foreign policy will be to have leaders who are open-minded about policy, willing to listen to those who disagree. Leaders can learn a lot from a dissenting opinion.