J. William Fulbright was born in 1905 and was educated at the University of Arkansas from the first grade at the laboratory school until he was awarded the A.B. degree in 1925. He was a Rhodes Scholar at Pembroke College, Oxford, and was awarded the M.A. degree in 1931.

When he returned to the United States he studied law at George Washington University in Washington, and during the 1930s he served in the Justice Department and was an instructor at George Washington University Law School. In 1936 he returned to Arkansas where he was a lecturer in law and, from 1939 to 1941, president of the University of Arkansas.

Fulbright began his first term in Congress in January 1943, and was assigned to the Foreign Affairs Committee. In September of that year the House adopted the Fulbright Resolution supporting an international peace-keeping machinery, wherby he earned national attention. In November 1944 he was elected to the Senate where he served until 1974. In 1946 the Fulbright Scholar Program was established, which has provided opportunities for thousands of scholars in the United States and other countries to participate in what has been called "the largest movement of scholars across the earth since the fall of Constantinople." In 1949 he was assigned to the Foreign Relations Committee and became its chairman in 1959. He held the chair for the remainder of his tenure in the Senate, longer than any other person.

He was a powerful voice in the chaotic times of the war in Vietnam, when he chaired the Senate hearings on the conduct of the war. In 1963 Walter Lippmann wrote of Fulbright: "The role he plays in Washington is an indispensable role. There is no one else who is so powerful and also so wise, and if there were any question of removing him from public life, it would be a national calamity."