In 1958, he signed my little autograph book, writing: "To the King's loyal opposition: May you continue to argue and debate for the rest of your life, for that is the true spirit of American democracy."

I have loved history ever since. Over many years, I have taken a particular interest in foreign policy and civil rights.

Three of the most eloquent and effective critics of U.S. foreign policy during three different wars included three prominent United States senators.

Richard B. Russell Jr. of Georgia played a central role keeping the Korean War from expanding to China in 1951. J. William Fulbright of Arkansas held many powerful hearings questioning the Vietnam War during the 1960s. Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia has delivered dozens of speeches challenging the impending and actual invasion of Iraq since 2002.

All three served together in the Senate between 1959 and 1971.

All three voted against civil rights legislation. Their careers reflect the complexities of life and politics.

Russell served in the Senate from 1933 until he died in 1971. As a candidate opposing President Harry S. Truman's civil rights legislation at Democratic National Conventions, Russell won 263 votes in 1948 and 268 in 1952.

Fulbright served from 1945 through 1974, when he lost the Democratic primary in Arkansas. He became chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1959.

Byrd began serving in 1959 and has cast more votes than any senator in American history.

Russell, Fulbright and Byrd all studied history back to Greek and Roman times. They all understood the critical role the U.S. Senate should play to stop impetuous policies and power grabs by presidents and military leaders.

Richard B. Russell Jr.

In April 1951, the nation faced one of its gravest political and Constitutional crises after President Harry Truman dismissed Gen. Douglas MacArthur. Delivering speeches before public crowds and Congress, the hugely popular general arrogantly defied the president, seeking to force him to reverse his decisions.

MacArthur wanted to blockade China and bomb Chinese forces in Manchuria. He wanted no limits on waging war against North Korea. Truman wanted to contain Communism. But he did not want to precipitate an all-out world war.

"MacArthur's arguments were sweeping the country, but there were arguments on the other side. Who would bring them out? Who would dare to stand against the tide?" asked historian Richard A. Caro in "Master of the Senate," the third volume of his biography about President Lyndon B. Johnson.

"The Senate would have a moment of glory, an episode that would show what the Senate could be at its finest - and why Russell was, in aspects other than racism, the personification of that ideal," Caro wrote.

From early May through late June 1951, Russell chaired Senate hearings that brought out the dangers of MacArthur's aggressive global strategies.

Russell was deeply committed to reaffirming civilian control over the military. And he had a broad understanding of history, of the Greek, Roman and other later empires.

Under Russell's leadership, the Senate "had done, in short, precisely what the Founding Fathers had wanted the Senate to do, what their Constitution had designed it to do: to defuse - cool off - and educate; to make men think, recall them to their first principles, such as the principle that in a democracy it is not generals but the people's tribunes who make policy," Caro wrote.

Russell later opposed the "massive retaliation theories" of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles under President Dwight Eisenhower and was an early opponent of intervening in Vietnam.

Russell supported many programs to help poorer people, especially during Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. But Russell never modified his views on segregation.

In a February 1988 Senate speech honoring Russell, Byrd noted Russell "never changed his mind on the issue of racial integration. He viewed civil rights laws as 'force bills' designed to change race relations in the South. He believed, too, that much of the support for civil rights legislation came from what he called 'South haters.'

"On most issues, he was flexible and able to compromise, but, on the question of racial integration and white supremacy, he died holding the same views as those held by his southern ancestors. History, tradition, and social relations, as they had developed in the South after slavery, possessed an unbreakable hold on him," Byrd said.

J. William Fulbright

Fulbright, who chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee longer than anyone, constantly questioned foreign interventions.

In "Old Myths and New Realities," a book published in 1964, Fulbright states, "Congress, and especially the Senate, does have a role in foreign policy. That role is to participate in shaping broad policies."

In 1961, he opposed the Bay of Pigs invasion. In 1965, he opposed sending Marines to the Dominican Republic. Soon after voting for the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in August 1964, Fulbright became a leading critic of the escalating Vietnam War.

During a 1968 hearing, Fulbright stated, "There was a high degree of inaccuracy in the presentation of the [Johnson] Administration to this committee, and to the Senate through this committee."

Never fearing to stand alone, Fulbright had cast the only vote in 1954 against giving Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy more money to continue his with-hunts against real and imagined "Communists."

"The Arrogance of Power," his book published in 1966, argues America should serve as an example of democracy to the world by the way we run our own society, not by forcefully imposing our "democracy" on others.

If "America is to become an empire, there is very little chance that it can avoid becoming a virtual dictatorship as well," the book warned.

"Greece, Rome, Spain, England, Germany and others lost their preeminence because of a failure to recognize their limitations, or, as I call it, the arrogance of power," Fulbright wrote to President Lyndon B. Johnson that year. "My hope is that this country, presently the greatest and most powerful in the world, may learn by the mistakes of its predecessors."

In 1956, Fulbright and Russell were two of 19 Southern senators who signed "The Southern Manifesto," a harsh criticism of the path breaking 1954 Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Topeka Board of Education. Brown held that public schools could not be "separate" and "equal."

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Fulbright routinely voted against civil-rights legislation.

Fulbright later said he believed it would have been very difficult for him to win re-election if he openly opposed segregation. If he had, the nation might have lost one of its most powerful and eloquent voices questioning foreign wars.

Robert C. Byrd

Robert C. Byrd, born in 1917 grew up in Sophia and Stotesbury, coal town in Raleigh County. In late 1941 and early 1942, Byrd organized a local Ku Klux Klan Klavern, with more than 150 members, in nearby Crab Orchard. During his early political career, he opposed most civil rights legislation. He voted against the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965. He called Martin Luther King "a self-seeking rabble rouser."

Byrd frankly and repeatedly discusses his earlier views in "Child of the Appalachian Coalfields," his autobiography that will be released on June 20 by the West Virginia University Press.

"The Klan albatross is a mistake which has haunted me throughout my political career, and it will undoubtedly be prominently referred to in my obituaries," he wrote in his new book.

In March, Barack Obama, the African-American Illinois senator elected in 2004, asked people to contribute to Byrd's upcoming Senate race. "In 2006, Senator Byrd will be the target of Republicans because he stands up for what he believes. Will you join me in supporting Senator Byrd's campaign for re-election?" Obama's plea raised $823,000 in 48 hours.

But Byrd changed his views on racial issues more than 30 years before.

The nationally-prominent African-American Rep. Barbara Jordan, D-Texas, introduced Byrd at a Democratic Party convention in Kansas City in 1974.

"Orphan, senator, lawyer, legislator, leader. What is the measure of one man?" Jordan asked. "Some measure a man by the content of his commitment to a government of laws and others by his sense of justice."

Like Fulbright, Byrd voted for the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. But Byrd remained a supporter of the Vietnam War until it ended in 1975.

But he also changed his mind on foreign policy, perhaps beginning with his efforts to return the Panama Canal to Panamanians during Jimmy Carter's presidency.

In June 2002, Byrd told the Senate, "I recall all too well the nightmare of Vietnam. I recall too well the antiwar protests and demonstrations, the campus riots and the tragic deaths at Kent State, as well as the resignation of a president. And I remember all too well the gruesome daily body counts in Vietnam."

Byrd praised Sens. Wayne Morse, D-Ore., and Ernst Gruening, D-Alaska, for casting the only votes against the Tonkin Gulf Resolution.

"Morse expressed his concern that the Pentagon and the executive branch were perpetrating a 'snow job' upon Congress and the American people. If the Senate approved the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, Senator Morse warned, the 'senators who vote for it will live to regret it.'"

Byrd was one of those senators.

"Today I weep for my country," Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., told the Senate nine months later on March 19, 2003, beginning his final plea that the White House halt plans to launch the "wrong war" against Iraq.

"I, along with millions, scores of millions, of Americans will pray for the safety of our troops, for the innocent women, children, babies, old and young, crippled and deformed, sick civilians in Iraq, and for the security of our homeland," Byrd said.

"I have watched the events of recent months with a heavy, heavy heart. No more is the image of America one of a strong, yet benevolent peacekeeper. The image of America has changed. Around the globe, our friends mistrust us, our word is disputed, our intentions are questioned."

Then Byrd criticized the Senate.

"A pall has fallen over the Senate chamber. We avoid our solemn duty to debate the one topic on the minds of all Americans, even while scores of thousands of our sons and daughters faithfully do their duty in Iraq."

Later that afternoon, I sat in the senator's office, looking out the window as fog encircled the Washington Monument. I asked him why he had become so insistent in his fight to stop the impending war.

Byrd mentioned his devotion to the Constitution and the duties it imposes on the Senate. Looking at our son Christopher, then 9, he said he wanted to do everything he could do to make sure all the young people in the world today will enjoy good lives.

Having studied history for nearly 50 years, I have come to increasingly respect the central role U.S. senators can play in "confronting a reckless and arrogant president," to use Byrd's words.

And over the years, it is more and more obvious that we should avoid vilifying people simplistically, including a man who was always a segregationists, another man who supported segregation publicly but questioned it privately, and a third man who had a change of heart more than 30 years ago.