Fulton Lewis III

Fulton Lewis, III (born 25 January 1936 in Washington, D.C.) is the only son of the late network American news commentator Fulton Lewis, Jr. and Alice Huston Lewis.

Biography

He attended Landon School in Bethesda, Maryland and the University of Virginia (Class of 1957). In 1959, he was hired by the House Committee on Un-American Activities of the U.S. Congress as its Research Director. The following year, he produced and narrated the Committee's documentary film of the May, 1960 riots in San Francisco protesting the Committee's hearings there. The script was written by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and showed evidence of involvement by members of the Communist Party, USA in the incitement and leadership of the riots. In 1961, Lewis resigned from the Committee to embark on a nationwide lecture/debate tour in defense of the validity of the film. He appeared on over 750 college/university campuses.

In 1963, Lewis was named National Field Director of Young Americans for Freedom -- a conservative youth group inspired by publisher William F. Buckley, Jr. He continued his lecturing and debating as a means of organizing YAF chapters on campuses and to recruit support for the presidential candidacy of Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-AZ). Lewis was later hired as a speechwriter for Goldwater and his running mate Rep. William E. Miller (R-NY) in their unsuccessful campaign of 1964. Following the election, he continued his lecture tour appearing on hundreds of campuses and at civic, business and political meetings.

After the death of his father on 20 August 1966, Lewis was asked by the Mutual Broadcasting System to continue the nightly 15-minute broadcasts which he did until 1979. His commentaries were heard on over 500 of the network's affiliates by an estimated 16 million people.

Lewis frequently traveled abroad reporting on: the 1967 Six-Day War in Israel; the war in Vietnam (six trips); the conflict in Northern Ireland; the Biafran war for independence from Nigeria; and Rhodesia's efforts to survive a United Nations economic boycott. His interviews with Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith in the late 1960s are widely credited with bringing that issue to public attention in the U.S. The boycott, he argued, was because Rhodesia had not perfected a "one-man, one-vote" system of government. As a result, the U.S. could no longer purchase metallurgical grade chrome ore from Rhodesia (a mineral needed for national defense). The boycott had forced the U.S. to import chrome ore from the Soviet Union which, Lewis argued, had perfected a "no-man, no vote" system. Lewis was the author of legislation introduced by Sen. Harry F. Byrd, Jr. (D-VA)in 1971 which provided that, in the event the U.S. was importing any strategically essential material from a communist source, there would be no prohibition against the importation of that same material from a non-communist source. After heated debate in the House and Senate, the measure - Section 503 of the Military Procurement Authorization Act of 1971 - was approved and, on 7 November 1971, signed into law by President Richard Nixon.

In 1980, Lewis moved to Florida where he started a computer database services company. He has continued to lecture throughout the nation, has served as a consultant to numerous political candidates, and is a frequent contributor of articles to conservative journals.

In July 2007, he was a featured speaker at the national conventions of the College Republican National Federation and the TeenAge Republicans. In February, 2008, Lewis was named the "Broadcasting Pioneer of the Year -2008" by the Broadcasters Club, and the Florida Association of Broadcasters.

He is married to Barbara J. Lewis and has three children by a previous marriage.