Seth P. Tillman, influential adviser to Sen. Fulbright, dies at 82

Seth P. Tillman, a key aide to the late Sen. J. William Fulbright who wrote many of the lawmaker’s most noted speeches and helped shape his powerfully influential opposition to the Vietnam War, died Nov. 16 at the Washington Home hospice in the District.

He was 82 and had Parkinson’s disease, said his son Andrew Tillman.

As the longtime chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Fulbright became known for his role in turning the United States against its involvement in Southeast Asia. But few know of the extent to which Dr. Tillman helped alter history by working in private on the stands Fulbright took in public.

Dr. Tillman was a Capitol Hill intern fresh from a doctoral program in foreign affairs when he went to work in 1961 for Fulbright’s committee. He quickly became a principal aide in the Arkansas Democrat’s Senate office as well as on the committee....