The Wise Men of Foreign Affairs: The History of the Council on Foreign Relations PDF
Preview The Wise Men of Foreign Affairs: The History of the Council on Foreign Relations
THE WISE MEN OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS The History of the Council on Foreign Relations THE WISE MEN OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS The History of the Council on Foreign Relations ROBERT D. SCHULZINGER New York Columbia University Press 1984 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Schulzinger, Robert D., 1945- The wise men of foreign affairs. Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Council on Foreign Relations—History. 2. United States—Foreign relations—20th century. I. Title. E744.S3995 1984 327.73 83-27321 ISBN 0-231-05528-5 (alk. paper) Columbia University Press New York Guildford, Surrey Copyright © 1984 Columbia University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Clothbound editions of Columbia University Press books are Smyth-sewn and printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper For Marie Whose Enthusiasm Has Been an Inspiration Contents Preface ix CHAPTER ONE Hopes and Realities in the Twenties 1 CHAPTER TWO The Council Confronts Depression, 1930-1938 31 CHAPTER THREE Preparing for War, 1938—1941 59 CHAPTER FOUR Planning for Peace, 1942—1945 81 CHAPTER FIVE The Experts’ Cold War, 1944—1952 113 CHAPTER SIX Massive Retaliation and Its Critics 1953-1960 145 CHAPTER SEVEN Southeast Asia, China, and a Strained Alliance, 1953-1968 165 CHAPTER EIGHT The Establishment at Bay, 1968-1980 209 CONCLUSION The Limits of Expertise 243 APPENDIX Directors and Officers of the Council on Foreign Relations 255 Abbreviations Used in Notes and Bibliography 261 Notes 263 Bibliography 293 Index 327 Preface “THE CFR [Council on Foreign Relations] OWNS YOU, COM MUNISM WILL TRIUMPH,” shouts a slogan scrawled on a bathroom wall. A spokesman for the rightwing John Birch Soci ety adds that “America as a Republic has been under attack for generations. . . . The Council on Foreign Relations, the Bilder- burgers and the Trilateral Commission [sic] organizations have participated directly and indirectly [in these] external and inter nal assaults on our republic.” Two radical scholars, Lawrence Shoup and William Minter, use more temperate language to stress what they consider to be the baleful results of the work of the meetings, study groups, dinners, and publications of the Council: “We believe that the process itself is not only undemocratic, but that the results have been and are against both the interests of the American people and of the people of the world.” Other critics see less sinister forces at work at the Harold Pratt House, the handsome, five-story mansion on the Southwest corner of Man hattan’s 68th Street and Park Avenue, which has housed the Council since 1945. Liberal Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith, who resigned his membership in the midst of a furious row over the impact of the Vietnam war on the Council’s activi ties, mocked both the pretensions of Pratt House and the fanta sies of its detractors. He labeled the Council “the seat of bore dom. . . . It’s serviceable in one respect. If you want to know what the current cliché is, there’s no better place to find out.”1 Of course the Council has had important, influential, and thoughtful supporters of its work over the past sixty years. Col umnist Joseph Kraft probably put the case most clearly in 1958 X Preface when he lauded Pratt House as “the school for statesmen.” He noted its “special part in helping to bridge the gap between the two parties, affording unofficially a measure of continuity when the guard changes in Washington.” Kraft’s views find support in the words of Council officials, one of whom, Zygmunt Nagorski spoke directly to the organization’s critics in the conservative Na tional Review in 1977. Responding to the charges of secret, un democratic manipulation of the levers of foreign policy, he notes that “far from being a conspiracy it is a community of intellec tual freedom. . . . The Council is a privately sponsored, pri vately financed, privately managed post-graduate academy of po litical science, functioning in the true spirit of public service.”2 Who’s view is correct? What is the Council on Foreign Rela tions? What has it done since its founding in the wake of the First World War? What impact has it had, for good or ill, on public perceptions of international relations? What difference have its studies, publications, social gatherings, and discreet telephone calls to officials made to the conduct of American foreign relations? How have its works been judged by its critics? How have impor tant Council figures behaved in the face of public questions of their behavior? How have Council leaders promoted the reputation of their organization? I address these questions in The Wise Men of Foreign Affairs. This is the first scholarly history of the Council on Foreign Re lations to make use of the extensive holdings in its archives. The story is interesting in its own right, because in tracing the con cerns of officers, members, and staff of the Council, I also have highlighted the contours of centrist opinion on United States for eign policy from the First World War to the present. But this his tory also illuminates three broader themes in the current study of United States foreign policy: (1) the role of nongovernmental fig ures in determining government behavior, (2) the complicated, often touchy relations between professional elites and less informed cit izens in a democracy, (3) and the role of such an elite in setting the boundaries of “acceptable” discourse on foreign affairs.
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