Council on Foreign Relations

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is an American foreign policy think tank based in New York City. It describes itself as being "dedicated to increasing America's understanding of the world and contributing ideas to U.S. foreign policy," and accomplishes this mainly by promoting constructive, closed debates and discussions, clarifying world issues through research and analysis, and publishing the noted journal Foreign Affairs and related content online.

History

The Council on Foreign Relations, as well as the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London, came about as a result of a meeting on May 30 1919, at the Hotel Majestic in Paris. Some of the fifty participants were Edward M. House, Harold Temperley, Lionel Curtis, Lord Eustace Percy, Herbert Hoover, Christian Herter, Paul Warburg, and American academic historians James Thomson Shotwell of Columbia University, Archibald Coolidge of Harvard and Charles Seymour of Yale.

Formally established in 1921, it is one of the most powerful private organizations with influence on U.S. foreign policy. It has about 4,000 members, including former national security officers, professors, former CIA members, elected politicians, and media figures. The CFR is not a formal institution within U.S. policy making.

In 1944, Harold I. Pratt's widow donated the family's four-storey mansion on the corner of 68th Street and Park Avenue and this became the CFR's new headquarters, Harold Pratt House, where it has remained to the present.

Board of Directors and Membership

OFFICE	NAME
Chairman	Peter G. Peterson
Vice Chairman	Carla A. Hills
Vice Chairman	Robert E. Rubin
President	Richard N. Haass
Board Member	Peter Ackerman
Board Member	Fouad Ajami
Board Member	Madeleine K. Albright
Board Member	Charlene Barshefsky
Board Member	Jeffrey Bewkes
Board Member	Henry S. Bienen
Board Member	Stephen W. Bosworth
Board Member	Tom Brokaw
Board Member	Lee Cullum
Board Member	Kenneth M. Duberstein
Board Member	Martin S. Feldstein
Board Member	Richard N. Foster
Board Member	Helene D. Gayle
Board Member	Maurice R. Greenberg
Board Member	Richard C. Holbrooke
Board Member	Karen Elliott House
Board Member	Joseph S. Nye, Jr.
Board Member	Ronald L. Olson
Board Member	Thomas R. Pickering
Board Member	David M. Rubenstein
Board Member	Richard E. Salomon
Board Member	Anne-Marie Slaughter
Board Member	Joan E. Spero
Board Member	Laura D'Andrea Tyson
Board Member	Vin Weber
Board Member	Fareed Zakaria

The Board of Directors of the Council on Foreign Relations is composed of thirty-one members.

There are two types of membership - term membership (which lasts for 5 years and is available to those between 30 and 36) and regular membership. Only US citizens (native born or naturalised) and permanent residents who have applied for U.S. citizenship are eligible for membership. Proposed members must be nominated by current members.

• Coca Cola Board of Directors member James D Robinson III is reported to be a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Robinson's biography also describes him as a general partner and co-founder of RRE Ventures, president of J D Robinson Inc. (a strategic consulting firm) and non-executive chairman of the Board of Directors for Bristol-Myers Squibb (since 1976). He also serves on the Boards of Directors of Novell Inc., Visiprise and PrimeRevenue. Robinson is a member of the Business Council, an honorary trustee of the Brookings Institution and honorary chairman of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Robinson was previously Chairman and CEO of American Express Company (1977 to 1993), Co-Chairman of the Business Roundtable and Chairman of the Advisory Committee on Trade Policy and Negotiations (ACTPN).

• Martin S Feldstein, who sit on the Board of Directors, is also on the Board of Directors for Eli Lilly and Company. In his biography, it is reported that he is also the George F. Baker Professor of Economics at Harvard University, President and CEO of the National Bureau of Economic Research, a member of the American Philosophical Society, the Institute of Medicare of the National Academy of Sciences, and is a fellow of the British Academy, the Econometric Society and the National Association for Business Economics. Feldstein is a member of the executive committee of the Trilateral Commission and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Feldstein is also a director of American International Group and is reported to be an economic advisor to several businesses in the United States and abroad whilst also contributing regularly to The Wall Street Journal. His previous involvements include serving as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers and as President Ronald Reagan's chief economic advisor. He also previously served as a fellow at Nuffield College (1964-67), was a lecturer in public finance for Oxford University and served as an assistant professor (in 1967), associate professor (in 1968) and full professor (in 1969) at Harvard University.

• Vin Weber - Chief Executive Officer of lobbying firm Clark & Weinstock is reported to serve on the Board of The Council on Foreign Relations. Vin is also Chairman of the National Endowment for Democracy, is a member of the U.S. Secretary of Defense’s Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee, serves on the U.S. Secretary of State’s Advisory Committee on Democracy Promotion, is a senior fellow at the Humphrey Institute at the University of Minnesota (where he is co-director of the Policy Forum) and is on the Board of ITT Educational Services, The Lenox Group, and the Aspen Institute (where he serves on the Institute’s Middle East Strategy Group). He is also Policy Chairman of Romney for President Inc. (overseeing all policy development for Governor Mitt Romney).

Weber served in the United States House of Representatives from 1981 to 1993 and according to his biography,

'Vin is one of the most prominent and successful strategists in the Republican Party and enjoys strong bipartisan relationships across the Legislative and Executive branches of government. He serves as a trusted advisor to senior officials in the Administration and on Capitol Hill, and has counseled numerous Presidential campaigns'.

Weber previously co-chaired a major 'independent' task force on U.S. Policy Toward Reform in the Arab World with former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Prior to 1994, Vin was president and co-director of Empower America a public policy advocacy group alongside other co-directors Jack Kemp, Jeane Kirkpatrick and Bill Bennett. He was a member of the Appropriations Committee and an elected member of the House Republican Leadership and prior to this was campaign manager and chief Minnesota aide to Senator Rudy Boschwitz (1978-1980)

Weber is a contributing columnist to The Hill newspaper and was the publisher of The Murray County Herald from 1976-1978. He has featured in numerous national publications, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, the Associated Press, National Journal and The New Republic. He has also appeared on NBC’s Nightly News, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer on PBS, ABC’s This Week, the CBS Early Show, Fox News Channel, CNN and MSNBC.

Resources

• G. William Domhoff, (1967) Who rules America?, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. p.71., Council on Foreign Relations.
• G. William Domhoff, (1971) The Higher Circles: the governing class in America, Council on Foreign Relations, New York: vintage, p112-23.
• G. William Domhoff, (1979) The Powers That Be, Council on Foreign Relations, Vintage. pp. 67-9.

Further reading

• de Villemarest, Pierre, Facts & Chronicles Denied to the Public, Vol. 1, Aquilion, 2004, ISBN 1-904997-00-7
• Grose, Peter, Continuing the Inquiry: The Council on Foreign Relations from 1921 to 1996, New York, N.Y.: Council on Foreign Relations: 1996. ISBN 0-87609-192-3
• Perloff, James, The Shadows of Power: The Council on Foreign Relations and the American Decline, Western Islands, 1988. ISBN 0-88279-134-6
• Schulzinger, Robert D., The Wise Men of Foreign Affairs, New York: Columbia University Press, 1984. ISBN 0-231-05528-5
• Shoup, Laurence H., and William Minter, Imperial Brain Trust: The Council on Foreign Relations and United States Foreign Policy, New York: Authors Choice Press, Reprint, 2004.
• Laurence H. Shoup Bush, Kerry, and The Council on Foreign Relations Z Magazine, October 2004
• Laurence H. Shoup Behind the Bipartisan Drive Toward War: The Council on Foreign Relations and the U.S. Invasion of Iraq Z Magazine, March 2003
• Wala, Michael, The Council on Foreign Relations and American Foreign Policy in the Early Cold War, Providence, R.I.: Berghann Books: 1994. ISBN 1-57181-003-X

External links

• Council on Foreign Relations - Official website
• CFR Website - Continuing the Inquiry: The Council on Foreign Relations from 1921 to 1996 Council history by Peter Grose, a Council member.
• Council on Foreign Relations does the Middle East
• Focus on the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)
• Iran's Leader Relishes 2nd Chance to Make Waves- Article in The New York Times(registration required)

Criticism

• Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) (from the John Birch Society)
• CFR's Plan to Integrate the U.S., Mexico and Canada
• Cuba and the Council on Foreign Relations
• Building a North American Community - CFR document promoting a North American union

Research

Finding Aid: Council on Foreign Relations Meetings Records, 1920-1995.