Council on Foreign Relations

Council on Foreign Relations

Formation	1921
Headquarters	New York, NY
Website	www.cfr.org

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is an independent, and nonpartisan foreign policy membership organization founded in 1921 and based at 58 East 68th Street (corner Park Avenue) in New York City, with an additional office in Washington, D.C. Through its membership, meetings, and studies, it has been called the most powerful agent of United States foreign policy outside the State Department. It publishes the bi-monthly journal Foreign Affairs. It has an extensive website, featuring links to its think tank, The David Rockefeller Studies Program, other programs and projects, publications, history, biographies of notable directors and other board members, corporate members, and press releases.

Mission

The Council's mission is promoting understanding of foreign policy and America’s role in the world. Meetings are convened at which government officials, global leaders and prominent members debate major foreign-policy issues. It has a think tank that employs prominent scholars in international affairs and it commissions subsequent books and reports. A central aim of the Council, it states, is to "find and nurture the next generation of foreign policy leaders." It established "Independent Task Forces" in 1995, which encourage policy debate. Comprising experts with diverse backgrounds and expertise, these task forces seek consensus in making policy recommendations on critical issues; to date, the Council has convened more than fifty times.

The internal think tank is the The David Rockefeller Studies Program, which grants fellowships and whose programs are described as being integral to the goal of contributing to the ongoing debate on foreign policy; fellows in this program research and write on the most important challenges facing the United States and the world.

At the outset of the organization, founding member Elihu Root said the group's mission, epitomized in its journal Foreign Affairs, should be to "guide" American public opinion. In the early 1970s, the CFR changed the mission, saying that it wished instead to "inform" public opinion.

Early history

The earliest origin of the Council stemmed from a working fellowship of about 150 distinguished scholars, called "The Inquiry," tasked to brief President Woodrow Wilson about options for the postwar world when Germany was defeated. Through 1917-18, this academic band, including Wilson's closest adviser and long-time friend Col. Edward M. House, as well as Walter Lippmann, gathered discreetly at 155th Street and Broadway in New York City, to assemble the strategy for the postwar world. The team produced more than 2,000 documents detailing and analyzing the political, economic, and social facts globally that would be helpful for Wilson in the peace talks. Their reports formed the basis for the Fourteen Points, which outlined Wilson's strategy for peace after war's end.

These scholars then traveled to the Paris Peace Conference, 1919 that would end the war; it was at one of the meetings of a small group of British and American diplomats and scholars, on May 30, 1919, at the Hotel Majestic, that both the Council and its British counterpart, the Chatham House in London, were born.[1] Although the original intent was for the two organizations to be affiliated, they became independent bodies, yet retained close informal ties.

Some of the participants at that meeting were, apart from Edward House, Paul Warburg, Herbert Hoover, Harold Temperley, Lionel Curtis, Lord Eustace Percy, Christian Herter, and American academic historians James Thomson Shotwell of Columbia University, Archibald Cary Coolidge of Harvard and Charles Seymour of Yale.

About the organization

From its inception the Council was non-partisan, welcoming members of both Democratic and Republican parties. It also welcomed Jews and African Americans, with only women initially barred from membership. Its proceedings were almost universally private and confidential. It has exerted influence on U.S. foreign policy from the beginning, due to its roster of State Department and other government officials as members; as such, it has been the focus of many conspiracy theories (Perloff 37, et passim). A study by two critics of the organization, Laurence Shoup and William Minter, found that of 502 government officials surveyed from 1945 to 1972, more than half were members of the Council.

Today it has about 4,300 members (including five-year term members), which over its history have included senior serving politicians, more than a dozen Secretaries of State, former national security officers, bankers, lawyers, professors, former CIA members and senior media figures. As a private institution however, the CFR maintains through its official website that it is not a formal organization engaged in U.S. foreign policy-making.

In 1962, the group began a program of bringing select Air Force officers to the Harold Pratt House to study alongside its scholars. The Army, Navy and Marine Corps requested they start similar programs for their own officers.

Vietnam created a rift within the organization. When Hamilton Fish Armstrong announced in 1970 that he would be leaving the helm of Foreign Affairs after 45 years, new chairman David Rockefeller approached a family friend, William Bundy, to take over the position. Anti-war advocates within the Council rose in protest against this appointment, claiming that Bundy's hawkish record in the State and Defense Departments and the CIA precluded him from taking over an independent journal. Some even called Bundy a "war criminal" for his prior actions.

Seven American presidents have addressed the Council, two while still in office – Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

Journalist Joseph Kraft, a former member of both the CFR and the Trilateral Commission, said the Council "comes close to being an organ of what C. Wright Mills has called the Power Elite – a group of men, similar in interest and outlook, shaping events from invulnerable positions behind the scenes."

Economist John Kenneth Galbraith resigned in 1970, objecting to the Council's policy of allowing government officials to conduct twice-a-year off-the-record briefings with business officials in its Corporation Service. The Council says that it has never sought to serve as a receptacle for government policy papers that cannot be shared with the public, and they do not encourage government officials who are members to do so. The Council says that discussions at its headquarters remain confidential, not because they share or discuss secret information, but because the system allows members to test new ideas with other members.

Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., in his book on the Kennedy presidency, A Thousand Days, wrote that Kennedy was not part of what he called the "New York establishment:"

"In particular, he was little acquainted with the New York financial and legal community-- that arsenal of talent which had so long furnished a steady supply of always orthodox and often able people to Democratic as well as Republican administrations. This community was the heart of the American Establishment. Its household deities were Henry J. Stimson and Elihu Root; its present leaders, Robert Lovett and John J. McCloy; its front organizatons, the Rockefeller, Ford and Carnegie foundations and the Council on Foreign Relations; its organs, the New York Times and Foreign Affairs."

Morgan and Rockefeller involvement

The Americans who subsequently returned from the conference became drawn to a discreet club of New York financiers and international lawyers who had organized previously in June 1918 and was headed by Elihu Root, J. P. Morgan's lawyer; this select group called itself the Council on Foreign Relations. They joined this group and the Council was formally established in New York on July 29, 1921, with 108 founding members, including Elihu Root as a leading member and John W. Davis, the chief counsel for J. P. Morgan & Co. and former Solicitor General for President Wilson, as its founding president. Davis was to become Democratic presidential candidate in 1924.

Other members included John Foster Dulles, Herbert H. Lehman, Henry L. Stimson, Averell Harriman, the Rockefeller family's public relations expert, Ivy Lee, and Paul M. Warburg and Otto H. Kahn of the law firm Kuhn, Loeb.

The Council initially had strong connections to the Morgan interests, such as the lawyer, Paul Cravath, whose pre-eminent New York law firm (later named Cravath, Swaine & Moore) represented Morgan businesses; a Morgan partner, Russell Cornell Leffingwell, later became its first chairman. The head of the group's finance committee was Alexander Hemphill, chairman of Morgan's Guaranty Trust Company. Economist Edwin F. Gay, editor of the New York Evening Post, owned by Morgan partner Thomas W. Lamont, served as Secretary-Treasurer of the organization. Other members related to Morgan included Frank L. Polk, former Under-Secretary of State and attorney for J.P. Morgan & Co. Former Wilson Under-Secretary of State Norman H. Davis was a banking associate of the Morgans. Over time, however, the locus of power shifted inexorably to the Rockefeller family. Paul Cravath's law firm also represented the Rockefeller family.

Edwin Gay suggested the creation of a quarterly journal, Foreign Affairs. He recommended Archibald Cary Coolidge be installed as the first editor, along with his New York Evening Post reporter, Hamilton Fish Armstrong, as assistant editor and executive director of the Council.

Even from its inception, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. was a regular benefactor, making annual contributions, as well as a large gift of money towards its first headquarters on East 65th Street, along with corporate donors (Perloff 156). In 1944, the widow of the Standard Oil executive Harold I. Pratt donated the family's four-story mansion on the corner of 68th Street and Park Avenue for council use and this became the CFR's new headquarters, known as The Harold Pratt House, where it remains today.

Several of Rockefeller's sons joined the council when they came of age; David Rockefeller joined the council as its youngest-ever director in 1949 and subsequently became chairman of the board from 1970 to 1985; today he serves as honorary chairman. The major philanthropic organization he founded with his brothers in 1940, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, has also provided funding to the Council, from 1953 to at least 1980.

Another major support base from the outset was the corporate sector; around 26 corporations provided financial assistance in the 1920s, seizing the opportunity to inject their business concerns into the weighty deliberations of the academics and scholars in the Council's ruling elite. In addition, the Carnegie Corporation contributed funds in 1937 to expand the Council's reach by replicating its structure in a diminished form in eight American cities.

John J. McCloy became an influential figure in the organization after the Second World War, and he held connections to both the Morgans and Rockefellers. As assistant to Secretary of War (and J. P. Morgan attorney) Henry Stimson during World War II, he had presided over important American war policies; his brother-in-law John Zinsser was on the board of directors of JP Morgan & Co. during that time, and after the war McCloy joined New York law firm Milbank, Tweed, Hope, Hadley & McCloy as a partner. The company had long served as legal counsel to the Rockefeller family and the Chase Manhattan bank. McCloy became Chairman of the Board of Chase Manhattan, a director of the Rockefeller Foundation and Chairman of the Board of the CFR from 1953 to 1970. President Harry S. Truman appointed him President of the World Bank Group and U.S. High Commissioner to Germany. He served as a special adviser on disarmament to President John F. Kennedy and chaired a special committee on the Cuban crisis. He was said to have had the largest influence on American foreign policy of anyone after World War II. McCloy's brother-in-law, Lewis W. Douglas, also served on the board of the CFR and as a trustee for the Rockefeller Foundation; Truman appointed him as American ambassador to Great Britain.

Influence on foreign policy

Beginning in 1939 and lasting for five years, the Council achieved much greater prominence with government and the State Department when it established the strictly confidential War and Peace, funded entirely by the Rockefeller Foundation. The secrecy surrounding this group was such that the Council members (total at the time: 663) who were not involved in its deliberations were completely unaware of the study group's existence.

It was divided into four functional topic groups: economic and financial, security and armaments, territorial, and political. The security and armaments group was headed by Allen Welsh Dulles who later became a pivotal figure in the CIA's predecessor, the OSS. It ultimately produced 682 memoranda for the State Department, marked classified and circulated among the appropriate government departments. As a historical judgment, its overall influence on actual government planning at the time is still said to remain unclear.

In an anonymous piece called "The Sources of Soviet Conduct" that appeared in Foreign Affairs in 1947, CFR study group member George Kennan coined the term "containment." The essay would prove to be highly influential in US foreign policy for seven upcoming presidential administrations. 40 years later, Kennan explained that he had never meant to contain the Soviet Union because it might be able to physically attack the United States; he thought that was obvious enough that he didn't need to explain it in his essay. William Bundy credited the CFR's study groups with helping to lay the framework of thinking that led to the Marshall Plan and NATO. Due to new interest in the group, membership grew towards 1,000.

Dwight D. Eisenhower chaired a CFR study group while he served as President of Columbia University. One member later said, "whatever General Eisenhower knows about economics, he has learned at the study group meetings." The CFR study group devised an expanded study group called "Americans for Eisenhower" to increase his chances for the presidency. Eisenhower would later draw many Cabinet members from CFR ranks and become a CFR member himself. His primary CFR appointment was Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. As an attorney for Standard Oil and a longtime board member of the Rockefeller Foundation, Dulles maintained strong ties to the Council and to the Rockefellers. Dulles gave a public address at the Harold Pratt House in which he announced a new direction for Eisenhower's foreign policy: "There is no local defense which alone will contain the mighty land power of the communist world. Local defenses must be reinforced by the further deterrent of massive retaliatory power." After this speech, the council convened a session on "Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy" and chose Henry Kissinger to head it. Kissinger spent the following academic year working on the project at Council headquarters. The book of the same name that he published from his research in 1957 gave him national recognition, topping the national bestseller lists.

On 24 November, 1953, a study group heard a report from political scientist William Henderson regarding the ongoing conflict between France and Vietnamese Communist leader Ho Chi Minh's Viet Minh forces, a struggle that would later become known as the First Indochina War. Henderson argued that Ho's cause was primarily nationalist in nature and that Marxism had "little to do with the current revolution." Further, the report said, the United States could work with Ho to guide his movement away from Communism. State Department officials, however, expressed skepticism about direct American intervention in Vietnam and the idea was tabled. Over the next twenty years, the United States would find itself allied with anti-Communist South Vietnam and against Ho and his supporters in Vietnam War.

The Council served as a "breeding ground" for important American policies such as mutual deterrence, arms control, and nuclear non-proliferation.

A four-year long study of relations between America and China was conducted by the Council between 1964 and 1968. One study published in 1966 concluded that American citizens were more open to talks with China than their elected leaders. Kissinger had continued to publish in Foreign Affairs and was appointed by President Nixon to serve as National Security Adviser in 1969. In 1971, he embarked on a secret trip to Beijing to broach talks with Chinese leaders. Nixon went to China in 1972, and diplomatic relations were completely normalized by President Carter's Secretary of State, another Council member, Cyrus Vance.

In November 1979, while chairman of the CFR, David Rockefeller became embroiled in an international incident when he and Henry Kissinger, along with John J. McCloy and Rockefeller aides, persuaded President Jimmy Carter through the State Department to admit the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, into the US for hospital treatment for lymphoma. This action directly precipitated what is known as the Iran hostage crisis and placed Rockefeller under intense media scrutiny (particularly from The New York Times) for the first time in his public life.

Membership

There are two types of membership: life, and term membership, which lasts for 5 years and is available to those between 30 and 36. Only U.S. citizens (native born or naturalised) and permanent residents who have applied for U.S. citizenship are eligible. A candidate for life membership must be nominated in writing by one Council member and seconded by a minimum of three others.

Corporate membership (250 in total) is divided into "Basic", "Premium" ($25,000+) and "President's Circle" ($50,000+). All corporate executive members have opportunities to hear distinguished speakers, such as overseas presidents and prime ministers, chairmen and CEOs of multinational corporations, and U.S. officials and Congressmen. President and premium members are also entitled to other benefits, including attendance at small, private dinners or receptions with senior American officials and world leaders.

Members

Board of directors

OFFICE	NAME
Co-Chairman of the Board	Carla Anderson Hills
Co-Chairman of the Board	Robert Rubin
Vice Chairman	Richard E. Salomon
President	Richard N. Haass
Board of Directors
Director	Peter Ackerman
Director	Fouad Ajami
Director	Madeleine Albright
Director	Charlene Barshefsky
Director	Henry Bienen
Director	Stephen W. Bosworth
Director	Tom Brokaw
Director	Sylvia Mathews Burwell
Director	Frank J. Caufield
Director	Kenneth Duberstein
Director	Martin Feldstein
Director	Richard N. Foster
Director	Stephen Friedman
Director	Ann M. Fudge
Director	Helene D. Gayle
Director	Maurice R. Greenberg
Director	Richard Holbrooke
Director	Karen Elliott House
Director	Alberto Ibargüen
Director	Henry Kravis
Director	Jami Miscik
Director	Michael H. Moskow
Director	Joseph Nye
Director	Ronald L. Olson
Director	James W. Owen
Director	Colin Powell
Director	David Rubenstein
Director	Anne-Marie Slaughter
Director	Joan E. Spero
Director	Vin Weber
Director	Christine Todd Whitman
Director	Fareed Zakaria

The Board of Directors of the Council on Foreign Relations is composed in total of thirty-six officers. Peter G. Peterson and David Rockefeller are Directors Emeriti (Chairman Emeritus and Honorary Chairman, respectively). It also has an International Advisory Board consisting of thirty-five distinguished individuals from across the world.

Some corporate members

Some of the corporate members follow, most whom are Fortune 500.

ABC News Alcoa American Express AIG Bank of America Bloomberg L.P. Boeing BP Chevron Citigroup Coca-Cola De Beers Deutsche Bank ExxonMobil FedEx Ford Motor General Electric GlaxoSmithKline

Google Goldman Sachs Halliburton Heinz Hess IBM JPMorgan Chase Kohlberg Kravis Roberts Lehman Brothers Lockheed Martin MasterCard McGraw-Hill McKinsey Merck Merrill Lynch Motorola NASDAQ News Corp

Nike PepsiCo Pfizer Shell Oil Sony Corporation of America Tata Group Time Warner Total S.A. Toyota Motor North America UBS United Technologies United States Chamber of Commerce U.S. Trust Corporation Verizon Visa

Notable current council members

John Abizaid Fouad Adjami Robert F. Agostinelli[2] Graham Allison Roger Altman James A. Baker Evan Bayh Warren Beatty Sandy Berger (United States National Security Advisor under President Bill Clinton) Michael Bloomberg (current Mayor of New York City) David Boren L. Paul Bremer Bill Brock (former Republican United States Senator from Tennessee) Edgar Bronfman, Sr. (a member of the Bronfman dynasty, president of the World Jewish Congress) Ethan Bronner (deputy foreign editor of The New York Times) Zbigniew Brzezinski (United States National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter) Jonathan S. Bush (healthcare CEO, son of Jonathan Bush, brother of NBC entertainment reporter Billy Bush) Jimmy Carter Dick Cheney Warren Christopher (former United States Secretary of State) Henry Cisneros Wesley Clark Bill Clinton William Cohen Jon Corzine Katie Couric Michael Crow (president of Arizona State University) Al D'Amato John Deutch Christopher Dodd Michael Douglas Richard Dreyfuss Peggy Dulany (fourth child of David Rockefeller) Lawrence Eagleburger ( former United States Secretary of State under George H. W. Bush) Dianne Feinstein Roger W. Ferguson, Jr. Noah Feldman (academic and author) Mikhail Fridman (Russian oligarch, International Advisory Board member) Thomas Friedman (journalist, The New York Times) Robert Gates (Secretary of Defense, former Director of Central Intelligence) Leslie Gelb Richard Gephardt James S. Gilmore Newt Gingrich Alan Greenspan (former Chairman of the Federal Reserve) Chuck Hagel Lee Hamilton Jane Harman Gary Hart (former Democratic U.S. Senator representing Colorado, Council for a Livable World chairman, advisory board member for the Partnership for a Secure America)

Christopher Heinz (Heir to the Heinz fortune) Warren Hoge (American journalist) Richard Holbrooke Jesse Jackson Angelina Jolie (UN Goodwill Ambassador) Vernon Jordan, Jr. (close advisor to President William J. Clinton) Robert Kagan (cofounded Project for the New American Century) Thomas Kean John Kerry Zalmay Khalilzad Henry Kissinger Irving Kristol (founder of American neoconservatism, Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute) Paul R. Krugman Richard D. Land Jim Lehrer Lewis Libby Joseph Lieberman Consuelo Mack (Anchor and Managing Editor of Wealthtrack and former CNBC television personality) John McCain George Mitchell Walter Mondale (Former US Vice President under Jimmy Carter and 1984 Democratic Presidential Candidate) Paula Zahn (news media, formerly an anchor on CNN) Janet Napolitano John Negroponte (Deputy Secretary of State, former Director of National Intelligence, former U.S. ambassador to Honduras) Sam Nunn Joseph Nye William Odom Stanley O'Neal (Former Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Merrill Lynch) Henry Paulson (Treasury Secretary) David Petraeus Kitty Pilgrim Richard Pipes (founder of Middle East Forum) Norman Podhoretz (former editor-in-chief of "Commentary", senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, Project for the New American Century signatory) Steve Poizner (California businessman and Republican politician) Colin Powell Charles Prince (former chief executive officer of Citigroup) Charles Rangel Dan Rather Condoleezza Rice Bill Richardson Alice Rivlin (economist, former U.S. cabinet member) David Rockefeller, Jr. Jay Rockefeller Charlie Rose

Diane Sawyer Karenna Gore Schiff (daughter of Al Gore) Brent Scowcroft (United States National Security Advisor under Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush) George P. Shultz (former United States Secretary of State, former United States Secretary of the Treasury, former Secretary of Labor) Ron Silver (actor, director, producer, cofounded the organization One Jerusalem) Walter B. Slocombe (former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy) Olympia Snowe George Soros Jonathan Soros Lesley Stahl Fred Thompson (Actor, former Senator from Tennessee, Presidential candidate) Kathleen Kennedy Townsend Laura Tyson Paul Volcker (former Chairman of the Federal Reserve) Barbara Walters John Warner Margaret Warner Mark Warner Rick Warren Steven Weinberg (American physicist) William Weld John C. Whitehead (chairman of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, former United States Deputy Secretary of State under Ronald Reagan, former Goldman Sachs chairman) Christine Todd Whitman Brian Williams Shirley Williams, Baroness Williams of Crosby (International Advisory Board member) Adam Wolfensohn James Wolfensohn (former president of the World Bank Group) Paul Wolfowitz (former president of the World Bank Group, former U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense) R. James Woolsey, Jr. (former Director of Central Intelligence and former head of the CIA) Robert Zoellick (President of the World Bank Group) Mortimer Zuckerman

Notable historical members

John B. Anderson Robert O. Anderson Birch Bayh Lloyd Bentsen Conrad Black (International Advisory Board member) Bill Bradley McGeorge Bundy William Bundy George H. W. Bush Monica Crowley Mario Cuomo C. Douglas Dillon Michael Dukakis Geraldine Ferraro Tom Foley Gerald Ford Hubert H. Humphrey Sergei Karaganov (International Advisory Board member) George Kennan Robert A. Lovett

Charles Peter McColough George S. McGovern Robert McNamara Susan Molinari Paul Nitze Richard Nixon Nelson Rockefeller John D. Rockefeller III Felix Rohatyn Eugene V. Rostow Walt Whitman Rostow Dean Rusk Charles Schumer R. Sargent Shriver, Jr. Strobe Talbott

Albert Wohlstetter Roberta Wohlstetter Paul Warburg Caspar Weinberger

List of chairmen and chairwomen

Russell Cornell Leffingwell 1946-1953 John J. McCloy 1953-1970

David Rockefeller 1970-1985 Peter George Peterson 1985-2007

Carla A. Hills (co-chairman) 2007- Robert E. Rubin (co-chairman) 2007-

List of presidents

John W. Davis 1921-1933 George W. Wickersham 1933-1936 Norman Davis 1936-1944 Russell Cornell Leffingwell 1944-1946 Allen Welsh Dulles 1946-1950

Henry Merritt Wriston 1951-1964 Grayson L. Kirk 1964-1971 Bayless Manning 1971-1977 Winston Lord 1977-1985 John Temple Swing 1985-1986 (Pro tempore)

Peter Tarnoff 1986-1993 Alton Frye 1993 Leslie Gelb 1993-2003 Richard N. Haass 2003-

Source: The Council on Foreign Relations from 1921 to 1996: Historical Roster of Directors and Officers

Controversy

The Council has been the subject of many controversies, partly due to the number of high-ranking government officials in its membership, its secrecy clauses, and the large number of aspects of American foreign policy that its members have been involved with, beginning with Wilson's Fourteen Points. Many organizations, such as the John Birch Society, believe that the CFR plans a one-world government. Wilson's Fourteen Points speech was the first in which he suggested a worldwide security organization to prevent future world wars.

"For more than a century ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents ... to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as 'internationalists' and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure - one world, if you will. If that's the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it."

- David Rockefeller, "Memoirs" autobiography (2002, Random House publishers), page 405

Some believe that the CFR is working towards a North American Union, a joining of the three governments of Canada, Mexico and the U.S. They point to a CFR task force which was headed by professor Robert Pastor, head of North American Studies at American University, which produced a report called "Building a North American Community" on cooperation within North America. Pastor authored a 2001 book, Towards a North American Community: Lessons from the Old World for the New. Plans allegedly center on a 10-lane superhighway which would run from Mexico to Canada.

Assistant Secretary of Commerce David Bohigian says that there is no truth to the rumors. Senator Kit Bond, who is a member of committees that would have to authorize funding for a NAFTA superhighway, has said that there are no plans for a North American Union and the theories are not valid. However, Rep. Ron Paul has said that Congress has provided "small amounts" of money to study the feasibility of such a highway. Paul also suggested that because the funding constituted "just one item in an enormous transportation appropriations bill... most members of Congress were not aware of it."[3] Rep. Virgil Goode introduced a resolution, with 21 co-sponsors, to prohibit the building of a NAFTA superhighway and an eventual North American Union with Canada and Mexico. The resolution was sent to committee.[4]

In 2005, CFR task force co-chairman Pastor testified in Congress in front of the Foreign Relations Committee: "The best way to secure the United States today is not at our two borders with Mexico and Canada, but at the borders of North America as a whole." The CFR task force he headed called for one border around North America, freer travel within it, and cooperation among Canadian, Mexican and American military forces and law enforcement for greater security. It called for full mobility of labor among the three countries within five years, similar to the European Union.[5] He also appeared at a CFR forum called "The Future of North American Integration in the Wake of the Terrorist Attacks" on October 17, 2001, discussing the prospect of North American integration in the wake of the September 11 attacks. Conservative commentator Phyllis Schlafly wrote of the 2005 report, "This CFR document, called 'Building a North American Community,' asserts that George W. Bush, Mexican President Vicente Fox, and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin 'committed their governments' to this goal when they met at Bush's ranch and at Crawford, Texas on March 23, 2005. The three adopted the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America and assigned 'working groups' to fill in the details." The document advocated allowing companies to recruit workers from anywhere within North America and called for large loans and aid to Mexico from the US. It called for a court system for North American dispute resolution and said that illegal aliens should be allowed into the United States Social Security system through the Social Security Totalization Agreement. The report called for a fund to be created by the US to allow 60,000 Mexican students to attend US colleges. The report says the plan can be carried out within five years. Other members of the task force included former Massachusetts governor William Weld and immigration chief for President Clinton, Doris Meissner.

Pastor wrote in Foreign Affairs:

"The U.S., Mexican, and Canadian governments remain zealous defenders of an outdated conception of sovereignty even though their citizens are ready for a new approach. Each nation's leadership has stressed differences rather than common interests. North America needs leaders who can articulate and pursue a broader vision... Countries are benefited when they changed these [national sovereignty] policies, and evidence suggests that North Americans are ready for a new relationship that renders this old definition of sovereignty obsolete."

Pastor appeared at a CFR-sponsored symposium at Arizona State University on issues that would face the next president.

See also

• Bilderberg Group
• Brookings Institution
• RAND

References

Publications by the Council on Foreign Relations

• Council on Foreign Relations in association with the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and the Consejo Mexicano de Asuntos Internacionales. Building a North American Community: Report of an Independent Task Force. Washington, DC: Council on Foreign Relations, 2005. (Task Force Observers: Sam Boutziouvis, Canadian Council of Chief Executives; Daniel Gerstein, Council on Foreign Relations; Lawrence Spinetta, Council on Foreign Relations; David Stewart-Patterson, Canadian Council of Chief Executives; multiple authors.)

Books

• De Villemarest, Pierre, Danièle De Villemarest, and William Wolf. Facts and Chronicles Denied to the Public. Vol. 1. Slough, Berkshire, UK: Aquilion, 2004. ISBN 1-904-99700-7.
• Grose, Peter. Continuing the Inquiry: The Council on Foreign Relations from 1921 to 1996. New York: Council on Foreign Relations: 1996. ISBN 0-876-09192-3.
• Perloff, James. The Shadows of Power: The Council on Foreign Relations and the American Decline. Appleton, WI: Western Islands, 1988. ISBN 0-882-79134-6.
• 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. 1977; New York: Authors Choice Press, 2004. ISBN 0-595-32426-6 (10). ISBN 978-05953-2426-2 (13).
• Wala, Michael. The Council on Foreign Relations and American Foreign Policy in the Early Cold War. Providence, RI: Berghann Books, 1994. ISBN 1-571-81003-X
• Griffin, G. Edward "The Creature From Jekyll Island" American Media, Westlake Village, California 1994 [ISBN 0-912986-18-2]

Miscellaneous articles

• Kassenaar, Lisa. "Wall Street's New Prize: Park Avenue Club House With World View". Bloomberg December 15, 2005. [Profile of the Council and its new members.]
• Mandel, Daniel, and Asaf Romirowsky. "The Council on Foreign Relations Does the Middle East". Middle East Quarterly 12.4 (Fall 2005). Accessed February 23, 2007.
• Sanger, David E. "Iran's Leader Relishes 2nd Chance to Make Waves". The New York Times September 21, 2006, Foreign Desk: A1, col. 2 (Late ed.-Final). Accessed February 23, 2007. (TimesSelect subscription access). ("Over the objections of the administration and Jewish groups that boycotted the event, Mr. Ahmadinejad, the man who has become the defiant face of Iran, squared off with the nation’s foreign policy establishment, parrying questions for an hour and three-quarters with two dozen members of the Council on Foreign Relations, then ending the evening by asking whether they were simply shills for the Bush administration.")

External links

• Council on Foreign Relations – Organization website
  • "For Educators" – "Academic Outreach Initiative": Resources for educators and students; links to selected CFR publications
  • "For the Media" – Resources for the media, concerning requests for press materials, transcripts of meetings, and annual reports; contact information