Council on Foreign Relations

While a nonpartisan and independent membership organization, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is one of the United States' most influential policy groups. CFR leaders have strong ties to government, business, media, military, think tanks, foundations, academia, and other key entities. Membership is invited (more than 3,000), and those active in the Council are also commonly found in other such organizations (Bildeberg Group, Bohemian Club, Trilateral Commission, Project for the New American Century, etc.).

Such interlocking membership invariably has created a powerful and intricate web of influence, cutting across both liberal and neoconservative ideologies. Generally speaking, the Council has supported international initiatives and favored globalist collaboration, as compared with noninterventionist policies and independent national sovereignty. Both supporters and critics agree that since its founding in 1921 through support of J. P. Morgan & Co., CFR members have held a succession of high-level positions in every presidential administration, irrespective of party. Founding members included Morgan, Colonel Edward M. House (adviser to President Wilson), John D. Rockefeller, Paul Warburg, Otto Kahn, Jacob Schiff, and other internationalists who had earlier worked to establish the Federal Reserve System as America's national bank. The organization grew so much in stature that dating from the Franklin D. Roosevelt era up to the present, practically every secretary of state, secretary of defense, and secretary of the treasury has been recruited from the CFR. In the 2004 election, for example, whether Bush or Kerry won did not matter in one key aspect—there would still be around 400 members of the CFR in either administration. Not surprisingly, ideas promulgated in Foreign Affairs, the CFR's quarterly journal of global politics, as well in its numerous reports and books often become U.S. government policy.

The CFR is headquartered in New York with an office in Washington, D.C. Throughout the year, the Council hosts a number of meetings where world leaders, government officials, scholars, journalists, and other foreign policy specialists discuss and debate the major foreign policy issues of our time. Some sessions are off-the-record, while transcripts of on-therecord events are posted on the Council's Web site.

Because of its focus and influence, the Council has been controversial. Proponents argue that through Council forums, policies that reflect public good and the public interest evolve. Opponents present a difference case—that CFR's efforts are internationalist to the point that members would prefer world government to national sovereignty. Irrespective of impact, there is no doubt that Council members do help set as well as implement the foreign policy agenda of the United States. They do not simply analyze and interpret foreign issues, they help determine what is discussed and decided.

A major ethical issue involves whether or not holding “confidential” gatherings by power wielders under the aegis of a private organization is consistent with proper conduct in a free country. Democratic accountability is not an easy process. Nevertheless, openness and transparency are generally more desirable than covert closed-door decision making from the point of view of those influenced.