Imperial Brain Trust

By Laurence H. Shoup and William Minter

Monthly Review Press, New York, 1977

The Main Point

The first 3 chapters of the book provide an overview to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). These chapters give a brief history of the Council, discuss the network that backs the Council, as well as its ties to the New York Financial Oligarchy. The following chapters will discuss the ways in which the Council was directly involved in foreign policy with regard to World War II, the Vietnam War and the rest of Southeast Asia. The authors then conclude by summarizing the Council’s plan for the future of planning for a New World Order.

Summary

A Brief History of the Council

The Council on Foreign Relations is the dominant part of a network of people and institutions commonly called “the establishment.” The Council was designed to equip the United States for an imperial role in the world which before 1919 was dominated by Great Britain. The Council is almost entirely made up of high-ranking officers of the banking, manufacturing, trading, and finance industries, lawyers, and educators. By keeping its members informed of the international situation and continuously studying the international aspects of America’s political, economic, and financial problems, it would thus be able to craft a reasoned American policy. Early Council programs have included monthly meetings and research and study programs, all of which have been carefully and often secretly conducted, and aims to solve long term problems. In addition, Foreign Affairs was published with the main goal of “guiding public opinion.”

Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, Council leaders desired an expansionist foreign policy despite the majority of Americans who wanted to be isolated from the world. The late 30s through the 50s were marked by full blown imperialism, a result of World War II and the subsequent Cold War. Committees on foreign relations, comprising of leaders from various cities, were also set up allowing the Council to influence the thinking of these local leaders and also provide the Council and the government with information regarding foreign affairs issues within the city.

As the years progressed, the number of study groups and committees increased. Visits from prominent foreign and American government leaders for discussions on present and future foreign relations continued. Subscriptions from large multinational corporations grew which was of great importance because of the financial stability and the institutional ties that were established.

The Council Network

“The Council is in fact the center of a network of contacts, linking together all those who are involved in the making of foreign policy inside or outside of government. This network already exists but the Council helps to solidify and integrate the network, establishing itself as a visible focus.” The Council is very well represented in the government. Quite often, top foreign policy officials were previously members of the Council and vice versa, top foreign policy officials were recruited into the Council during or after their term in the government. The network also includes public figures from the media. Many members also belong to non profit organizations, foreign affairs organizations that deal with public education rather than research, such as the Foreign Policy Association, and special purpose foundations, which finance research and study projects, and many others. Often Council members, who have graduated from elite universities, serve as directors or officers in these universities. The Ford Foundation, the federal government, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Carnegie Foundation have been cited as the most frequent sources of funding for the Council. Undoubtedly, close ties exist between the executives and directors of these foundations and the Council. This network also extends overseas and although members are required to be American citizens, the ties are nonetheless firm.

The Council and the New York Financial Oligarchy

“The Council on Foreign Relations is solidly based in the U.S. capitalist class and represents a conscious initiative of the dominant sector of that class, the New York Financial Oligarchy.” In observing membership, leadership, and financial backing of the Council, links that tie the Council with the specific sectors of the capitalist class can be found. Membership of the council is comprised of individuals and families who belong to the capitalist class, or are of high status, suitable for assimilation into the class and who possess occupational skills that are needed for the Council’s work. The leaders of the Council almost exclusively belong to the ruling capitalistic class. However, the internal power structure of the Council lies in networks consisting of cooperating financial interest groups, many of which are based in New York.

Shaping a New World Order: The Council’s Blueprint for Global Hegemony, 1939-1944

This chapter outlines how the Council saw the problems related to Southeast Asia, the government's acceptance of its imperialistic perspective, and the resulting new international structure.

The main problem in the postwar world was whether the U.S. could be self-sufficient and do without the markets and raw materials of the British Empire, Western hemisphere, and Asia. The Council thought that the answer was no and that, therefore, the United States had to enter the war and organize a new world order satisfactory to the United States.

In September 1939, as the war broke out, Council members felt the need for advanced planning and offered a long range planning project, called The War and Peace Studies Project. This would assure close Council-Department of State collaboration and the formation of several study groups to focus on the long term problems of the war and to plan for peace. Research and discussion would result in recommendations to the department and President Roosevelt, and would not be made public. The Rockefeller Foundation granted the Council $44,500 to finance this project. It was then concluded that, as a minimum, the American “national interest” involved free access to markets and raw materials in the British Empire, the Far East and the entire Western hemisphere.

Since Britain was now protecting most of the world from German penetration, there is a great residual area potentially available upon which the basis of United States. foreign policy may be framed. They recognized that Japan was an expanding power and a threat to the Council’s plans. It was then decided in late 1940 that a trade embargo by the United States would seriously undermine the Japanese economy and, according to the Council’s reasoning, would deter any military drive by Japan. In analyzing the Grand Area, which is reference to the area outside of Continental Europe, there was a need to establish solid Anglo-American collaborations, maintain access to Asia, and to increase the shipping capacity for Britain and America.

From 1941 to 1944, the importance of Southeast Asia was not only emphasized by the Council but also by the Advisory Committee, created by the Department of State to carry out postwar planning, in which Council members fill key positions.

The interest of America would be "gravely prejudiced" should Southeast Asia be controlled by an "unfriendly or monopolistic nation, because of the need for access to rubber, tin and other resources, and because of the strategic importance of converging sea and air routes […] and that a takeover would greatly weaken the whole British position in Asia.

The Advisory Committee set the framework for all key decisions on the postwar world made during 1942, 1943, and 1944. It dealt with fundamental issues of national policy, such as the needs of the American economy and society, the relationship of these requirements to the rest of the world, and the role of international organizations. The reason for this emphasis on global hegemony was the same one that the Council had emphasized in 1940 and 1941, that the economic life of American society was very closely connected to the outside world. However close scrutiny show the "public opinion and interests" being represented on the Advisory Committee were overwhelmingly those of the Council and the section of society it represented, that is, the upper class.

Study groups suggested international economic and financial institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank), need to be established “for the purpose of stabilizing currencies and facilitating programs of capital investment for constructive undertakings in backward and underdeveloped regions.” To solve the problem of maintaining effective control over weaker territories while avoiding overt imperial conquest was to create a United Nations body in which that power would be made international.

The Council and American policy in Southeast Asia

The intervention in the Vietnam War represents the most significant single event in United States foreign policy since World War II.

In September 1943 a Council memorandum to President Roosevelt and the Department of State stressed again that the area constituted a "cheap source of vital raw materials" and that the American national interest demanded "placing political and economic control in hands likely to be friendly to the United States." […] Strategically, its water passageways linking continents and worldwide trade, made Southeast Asia of special significance in the world balance.[…] In addition, the region's markets were "sure to grow in importance."

The Council concluded that the problem in Southeast Asia was that, while it was rich in resources and potential, it was weak in defense and thus is a threat to American interest by Communists. This view was also accepted by the Eisenhower administration and the Kennedy administration.

However in 1964-1967, students throughout the United States began to voice doubts through teach-ins and demonstrations. But Council leaders continued to support the government's Vietnam policies and the consensus on Vietnam was maintained during the 1965-1967 period. The dissent within the government grew, as the resistance of the Vietnamese and the opposition from Americans soared. Coupled with domestic and international economic implications and the detrimental effects it had on American relations with other countries, ruling class leaders were forced to defeat the existing policy.

Toward the 1980s: The Council’s plans for a New World Order

The program for the Council over the next several years aims to create a new global political and economic system to replace the existing one and will thus be the largest operation because of its range and complexity. There are 3 stages to the life of the 1980s Project. Firstly it will identify the characteristics of a desirable international environment. It will then locate obstacles that will prevent such desired conditions from being achieved and craft strategies to achieve the goal. Lastly, it desires to achieve global consensus about the new world order.

The 1980's Project the Council has an operating structure of four main elements: a full time staff, a core Coordinating Group, twelve working groups, and numerous domestic and foreign advisers, experts, and small ad hoc bodies. The groups focusing on the international economy will be concerned with the relationship between the developed and developing nations and the relationships among the advanced industrial capitalist societies-North America, Western Europe, and Japan. Such problems have severely shaken the old political and economic system created by the United States during and after World War II.

The Industrial policy group will cover all kinds of economic activity and deal with the broad distribution of economic activities in the world and the interplay of national measures that respond to local needs but may affect other countries. Other economic working groups will focus on principles of international trading arrangements, multi-national enterprise and investment, and the global commons (airspace, oceans, outer space, Antarctica, and the North Polar icecap). The three security-oriented working groups are concerned with nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, armed conflict, and transnational terrorism and subversion.

However the ruling class leaders are now torn between the balance of power approach that stresses national sovereignty and the traditional concerns of international relations, which is the balance of power and maintenance of stability and military, and the liberal internationalism approach which is the school of thought popular with the Council. It states that the world is becoming increasingly economically and environmentally interdependent, and that no nation can play the determining role that the United States has played in the past and hence industrial capitalist powers need to exercise collective management. The Council and Trilateral Commission also stress the themes of interdependence, mutuality of interests, and cooperation between the industrialized north and developing south, to eventually bring third world nations into the global system and to make them fully functioning components of the world economy.

Summary by

Michelle Lai