In 1981 he joined the financial capitalist world as a senior adviser at Lehman Brothers. Within a few years he was Managing Director of this firm, serving in that role until 1993. He also served on the boards of American International Group (AIG), Suisse First Boston (vice chair), and Perseus LLC (vice chair). He was also a Trilateral Commissioner. Holbrooke later returned to government service in a variety of diplomatic roles: ambassador to Germany, ambassador to the United Nations, Bosnian Peace Negotiator, and U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, which was his position when he died of a heart attack in 2010. During Bush’s run-up to the war on Iraq in 2002, Holbrooke strongly favored attacking Iraq, and in secret meetings with congressional Democrats he advised them in no uncertain terms to support the coming war. In short, Holbrooke was a hawk his entire life.
Robert D. Hormats
Hormats attended private schools where he received his BA (Tufts) and MA and PhD (Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy). His initial career line was in the federal government, at the National Security Council, working with, in turn, National Security advisers Kissinger, Brzezinski, and Scowcroft. Then he worked in the Department of State as an adviser on the international economy. He joined Goldman Sachs in 1982, working for the firm for over twenty-five years and rising to the position of vice chair. In 2009 he was chosen by President Obama to be Undersecretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy and the Environment, a position he held until 2013, when he left the government and became vice chair of Kissinger Associates, a private consulting firm headed by Henry A. Kissinger. He has also been a member of the Trilateral Commission.
Stephen Stamas
Stamas was a Harvard graduate who went on to be a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University. He also earned his doctorate at Harvard. Following a brief stint with the federal government, he joined Exxon Corporation, eventually rising to become a vice president. He was also a vice chair of Rockefeller University and a trustee and chair of the American Assembly.89
CAPITALIST-CLASS MEMBERS OF THE CFR
In addition to the capitalist-class top leaders and directors of the CFR, many Council members belong to the capitalist class. The fact that the CFR has always been headquartered in New York, by far the richest city in the United States as measured by number of billionaires and multimillionaires, is telling when combined with other data. According to the 2014 CFR Annual Report, there were a total of 1,604 “business” members in the CFR in 2014, by far the single largest group.90 Professors, fellows, and researchers composed the second-largest group with 896 members. Although some of the business group are lower-level staff members of corporations and smaller businesses, a large fraction are part of the capitalist class, but we do not know exactly how many or who they are. Members of the capitalist class tend to be secretive about their wealth, and with over 4,600 current members in 2012, and almost 5,000 in 2014, a study of every CFR member, his or her occupation, wealth, and corporate connections is hardly feasible.91
The CFR has a clear bias toward accepting potential members who are wealthy and is an organization where members can meet, network, and form alliances with others who are also rich and powerful, further reinforcing the unity of those at the peak of the U.S. class system. Again, it should be stressed that though a variety of capitalists are represented in the Council, there is a strong tendency for financial capitalists—those who own and manipulate capital in its most abstract forms, such as stocks, bonds, trusts, hedge funds, and insurance, what can be labeled “fictitious capital”—to be most prominent in the leadership and, most likely, the membership of the CFR. The holders of functioning capital, invested in the ownership of the factories and equipment that puts labor in motion to produce commodities, are also well represented in the CFR but are less central to the organization.
SUMMARY: THE NATURE OF THE CFR
This chapter has illustrated in detail some central facts about the CFR, and why it is Wall Street’s think tank. First, in terms of its leadership, history, financing, and much of its membership, it is a top-down capitalist-class organization representing the system of monopoly finance capitalism. Second, finance capital plays a central role in the organization, especially in leadership and funding. Third, what is best called a professional class also plays an important part; most of the Council’s presidents are from this class, along with a substantial minority of its leadership and a large part of its membership. This professional class, with its intellectual skills, includes some who are clearly on their way into the capitalist class through the connections available to CFR leaders (especially by being invited to join corporate boards), and others who apparently are satisfied with just their professional work. The next chapter will review the internal history of the CFR during the thirty-eight years from 1976 to 2014, illustrating what Wall Street’s think tank actually does.
2
THE ORGANIZATIONAL HISTORY OF THE COUNCIL, 1976–2014
You don’t go to speak to the Council; you go to get advice.
—TIMOTHY F. GEITHNER
A very influential organization…. There isn’t anything quite like the Council…. It’s unique in its scope and level of expertise and experience that members share…. it’s a good place to meet other people involved in making policy.
—JEANE KIRKPATRICK
On a January evening in 1999 the Council on Foreign Relations held a dinner at its New York headquarters in celebration of their new meeting facility. The organization’s entire membership was able to participate through new videoconferencing technology. Peter G. Peterson, the CFR’s chairman at the time, later described the night’s central activities:
It was the kind of event only the Council on Foreign Relations seems able to stage. With our beloved Honorary Chairman David Rockefeller presiding, the following Secretaries of State, Council members all, glittered onto the video screen: George Shultz from San Francisco, James Baker from Houston, Warren Christopher from Los Angeles, Henry Kissinger and Cyrus Vance from New York, and Madeleine Albright from Washington. For good measure, President Clinton greeted us from Washington, Council Vice Chairman Hank Greenberg joined us from Hong Kong, and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan delivered the keynote address. All, as you would expect, did a splendid job of talking about new world challenges and opportunities and answering questions from our members. It demonstrated the quality discussions the Council, almost uniquely, can generate. It showed as well the technological possibilities now open to us for conversations among our members.92
Chairman Peterson’s comments highlight the close connections between top government leaders and the CFR, but also the need to pay attention to the internal relations within the organization and its network of members. Such relations are central in determining the way that the capitalist class as a community recognizes, articulates, organizes, unifies, and acts on its own interests as a class and engages other classes and class fractions in relations of conflict and consensus. The CFR has been a pioneering organization in opening the world to U.S. capital through the influence of its board of directors and its membership, studies, and meetings programs. These four fundamental features make up the essential organizational foundation of the CFR.
THE CORPORATE BOARD
The CFR is a corporation, and it is governed, like other corporations, by its board of directors. Council members are like small individual stockholders, interested in what happens, but without much power to change anything. The board is technically elected by CFR members, but these elections are carefully managed by those in power and mainly exist to legitimate the self-perpetuating rule of the board of directors.
In 1981 the CFR had twenty-four directors on its board, divided into three groups of eight, with staggered terms of three years. Following the Council’s bylaws, a small nominating committee set up by the board took the 150 names suggested by CFR members and selected nine nominees for eight seats. In the resulting election, there was an unusually high turnout, 56.7 percent of those eligible to vote actually voted. The result shocked CFR leaders—Henry A. Kissinger, who had been a director since leaving the government in 1977, was the sole nominee who was not elected. President Winston Lord quickly pointed out that the CFR would continue to depend