Conflict in the CFR?

"The Council on Foreign Relations is a formidable place filled with formidable people--former Cabinet secretaries and ambassadors, current CEOs and pundits of the media elite--who've fired their reputations over the years in the foreign policy kiln," noted the February 26 Washington Post. "Even its headquarters--at Park Avenue and 68th Street in Manhattan, in a mansion once owned by a Standard Oil director--speaks of status, of power."

"High officials leaving government go to the council to roost," continues the report. "Those seeking the reverse trek use the council to launch government careers. Heads of state give speeches there. Diplomats mix it up. Journalists gather to hash over issues of the day.... And task forces meet to craft reports on pressing national and global policy." By way of full disclosure, Post staff writer Lynne Duke admitted, "this writer spoke on such a panel there 5 1/2 years ago."

This capsule description of the CFR brings to mind the comments made in an October 30, 1993 column by Post ombudsman Richard Harwood, entitled "Ruling Class Journalists," in which the council was described as "the nearest thing we have to a ruling establishment in the United States." If there is any figure whose name is "virtually synonymous with the council," it would be Henry Kissinger, observes the Post's Duke. "He and his New York-based international consulting firm, Kissinger Associates, are closely linked to two of the council's most powerful figures"--council chair Peter Peterson and honorary vice chair Maurice Greenberg.

According to Duke, Kissinger and key CFR allies are involved in a feud with historian Kenneth Maxwell and his supporters. At issue was a review by Maxwell in Foreign Affairs--the CFR's flagship journal--of a volume entitled The Pinochet File. Compiled by activist Peter Kornbluh (who's aligned with the Institute for Policy Studies, a radical Marxist think-tank), the book accuses Kissinger of direct involvement in the 1973 coup that overthrew Chilean Marxist Salvador Allende and brought Augusto Pinochet to power.

For decades, the left has treated Pinochet as the embodiment of evil for the supposed offense of arresting the Marxist tide in Chile. Kissinger has long insisted that he had no involvement in the anti-Allende coup, and--given his record of facilitating Communist expansion, rather than opposing it--he may be telling the truth. Angered over Maxwell's review, Kissinger used his influence in the council to pressure Maxwell, who eventually resigned as book review editor for Foreign Affairs.

"In the foreign policy world, history is power," commented CFR president emeritus Leslie Gelb. "Who is right or wrong in the past either gives or withholds power today." The sobering truth revealed by this episode is that--whatever eventually happens to Kissinger's historical reputation--the CFR is still in charge of imposing the ruling elite's version of historical "truth."