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Imperial Brain Trust: The Council on Foreign Relations and United States Foreign Policy
News stories and academic studies often focus on the options chosen by a president and his officials during a crisis. Central to such decisions, however, are the forces that determine what options show up on the agenda and what options do not even make it to the table. Imperial Brain Trust, published in 1977, is the classic study of the Council on Foreign Relations, an organization that has, for decades, played a central behind the scenes role is shaping such foreign policy choices. This private club and think tank, bringing together the New York establishment and the Washington foreign policy elite as well as other powerful forces, took the lead in laying out the plans for post-World II international order. The Council also traced the key guidelines for Cold War intervention and vetted and advised generations of White House officials. Rival think tanks, such as the far-right Heritage Foundation, now have a higher profile. But the Council on Foreign Relations continues to mark the boundaries of what insiders consider to be respectable foreign policy discussion, helping aspirants to policy influence test out their schemes for establishment approval." A thoroughly researched expose of the discreet workings of the powerful Council on Foreign Relations an influential oligarchy which not only studies but forms U.S. policy. With keen insight, the authors trace the origins of the increased power of the organization "-American Library Association Booklist" the first in-depth analysis of the activities and influence of the most important private institution in the formulation of U.S. foreign policy Shoup and Minter's work is based on detailed research, including examination of material hitherto unavailable to the public this work will stand as a milestone."-Library Journal
348 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1977
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 11, 2025
Laurence H. Shoup and William Minter’s Imperial Brain Trust: The Council on Foreign Relations and United States Foreign Policy represents a foundational critique of elite policymaking institutions within the framework of American foreign affairs. Drawing heavily on institutional analysis and primary archival research, the authors present a compelling argument that the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) operates not merely as a think tank but as a pivotal organ of class power within the structure of the American imperial state.
At its core, Imperial Brain Trust is a study of how concentrated corporate interests shape U.S. foreign policy through informal but powerful institutions. Shoup and Minter argue that the CFR, far from being a neutral advisory body, functions as a quasi-official planning agency for American global strategy. This thesis is situated within a broader neo-Marxist framework, indebted to the tradition of C. Wright Mills’s The Power Elite and Charles Beard’s economic interpretations of American diplomacy.
The authors begin by tracing the founding of the CFR in the aftermath of World War I, emphasizing its emergence as a response to the failure of elite control during wartime mobilization and the disruptions of Wilsonian idealism. From its inception, they argue, the CFR was designed to ensure that elite business and financial interests could coordinate effectively with the state apparatus. The Rockefeller and Morgan financial empires figure prominently in this analysis, not merely as benefactors but as central participants in shaping CFR ideology and priorities.
The narrative reaches its analytical zenith in the examination of World War II and the postwar period, particularly the CFR’s influential War and Peace Studies project. This initiative, conducted in close cooperation with the State Department, laid the intellectual groundwork for the postwar order, including Bretton Woods institutions and the framework of U.S. hegemony. Shoup and Minter contend that the postwar expansion of American influence—from NATO to the Marshall Plan—was not accidental but the logical realization of strategic planning undertaken by the Council’s network of scholars, bankers, and industrialists.
One of the book’s strengths lies in its methodical mapping of elite interlocks—detailing how CFR members occupied strategic positions across corporate boards, government agencies, and media institutions. This prosopographical approach bolsters the authors’ central thesis that a cohesive ruling class exists and acts with deliberate coordination. However, this strength can also become a liability, as the emphasis on elite networks sometimes verges on deterministic structuralism, underplaying the role of contingency, dissent, or democratic resistance.
Critics might also argue that Shoup and Minter’s interpretation tends toward conspiracism, especially when the CFR is portrayed as a monolithic entity with seamless control over policy. While the authors are careful to distinguish between influence and omnipotence, their framework leaves little room for internal divisions or contestation within elite circles. Moreover, subsequent historiography—especially from liberal-institutionalist or realist perspectives—would challenge the notion that CFR policy recommendations are mechanically translated into state action.
Nevertheless, Imperial Brain Trust remains a landmark contribution to the critical study of foreign policy formation. It was one of the first major works to treat private think tanks as constitutive elements of state power rather than peripheral or advisory institutions. Its arguments anticipate later developments in the sociology of power, particularly the work of Thomas Medvetz and the Bourdieusian analysis of intellectual capital and political influence.
In retrospect, the book’s enduring significance lies not only in its detailed empirical research but in its challenge to conventional understandings of liberal pluralism. Shoup and Minter insist that foreign policy cannot be understood without reference to class interests, institutional continuity, and the material imperatives of empire. For scholars of international relations, critical theory, and U.S. political history, Imperial Brain Trust continues to serve as an essential—if polemical—text that compels reconsideration of how power operates behind the façade of democratic governance.
GPT
At its core, Imperial Brain Trust is a study of how concentrated corporate interests shape U.S. foreign policy through informal but powerful institutions. Shoup and Minter argue that the CFR, far from being a neutral advisory body, functions as a quasi-official planning agency for American global strategy. This thesis is situated within a broader neo-Marxist framework, indebted to the tradition of C. Wright Mills’s The Power Elite and Charles Beard’s economic interpretations of American diplomacy.
The authors begin by tracing the founding of the CFR in the aftermath of World War I, emphasizing its emergence as a response to the failure of elite control during wartime mobilization and the disruptions of Wilsonian idealism. From its inception, they argue, the CFR was designed to ensure that elite business and financial interests could coordinate effectively with the state apparatus. The Rockefeller and Morgan financial empires figure prominently in this analysis, not merely as benefactors but as central participants in shaping CFR ideology and priorities.
The narrative reaches its analytical zenith in the examination of World War II and the postwar period, particularly the CFR’s influential War and Peace Studies project. This initiative, conducted in close cooperation with the State Department, laid the intellectual groundwork for the postwar order, including Bretton Woods institutions and the framework of U.S. hegemony. Shoup and Minter contend that the postwar expansion of American influence—from NATO to the Marshall Plan—was not accidental but the logical realization of strategic planning undertaken by the Council’s network of scholars, bankers, and industrialists.
One of the book’s strengths lies in its methodical mapping of elite interlocks—detailing how CFR members occupied strategic positions across corporate boards, government agencies, and media institutions. This prosopographical approach bolsters the authors’ central thesis that a cohesive ruling class exists and acts with deliberate coordination. However, this strength can also become a liability, as the emphasis on elite networks sometimes verges on deterministic structuralism, underplaying the role of contingency, dissent, or democratic resistance.
Critics might also argue that Shoup and Minter’s interpretation tends toward conspiracism, especially when the CFR is portrayed as a monolithic entity with seamless control over policy. While the authors are careful to distinguish between influence and omnipotence, their framework leaves little room for internal divisions or contestation within elite circles. Moreover, subsequent historiography—especially from liberal-institutionalist or realist perspectives—would challenge the notion that CFR policy recommendations are mechanically translated into state action.
Nevertheless, Imperial Brain Trust remains a landmark contribution to the critical study of foreign policy formation. It was one of the first major works to treat private think tanks as constitutive elements of state power rather than peripheral or advisory institutions. Its arguments anticipate later developments in the sociology of power, particularly the work of Thomas Medvetz and the Bourdieusian analysis of intellectual capital and political influence.
In retrospect, the book’s enduring significance lies not only in its detailed empirical research but in its challenge to conventional understandings of liberal pluralism. Shoup and Minter insist that foreign policy cannot be understood without reference to class interests, institutional continuity, and the material imperatives of empire. For scholars of international relations, critical theory, and U.S. political history, Imperial Brain Trust continues to serve as an essential—if polemical—text that compels reconsideration of how power operates behind the façade of democratic governance.
GPT
June 8, 2017
I feel king of slighted with this. It was reprinted in 2004 after its original date of 1977, with no update to that point. However, the authors have done in-depth research and offer compelling evidence that the CFR has played an overweaning part in the foreign policy of the US in the 1939-1975 time period. Even their coverage of Project 1980 seems to be on target as we headed in to NAFTA and other multilateral trade pacts. It would be interesting to see how the CFR missed the collapse of the Soviet Union and the reordering of Europe, however. Still, this is a critical, meaningful study that should be read by political scientists and historians. The elitism of the American government shows here as well as in the Alan Dulles led CIA, that makes it almost cosa nostra like attitude of the players from upper class eastern schools.
July 28, 2016
Laurence Shoup's Imperial Brain Trust is about the massive influence the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) has had on foreign policy in the United States government. This study demonstrates the way in which the CFR shaped the terms for how the U.S. government planned to conduct foreign policy during the rise of Japanese and German power, and the plan for reconstruction after the Second World War. Basically, CFR planned to treat the globe as resource areas and partners for trade, with major power centers around Germany in Europe and Japan in the Asia Pacific. Several of these CFR folk made it into high positions of government where this foreign policy became par for the course. And note how the U.S. government's foreign policy relations with other countries has not changed much since this time, introducing new partners only as they arose, as with, for example, after the Cold War thaw, China.
July 6, 2016
Useful in clarifying not only the role that the Council on Foreign Relations played in US foreign policy before 1975, but also in clarifying more generally the role of infamous groups like the Trilateral Commission and the Bilderberg group. The final chapter is proven prescient by the last 40 years of history in predicting a movement away from a balance of power strategy driven by the United States and towards transnational corporate power backed by an interdependent G7 framework that we've grown so familiar with (and which is under widespread popular attack today).
February 22, 2021
Lengthy lists of names being named make for rather dull reading, but the book is still very valuable in showing the role of the power elite in shaping the international relations of the ruling class from the aftermath of the first world war through the dawn of the Carter administration.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews