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I pause here to note another Council-related publication around which a considerable mythology has grown up, namely an article by Richard Nixon, published in Foreign Affairs in October 1967, to which he and others were later to point as clearly foreshadowing the Kissinger visit of 1971 and the general opening to China at that time. On close examination, this myth has no real basis. In the article as a whole a perfectly solid and respectable analysis of the situation in East Asia at the time the discussion of China is overwhelmingly in terms of the threat it presented and the need for new groupings to contain China, with only one very late paragraph suggesting that of course China could not be left out of touch indefinitely. In relation to the Blum/ Barnett volume, this was hardly in the same forward-looking mode, but rather still in that of the 1950s. Although the 70th anniversary issue of Foreign Affairs itself was to say in 1992 that the Nixon article created "a sensation," examination of the response to it in the public press shows nothing of the sort. These were highlights of the Council's study effort, in a decade that of course went from minor to major turbulence, over the Vietnam War. I would say as one who came to the Council infrequently but for well-remembered meetings on the subject that predominant opinion within the Council went from accepting to questioning to critical to sharply critical in the period from 1965 to 1968. This was surely the progression in the mind of Ham Armstrong himself, who after printing several generally supportive articles, published in July 1969 a strong article by Clark Clifford urging early withdrawal, and then in his own final issue in 1972 deplored in intense and emotional terms the effect of the war on the reputation of the United States abroad as well as on domestic feeling. No more heartfelt article has ever appeared in the magazine. In short, the Council was for a time riven and shaken. If there was an upside, it lay in a significant measure of re-thinking, reflected in a decision to admit women as members (about in tune with what several universities were then doing), a new project to bring in younger "term" members initiated in 1970, a greater emphasis on the Council's Washington office which under Alton Frye was to develop into a major activity and in 1971 the switch to a full-time paid president of the Council, rather than the elder statesmen who had served in that role without pay in previous periods. The 1970s and 1980s In this period, the Council's range of studies and other activities has been far too broad to summarize briefly, except to note that one major undertaking begun in 1973, the so-called "1980s Project," was in its own way a repeat of the experience of the 1920s, when the Council's output had focused heavily on possible international organizations and efforts. In the wake of the Vietnam War, it appeared that a similar turn might be the direction that policy and popular concerns could and should take, and the 1980s project produced a considerable inventory of thoughtful and far-reaching ideas. However, the country shortly fell back into its Cold War mode, and the project never had much chance of practical application. As for Foreign Affairs, where I was Editor from 1972 to 1984, articles on oil and energy policy issues prior to the 1973 Middle East War and the first oil crisis, by Walter Levy and James Akins, sounded an alarm little heeded. When the crisis broke, Foreign Affairs gave it a consistent high priority, along with many articles on its financial and economic consequences, but again with little impact on the slow and ill-directed national response. In general, economic issues were much more to the fore in the 1970s and early 1980s, a time that hardly saw American leadership and policy remotely at the level of the Marshall Plan. From the mid-1980s on, the magazine's emphasis moved back to political and strategic issues, under William Hyland, an Editor with great experience in these areas. And now, with James Hoge's broad experience at the helm, a wider range of articles and a new format respond to the varied problems that have replaced the simplifying influence of the Cold War on policy debate. Still, the magazine remains true to its credo, publishing authors of widely divergent views, searching for unifying themes and principles in an era where these are especially hard to find. In an intensely competitive milieu, its audience has grown steadily, the present circulation of nearly 110,000 far exceeding that of any other publication dealing largely with foreign policy, broadly interpreted. In sum, as they approach their 75th year, the Council, its studies program, and Foreign Affairs are still at the forefront of serious discussion of the world and of the role of the United States in it. Less than for almost any other institution of its age in our society would the founders be surprised at what was going on and being attempted in the organization they created.
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