What prompted your plans to retire as the Council's president?

Basically I've done everything I've wanted to do here. And the place has become a busy, complex organization. And as much as I love it, it's too much work. I want to return to writing. It's been a long time since I've written seriously, and I enjoy that even more than I have enjoyed doing this job.

What have been your accomplishments here?

Well, I did expect to do almost everything that I set out to do in terms of development strategy, formulated in the first three months on this job--almost 10 years ago. I worked on a strategy paper for what the Council should be. And I laid out the goals, I laid out exactly how to achieve the goals, what would be the instrumentalities, and I explained how we would pay for it. And basically I then took this document, worked it through the staff here, and took it to the Board of Directors and got their approval. I would say 80 percent or more of what I've done here, over the last nine plus years, has been from that strategy document. We thought it through very carefully, and we were very focused in everything we did. So there weren't many surprises, and it's always easier to adapt and to decide what to take on and what to refuse no matter how interesting if you have the focus provided by a strategy--and we did.

What was that strategy?

We had three goals, or three missions, for the Council. The first was to add value to the discussion about foreign policy and the world. The second to transform the Council into a national organization. And the third was to find and nurture the next generation of foreign policy leaders and thinkers.

How did you implement the strategy?

We wanted a focus on policy. Policy, to me--to the Board of Directors--has a very specific meaning. It's defining problems, figuring out how to deal with those problems in the context of a strategy. It means understanding your weaknesses and strengths and the other guy's weaknesses and strengths. But it's a very practical, focused exercise. So we wanted policy oriented research. Not the kind of research that goes on in universities and take five to seven years. That's good, that's terrific. We wanted to make policy oriented contributions with impact on current issues.

We also wanted to add value by creating the next generation of foreign policy expert. Someone literate in both foreign policy and economics. It was our belief--it is our belief--that the core of international problems and the core of foreign policy needs to combine the economic with the national security with the political, and so forth. That if you aren't able to understand those different dimensions, you don't understand what's going on in the world, and you can't solve problems.

Let me give you one example of it, although I could give hundreds. At the end of the cold war, we saw the end of empires, and the beginning of a new historical round of ethnic and civil conflicts. We saw the need to prevent those conflicts. It became a fad in the foreign policy world to create an NGO [nongovernmental organization] to end these conflicts. And they did it in the fashion we're all very familiar with now. We took out our finger and we started to wag it in the faces of the protagonist saying, "You should do this. You mustn't do that. You ought to do this other thing." Just like you ought to do your homework. And it never worked, and it never will work.

We wanted to find a very practical way to array carrots and sticks on the table to get people, who otherwise want to kill each other, to stop. Or not to start. And a big part of that is putting economic packages on the table. Not only from the European union, or from the World Bank, or individual grants or loans from government, but the prospect of private investment. And to explain if you do avoid the killing, or you stop the killing, here are companies that are prepared to do business in your area. So we wanted to bring business right into the conflict-prevention area. In those ways we talked about adding value.

In terms of making the Council a national organization, we needed to build up our membership around the country very much like the members we have had traditionally in New York and Washington. And they were out there. In spades. People were every bit as knowledgeable about what was going on in the world, with perspectives that were different from the New York and Washington perspectives.

If you were in Houston, or Miami, you saw Latin America as far more important and saw the problems there differently than from up North. If you were in California, you had the Pacific orientation and the knowledge about it was more finer grained than you would get back here in the East. So we made ourselves into a national organization with real reward. The days are gone when foreign policy will be dominated by people in New York and Washington. Now people from all around the country are part of that decision-making and political process.

Our third goal was to find and nurture the next generation of foreign policy leaders. Now this is really an important feature of what we've been doing. My generation of full-time foreign policy experts is pretty much dying out. We're not being produced at the universities anymore. Political science departments and economics departments that used to produce people like me working on public policy questions pretty much stopped. Work in those departments is now very abstract, very theoretical, very little policy work.

And that's why you brought in more young members?

Basically, younger people went out into the world without the same background, for good or ill, and diplomatic history, or military history, or foreign policy, or what have you. And they went out to do specific things in the world. Human rights work, relief organizations, trade, running companies abroad. These people were the new foreign policy experts. They knew more about what was going on than the professors who were teaching about those countries or regions, and the State Department desk officers. They were much closer to the change, to the new realities.

We wanted to bring them into the membership here, and we have. We wanted, once they're in these doors, to begin to expose them to the other aspects of foreign policy-- the security questions, the political questions, and so forth, because policy is about connecting the dots. They needed to learn about other things. And we now have 500 younger ìterm membersî who are elected to 5-year terms. Most are between the ages of 27 and 37.

How active are these term members?

They are most active single group here at the Council today. So we feel we've made a real contribution to bringing in younger people to the policy community.

Now we stayed with those three goals, brought it about in a way I described. And we added a new goal or mission just a year and a half ago: Outreach.

How would you characterize this outreach?

Outreach is basically to help the attentive public, the millions of people who read quality newspapers, watch quality television, sort out the welter of confusing, conflicting information about what's going on in the world. And we've done this now principally through our public Web site, which takes almost every key international issue and provides the viewer with reliable, carefully researched, easy-to-understand, non-partisan questions and answers to these problems. And above all, the questions and answer section explains what we know and what we don't know. Where there's conflicting information and you can't sort it out, we say there's conflicting information. Where there's conflicting information and you can sort it out, we do so. So we feel in this age where the media generally isn't doing the job it used to of helping to sort things out, we're filling a critical hole. And this is going to be an important part of the future. Weíve got funding to get it done as well.

There's criticism--particularly from some longtime members--that by becoming more transparent, and by being more open to more constituencies, you in effect have diluted the myth of the Council as The Establishment's bastion. How would you address that?

I would say that that criticism is total nonsense. These people think that the age of a few people in banking and law and a few professions--the only ones involved in and important about foreign policy--is still real. That's all gone-- all gone. Most of them are no longer factors in the foreign policy debates in this country. The whole ground has shifted underneath, and the new experts are the new experts. Germany is not the divided country of the cold war. The Soviet Union no longer exists. The world economic situation is changing under their feet. So we needed to bring in new people. It needed to be opened up because frankly the world leaders who used to come here when it was "old style" wouldn't come here any more, and weren't coming here any more because they wanted to reach a wider audience. They wanted not only to talk to the Council membership, a prime group for them, but they wanted the press to come in with them and the TV cameras because they wanted to get the credit back home as well. And if we didn't open it up that way for them they would have gone elsewhere. And as far as the prestige of the organization, it had never been anywhere near what it is today.

What is the Council's financial situation now?

When I came here the place was in deep financial trouble: it was about to run a long series of major deficits, the endowment was $40 million--nothing for an institution like this--it was in very serious financial straits. We built up many sources of revenue. We have very diversified revenue. We're not dependent on any one group, corporation or foundation, even the membership. This gives us real independence as an institution. It protects the institution against dictation by any group of givers.

What about the contention that by opening the doors even more to business, the Council is "selling out"?

The Council has had corporate members for 50 years. Most of the people who raise that question weren't aware of the fact that corporate membership program began years ago. But they had only about 500 corporate members; we now have about 2,000 corporate members. And they are invited to a number of events, and a lot of the corporations don't come at all. More than half of them never show up; they just give us money because they feel they're supporting a quality institution. The other half who come ask questions and sometimes participate in smaller groups, but I'm not aware of a single instance where they offered anything not on the same level as our members did, or attempted to use any financial leverage on this institution. I think they've contributed very well with their experience and knowledge, and they've helped us financially to attract more talent to the staff.

How has the Council under your stewardship dealt with pressing issues such as globalization?

Basically we didn't run with the pack on globalization. We never reached Tom Friedmanesque [Thomas L. Friedman, foreign-affairs columnist for the New York Times] levels of hallucination about how much globalization had changed the world economically and was about to democratize the world as well. We never subscribed to that. Basically our attitude from the beginning to now is "show me." What's new and what isn't about globalization? As you know, many people in the foreign policy community "discovered" trade 10 years ago and thought it was new. They didn't seem to realize trade had gone on before. Many people in the foreign policy business discovered investments abroad. They thought it was new, but in fact investments in industrialized societies as a percentage of GDP was even greater at the beginning of the 1900s than it's been over the last 10 or 15 years. So I think basically you had foreign policy types coming in to the globalization business and saying, "Gee, whiz" because they had no background or knowledge. We thought we already demonstrated that globalization had had many important effects. How do governments make decisions, how the role of private of enterprise, what's going on in the world, but that no one--no one--had done nearly enough empirical work to make it clear what was new and what was not, and what the effects really were, as opposed to the dreams.

You've been reported to have promised that you wouldn't step foot at the Council for a year after you leave, even though you've been given a five-year fellowship. What would you hope happens after June 30, 2003, at this institution by way of continuity and by way of innovations?

I think everybody who is on the list to succeed me, will do a very good job here, and I would expect whoever is chosen would bring his or her own imprint to the place. I think most of what's done here is good and needs good consolidation. As I said, we're a conglomerate now, and I think there needs to be consolidation, and that person will also have his or her own new ideas and new things to do. And I will support them fully. What I've done is not engraved in stone. Good organizations adapt; bad organizations don't adapt and fail.

The Council is a very uniquely American institution, but it's also a very international institution because of its prestige, publications like "Foreign Affairs" and so on. Do you see the Council physically expanding to other shores much in the manner of one of your neighbors, The Asia Society, has?

No, not a chance.

Why not?

I think it would be a profound mistake for the Council to expand physically around the United States or expand around the world. We have all we can do to manage the programs here with any quality; it's already strained. It's better that each of those other areas develops its own institutions to help people in their communities who want to deal with the world. We can help them on an ad hoc basis, work with them on an ad hoc basis, but I don't see any virtue to becoming even more of a conglomerate.

Any regrets about what might have been, what might be left incomplete, about your management style, which some have said is micromanaging without quite calling you a control freak?

None. Not with the program. I have no regrets. I am who I am. The playbook speaks for itself.

What newer constituencies would you like the Council to reach that may not have been reached during your term here?

I think we've reached to all the relevant constituencies, and there's more participation by more constituencies now than ever before.

What was like making a transition from being a man of the pen to a man of management?

Well, it was a new experience for me. I came to this job having been in three worlds: I was a government official three times. I was a journalist with the New York Times for 15 years in two tranches. And I had been an academic and a think tank person. I have a PhD. from Harvard, I was a Senior Fellow at Brookings and Carnegie Endowment. So I knew these different worlds and I had managed people including managing the Political Affairs Bureau in the State Department from a very small bureau to one of the largest, most powerful bureaus in the State Department.

Anything about your own accomplishments here that surprises you, that did you really not expect it to quite become what it did?

I didn't know exactly what the place was going to become because just taking it back 10 years ago with the end of the cold war most people who were involved in foreign affairs began to turn away and there was less coverage in the newspapers, less involvement in academia in public policy. The think tanks really were drying up. I didn't know quite what to expect. What I wanted was to regenerate public policy debate on the grounds that there were still critical issues to talk about, that this was one of these fantastic moments in history where the dangers and the opportunities were both great, and that the kind of people who were members of this place and should be members of this place should take that as a challenge.

Did you imagine that the Council would gain such high influence under your stewardship?

I never expected that the place would become as influential as it has. Look at the media coverage we get; a book by one of our staff members on Iraq has just hit the best-seller list. We had nothing approaching that.

I didn't imagine what evolved from the excellence of the membership, the relevance of the new members as well as the solidity of the old, the quality of the Fellows, and their participation together--members and Senior Fellows--to work on policy problems, and we've made a contribution to get as much attention as we do. We've attracted the financial support we have because half of what we've done has been useful; that's a pretty high percentage.

How would you characterize your relationship with Peter G. Peterson, the Council's chairman and longtime benefactor?

This is a membership organization and a highly charged political organization where you have every political view represented and people from almost every aspect of international life, so it's very hard to get agreement on anything. The president of the Council cannot succeed without a terrific chair and terrific board. Pete Peterson, Hank Greenberg, who was the vice chair, and I worked very, very closely all the time. I would say Pete Peterson spent the equivalent of a day and half each week during the program year, whether holding general meetings or doing board work. It was an enormous commitment. We're on the phone regularly throughout the week. And Hank maybe more than half as much ... a huge commitment of time by people in those positions. And I think we talked about the right things. We talked about strategy, we never got involved in operations, ever. Talking about strategy and (Inaudible) everything that was going on we were absolutely honest with each. When things were going wrong, I told them things were going wrong and we talked about how to fix them. So it was a very close working relationship, and it saved me from many mistakes, and it was fun besides.

Surely they'll have a picture of your portrait at the Council like of your predecessors, but I've noticed that the predecessors, none of them has chunky paragraph below their name and a ten-year date. Hopefully they'll have one for you. If they were to have such a chunky paragraph, how would you want it to be? What would you like your peers to say about you and your tenure here?

I don't want to have a portrait hanging up here, because I think when they do a portrait people think you're dead even if you're not. So I'd prefer to not to have a portrait. Maybe after I'm dead they can hang my portrait. But if you're looking for an epitaph, I guess I'd have them say that he brought this organization into the twenty-first century.

Finally, as you prepare to depart this post, at least, what are your worries about the Council?

I'm not worried about the Council at all; this is a terrific organization ... when I micromanage it and when I don't, it's terrific in both dimensions. Best membership organization in the world, by far. Nothing compares. Quality of the activities here ... uniformly very high. This place is very strong. My successor will be very strong. I'm not worried about the Council at all.

And what are your worries about the world?

I am worried about the world and I am worried about America's place in the world, because at the very moment where we've reached a level of power unknown since the height of the Roman Empire, far greater than the height of the British Empire, we seem intellectually isolated from the world. Our power has been a kind of shield that has made it more difficult for us to appreciate what's going on elsewhere and to be able to take their perspectives, their interests into account as we perceive our own concerns and interests. It's not just a matter of talking to others more, it's a matter of understanding more that in the long run the things you want to accomplish require the participation and support of others.