policies. I would say that the Langer project was a major and largely unsung public service.

THE 1950s

In the Eisenhower administration, two long-time active members, John Foster and Allen Dulles, were in senior positions as Secretary of State and Director of Central Intelligence respectively. Moreover, as just noted, Eisenhower himself when he was at Columbia had taken an interest in the Council and chaired one study group before he was recalled to duty to command NATO. Thus his administration was I suppose an apogee in terms of truly active Council members being in senior positions in government.

Yet it is striking that this by no means prevented the Council from sponsoring projects that became critical of the Eisenhower administration's policies. This was notably true on the central issue of debatewithin government and in the public during this period, the question of nuclear weapons and national policy.

It was at a Council meeting, in January 1954, that Secretary Dulles first gave a full description of what came to be called the doctrine of "Massive Retaliation," holding the threat of nuclear weapons or wider hostilities as a deterrent to expansive or aggressive action by communists or others. Thereafter, this speech was reworked into an article in Foreign Affairs, which remains the authoritative explanation of the policy.

Almost at once, the Council's Studies Committee decided that the subject needed the best examination it could have if problems of security and classification could be overcome. A substantial group of relevant experts was brought together, and shortly concluded that at the level of broad