and in a quiet way became forces within their communities for wider understanding of international affairs. In time, the original 13 were steadily expanded so that today there are 37, which also send delegates to a lively annual conference at the Council's headquarters in New York. In my experience from several tours, the local committees have always maintained the same breadth of viewpoint and outlook that the Council itself has sought in its membership, and with that a high measure of open mindedness.

Thus, the 1930s found the Council steadily expanding its range of activity, both in terms of publications and in reaching out beyond its own boundaries. The Council's studies staff, under Percy Bidwell for 20 years and then Philip E. Mosely of the Russian Institute at Columbia,also expanded its activities and refined the technique of bringing together groups of experts leavened with laymen, sometimes just for discussion and enlightenment, often to produce reports by a designated author, which were circulated at least to Council members and on a few occasions published.

It was this study group technique and experience that was brought to bear as the Second World War broke out in the fall of 1939, in the Council's most ambitious study undertaking.

1939-45

This was the War and Peace Project, initiated in late 1939 and active right through to the end of the war in 1945. Like so much else in the Council's history, the idea of such a project appears to have been that of Ham Armstrong himself. In a sense, it went back to