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THE BROOKINGS
INSTITUTION
The Brookings Institution was established by St. Louis tycoon and
philanthropist, Robert Somers Brookings(1850-1932). At the age of 21,
Brookings had become a partner in Cupples and Marston (a manufacturer of
woodenware and cordage), which, ten years later, under his leadership,
expanded and flourished. In 1896, at the age of 46, he retired to devote
his duties towards higher education, and became President of Washington
University's Board of Trustees, which, through the next twenty years,
turned into a major university. He was one of the original Trustees of
the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and a consultant to the
Commission on Economy and Efficiency during the Taft Administration. In
1917, he was appointed to President Wilson's War Industries Board (which
had the responsibility of receiving and distributing the supplies needed
by the military), later becoming Chairman of its Price Fixing Committee
(responsible for negotiating prices for all goods purchased by the
Allied governments), which gave him a key role in the Wilson
Administration.
At the age of 70, he took over the leadership of the Institute for
Government Research (founded by lawyer and economist Frederick A.
Cleveland in 1916), and raised $750,000 from 92 corporations and a dozen
private citizens, to get it moving. Their first project was to push for
legislation creating a federal budget, which was successful. The first
U.S. Budget Director, under President Harding, was Charles G. Dawes, who
relied heavily on the IGR's staff. The Institute was also involved in
civil service reform legislation in the 192O's. Among their members:
Supreme Court Chief Justice William Howard Taft(who was Chief Justice
from 1921-30, after his Presidential term), Herbert Hoover(President,
1929-32), and Elihu Root.
Brookings decided that economics was the biggest issue, and not
administrative aspects that the Institute was covering, so in June,
1922, with a $1,650,000 grant from the Carnegie Corporation, he
established the Institute of Economics to represent the interests of the
labor unions and the general public. In 1924, he established the Robert
S. Brookings School of Economics and Government (an outgrowth of
Washington University in St. Louis), to allow doctoral students to spend
time in Washington, D.C. to work on the staffs of the IGR and the
Institute of Economics.
In 1927, he merged all three organizations to form the Brookings
Institution, whose purpose was to train future government officials. He
put $6 million, and 36 years of his life, into the nonpartisan,
nonprofit center, which analyze government problems, and issue
statistical reports. They produce an annual report, Setting National
Priorities, which analyze the President's Budget.
Their headquarters is an eight story building, eight blocks from the
White House, at 1775 Massachusetts Avenue, NW (zip code, 20036). They
have a staff of about 250, including about 45 senior fellows and 19
research associates. Salaries go as high a $40,000 a year.
After serving close to ten years in the State Department, Leo Pasvolsky
returned to the Brookings Institution in 1946, along with six other
members of the State Department. With the financial backing of the
Rockefeller Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation, and the Mellon Trust,
Pasvolsky initiated an International Studies Group, which developed the
basis for the Marshall Plan, to aid the European war recovery efforts.
In 1951, the Chicago Tribune said that the Brookings Institution had
created an "elaborate program of training and indoctrination in global
thinking," and that most of its scholars wind up as policy makers in the
State Department. Truman was the first President to turn to them for
help. In 1941, he named Brookings Vice President Edwin Nouse as the
first Chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisors. Kennedy
and Johnson appointed many of their members to key posts. Carter's
foreign policy became a resting place for the many of the group's
recommendations.
Republican's regard the Institution as the "Democratic
government-in-exile'', yet, Nixon appointed Herbert Stein, a Brookings
scholar, to be Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors. The Nixon
Administration, who at one time had considered bombing the Brookings
Institution, in order to allow the FBI to seize their documents, had
considered the idea of a "Brookings Institution for Republicans", to
offset the liberalism of Brookings. They thought of calling it the
Institute for an Informed America, or the Silent Majority Institute. E.
Howard Hunt, of Watergate fame, was to be its first Director, but he
wanted to turn it into a center for covert political activity.
The role of the "conservative Brookings" was taken by an existing
research center called the American Enterprise Institute for Public
Policy Research, which was founded in 1943 by Louis H. Brown (Chairman
of the Board at Johns-Manville Corporation), to promote free enterprise
ideas. During the early sixties, they shortened their name to the
American Enterprise Institute, and later received a lot of financial
support during the Nixon and Ford Administrations, when the organization
became a pool from which they drew their advisors. When Carter was
elected, the AEI became a haven for many Republican officials, including
President Gerald Ford, and William E. Simon, the Secretary of Treasury.
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