By: R.C.
May 29, 2019
A HUNDRED years ago this week, diplomats and academics from the British and American delegations at the Versailles peace conference at the end of the first world war met for a dinner at the Hotel Majestic in Paris, a short stroll from the Arc de Triomphe. Their aim was to work out how to continue their fruitful co-operation beyond the peace talks and promote internationalist values in their countries.
Their initial idea for a single Anglo-American institute to fuse a weakened Britain and an ascendant America was not realised. But the dinner on May 30th 1919 gave rise to two institutions that have shaped public outlook and public policy on foreign affairs ever since: the Royal Institute for International Affairs (known as Chatham House, after the building in which it resides), set up in London in 1920, and the Council on Foreign Relations, founded the following year in New York. They have served as templates for numerous other think-tanks around the world.