Right Web

PRA's Right Web neither represents nor endorses any of the individuals or groups profiled on this site.

Overview

One of the oldest right-wing think tanks, FPRI has a mission to bring “the insights of scholarship to bear on the development of policies that advance U.S. national interests.” Founded in 1955, FPRI lists the following “pressing issues” as research priorities: war on terrorism, Middle East, nuclear proliferation in South Asia, and relations with China, Russia, and Japan. It also focuses on the following issues: religion and ethnicity in international politics, and the “nature of the Western identity and its implications for the U.S. and Atlantic Alliance.” (1) Its slogan is: “A Philadelphia Voice, A National Asset, A Global Resource.”

Its main activities are publication and public education, with “teach the teachers” as a special focus. Since 1957 the FPRIs main publication has been the quarterly journal Orbis, which is edited by David Eisenhower. FPRI also publishes E-Notes, a bulletin distributed to “some 18,000 key people in 85 countries.” Footnotes is an FPRI bulletin intended for educators. According to FPRI, its scholars “are invited to testify on Capitol Hill, comment on national radio and television, and consult informally with U.S. government officials.” (1)

The officers of FPRI’s board of trustees are John Ball, chairman; Bruce Hopper, vice chairman; Marvin Wachman, vice chairman; Harvey Sicherman, president; Alan Luxenberg, vice-president; and Charles B. Grace, treasurer. Many of FPRI’s board members are corporate executives and owners of large companies, especially in the Philadelphia area. Among the corporations represented on FPRI’s board are Ashbridge (Charles Grace), Versus (Vincent Bell), Chesnut Capital (John Christy), R.A.F (Robert Fox), Deutsche Bank (Barbara Gohn), Dechert (Robert Freedman), Goldman Sachs (J. Eric Greenwood), Worldwide Associates (Alexander Haig), Hill Solutions (Peter Hamilton), American Management Systems (John Hillen), Jenkins & Co (Scott Jenkins), Lehman & Co. (John F. Lehman), Pragma Corporation (Devid Lucterhand and Stephen Moody), Quaker Chemical (Ronald Naples) Pegasus Communications (Marshall Pagon), Piasecki Aircraft (Frank Piasecki), Omni Management (J.G. Rubenstein), Innovest Group (Richard Woosnam), and Wurster Group (William Wurster). Trustee John M. Templeton is president of the Templeton Foundation. (2)

Current president and executive director Harvey Sicherman has been associated with FPRI since 1978.

Origins, History, and Impact

Viennese immigrant Robert Strausz-Hupé founded the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI) in 1955 after having taught at the University of Pennsylvania for 15 years. (3) Strauss came to the United States in 1923 and embarked on a successful career as a foreign investment adviser to U.S. financial firms. After a 20-year diplomatic career that began in 1969 when he was appointed ambassador to Ceylon, he returned to FPRI and became president emeritus. A strong supporter of the war on terrorism, Strausz-Hupé wrote in the Spring 2002 issue of Orbis: I have lived long enough to see good repeatedly win over evil, although at a much higher cost than need have been paid. This time, we have already paid the price of victory. It remains for us to win it.”

FPRI writers and in-house scholars routinely supported the Bush administration’s counterterrorism, Israel, missile defense, and anti-multilaterism policies. Applauding the Bush administration’s war on terrorism, FPRI president, writing in the Spring 2002 issue of Orbis, asserted: “This mission will soon make the Bush pragmatists new visionaries and not only safe from terrorism.”

Among the foreign policy analysts whose writing appears in FPRI publications are: (4)

Max Boot
Eliot Cohen
Donald Kagan
Frederick W. Kagan
Keith Payne
Richard Perle
George P. Shultz
Henry Sokolski
Arthur Waldron
George Weigel
R. James Woolsey
Dov S. Zakheim

Writing in FPRI’s E-Notes, Former Secretary of State George P. Shultz explained why the war on terrorism should not be bound by international law and institutions: “They seize control of state power to enhance their wealth, consolidate their rule, and develop their weaponry. As they do this, they claim the privileges and immunities of the international system, such as the principle of non-intervention. For decades these thugs have gotten away with it, and the leading nations of the world have let them. This is why the case of Saddam Hussein and Iraq is so significant. (5) During an FPRI lecture, former CIA director James Woolsey, who is a leading associate of the Project for the New American Century, said that international terrorists--linking al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein--hate America since “freedom itself is the threat they see to their own values.” (6)

Unlike many other right-wing think tanks, notably American Enterprise Institute, FPRI is a more traditionally conservative institution that underscores not only the need for a strong military but also for realism in international affairs. Trustee Alexander Haig has critiqued the globalism, democratic restructuring, and nation-building proposals of the neoconservatives: “Some members of one school [of foreign policy], described as “neoconservatives,” argue that if the terrorists want to remake the world in their image, then America’s answer should be to remake the world in our image. This school is impressed above all by America’s military strength. They have persuaded themselves that such strength, allied to American ideals, can overwhelm any foe. Indeed, at one point they even tried unsuccessfully to persuade others that China was the emerging foe! (7) (8)

Funding

Between 1985 and 2002, FPRI received over $4 million from numerous foundations, including the following right-wing foundations: Lynde and Harry Bradley, John M. Olin, Earhart, Smith Richardson, Sarah Scaife, and Carthage, which is one of Scaife family foundations. (9) The Capital Research Center also reports that the Boeing-McDonnell Foundation granted FPRI $5,000 in 1994 and 1996. FPRI also received $10,000 from the GE fund in 1996. In 1993, FPRI received $70,000 from the Annenberg Foundation. (10) The United States Institute of Peace granted FPRI $39,000 in 1996. (10)