CFR Study Group on Money

I found this interesting. In his book, The Battle of Bretton Woods: John Maynard Keynes, Harry Dexter White, and the Making of a New World Order, Benn Stiel, in the acknowledgements, lists a Council of Foreign Relations study group. Among the  members he lists are:

Michael Blumenthal

Jim Grant

Walter Russell Mead

Amity Shlaes

and

Paul Volcker.

I emailed Benn to see if the Jim Grant he mentioned was the  Jim Grant of Grant's Interest Rate Observer.

Benn emailed back:

That's him - he was a member of the study group specifically for the book.

BTW, Austrian economists won't agree with all of the theoretical points made in The Battle of Bretton Woods, but the book is a work that provides very important historical background about the Bretton Woods meeting and also the major role played by Soviet agent Harry Dexter White. Benn also provides a fascinating portrait in the book of John Maynard Keynes. At one point Benn writes of Keynes:

He had an effortless facility with words that might have made him a master diplomat, had he actually been more concerned with converting opponents than with cornering them logically and humiliating them.

For the economist, and anyone interested in US, financial or economic history, the book will be a fun read and a page turner.

-RW