Behind the Throne: Servants of Power to Imperial Presidents, 1898-1968

Abstract

During the American rise to world in the last hundred years, a new presidency has also arisen, a presidency that uses military, economic, political, and personal that the constitutional founders of the 1780s would have thought highly improbable and dangerous. Behind the Throne argues that United States presidents have received foreign policy advice from a new breed of government whose first loyalties were to the chief executive, not the bureaucracy or the public. These servants of power defined world views for the president, not only advising but often taking action to implement those world views. The essays in this volume focus on nine of power. Brooks Adams, brother of Henry Adams and advisor to Presidents McKinley and Roosevelt, greatly influenced early American expansionist thinking by supporting Frederick Jackson Turner's Frontier Thesis. Charles Conant, in the same era, profoundly affected America's economic relationship with Asia and Latin America. During the Wilson administration, Admiral William Caperton's views influenced foreign policy in the Caribbean and Latin America. Controlling J. P. Morgan's overseas investments, Thomas Lamont had direct access to and considerable influence upon every president in the 1920s and 1930s. Adolf Berle, advisor to Franklin Roosevelt, guided the United States' economic and security policies for the post-World War II era, preparing the way for both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. As members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Arthur Vandenberg and Senator Gerald P. Nye championed United States isolationist policies in the early years of the cold war. Vandenberg later turnedinternationalist and used his position as ranking Republican on the Committee to promote President Truman's foreign policies in Congress. His advice to Truman was crucial in the founding of the United Nations and the Organization of American States. Thomas Mann, Undersecretary of Sta