Earlier this year, I was chatting with Richard Haass, the esteemed head of the US’s Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), when I casually asked him how I could become a member. After all, I have spent much of my life travelling around the globe and love participating in international debates of the type that the CFR think-tank stages so well.
The answer from Haass, however, was politely firm – and negative. “You can’t join, since you’re not American,” he observed. Never mind that the CFR prides itself on promoting international dialogue, or makes a point of welcoming journalists. Since the CFR was founded nine decades ago, its rules have insisted that “membership and term membership is restricted to US citizens (native-born or naturalised) and permanent residents who have applied to become citizens”. Someone like me, who has been living in New York as a British citizen on a work visa, does not qualify. To attend a CFR debate, I must be invited by a “proper” American citizen.
It is a thought-provoking little cultural wrinkle, particularly in a week when Britain has just appointed Mark Carney, a Canadian citizen, to serve as governor of its central bank. As it happens, I don’t have any objection to being (politely) excluded from the hallowed ranks of CFR membership. CFR friends invite me to events and any society has a right to set its own rules.