Abstract

The Maxwell Affair

In November 2003, "Foreign Affairs," the prestigious journal of the United States Council on Foreign Relations, published a review of "The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability," a book by Peter Kornbluh, director of the National Security Archive's Chile Documentation Project. Written by the council's chief Latin America expert, Kenneth Maxwell, the review upset two former statesmen who figure prominently in the book and who also happen to be influential actors at the council: Henry Kissinger and his longtime associate William Rogers. In May 2004, after an acrimonious exchange between Rogers and Maxwell in Foreign Affairs--an exchange that Maxwell insists was abruptly curtailed as a result of pressure from Kissinger and Rogers--Maxwell resigned in protest from the council. His departure raises questions about intellectual freedom at the council; about editorial independence at "Foreign Affairs," where Maxwell spent eleven years as Western Hemisphere book reviewer; and about Kissinger's and Rogers's influence on the nation's pre-eminent foreign policy think tank. Maxwell's essay prompted a smoldering letter to the editor from Rogers, who worked under Kissinger at the State Department from 1974 to 1977 and is currently vice chair of Kissinger Associates. High-ranking sources at the council say that Kissinger and Rogers applied enormous pressure, directly and indirectly, on "Foreign Affairs" editor James Hoge--and on the council itself--to close off the debate.