History
FPRI was founded by Ambassador Robert Strausz-Hupé. A native of Vienna, Strausz-Hupé immigrated to the United States in 1923 to work as an investment banker. Alarmed by the 1938 Anschluss, he began to lecture on the dangers posed by Nazi Germany, which in turn led to a teaching position at the University of Pennsylvania in 1940, where he also earned his masters and doctoral degrees.
Dissatisfied with the containment strategy of John Foster Dulles and the Eisenhower Administration's foreign policy in general, he founded FPRI in 1955 with support from the University of Pennsylvania and the Smith Richardson Foundation. In 1957 publication commenced of the Institute's quarterly, Orbis. Among FPRI's notable early scholars were Hans Kohn, William Kintner, Henry Kissinger, James Schlesinger, and Lawrence Krause.
For most of its history, FPRI was deeply immersed in the intellectual prosecution of the Cold War. It urged the Western world to unite under the leadership of the U.S. to combat the Soviet Union and international communism. In doing so, however, it drew increasing criticism—notably, by name from Senator William Fulbright—and became increasingly marginalized from academia; it became independent of Penn in 1970. Ironically, it would also be the start of Strausz-Hupé's twenty-year career as a diplomat, when Richard Nixon appointed him Ambassador to Ceylon.
Its peak of influence was during the Reagan Administration, when it was under the leadership of Daniel Pipes, Since the end of the Cold War it has refocused on other projects: notably, it has identified a special focus on education in international affairs, sponsoring various programs in Philadelphia area schools as well as conferences and seminars for high school and junior college teachers and lectures for the general public.
The US-led War on Terrorism is a central topic of FPRI research. In March 2003, it received a grant from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to study sources of potential terrorist threats to the state, and how to manage the risks.
Its primary fundraising event is the Institute's "Annual Dinner", which typically attracts 400 FPRI members in the Philadelphia area, local news media, and the contributions of various companies, including PECO Energy and Boeing. Past speakers have included such notaries as Henry Kissinger and Robert Zoellick. In 2012, the speaker will be Walter Russell Mead.
In more recent years, FPRI has partnered with the Reserve Officers Association, where they have jointly hosted lectures on topics of interest to both the military and the wider international affairs community. FPRI has also begun to hold "salons" - in the French Enlightenment style - in New York City and elsewhere, where they invite local notaries and dignitaries to attend special lectures from the Institute's prime scholars.
On February 1st 2012, it named a new President, Alan Luxenberg, a long-time employee and formerly Vice President of the Institute.
Read more about this topic: Foreign Policy Research Institute
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