Twentieth Century Politics and Society

Abstract

This talk examines the impact of Hans Speier on the rise of the defense intellectual and the creation of the national security state. It argues that the experience of witnessing the rise of the Nazis and the collapse of the Weimar Republic convinced Speier and other German exiles that during moments of existential crisis they could not trust ordinary people to make wise political decisions, and therefore must develop institutions that provided intellectuals with the opportunity to shape foreign policy outside the public's and Congress's purview. This became a defining logic of U.S. foreign policymaking in the early Cold War and remains one today.