Founded in 1921, the Council on Foreign Relations is an independent, national membership organization and a nonpartisan center for scholars, dedicated to producing and disseminating ideas on foreign relations. The Council is headquartered in New York with an office in Washington, DC.

The activities and programs of the Council on Foreign Relations are designed and structured in the way that individual and corporate members as well as policymakers, journalists, students and interested citizens in the United States and other countries can better understand the world and the foreign policy choices, facing the United States and other governments.

The Council on Foreign Relations organizes meetings in New York, Washington and in other American cities, where senior government officials, global leaders and prominent thinkers come together with Council members to debate and discuss the major foreign policy issues of our time. The Council also maintains a wide-ranging studies program, where Council fellows produce articles and books that analyze foreign policy issues and make concrete policy recommendations.

The Council's Studies program is a vital part of the organization's mission to create and distribute a variety of ideas on foreign affairs to all bodies concerned. The Studies program joins over forty scholars, called fellows. Their joined expertise covers almost each issue, related to foreign relations and policies. Some scholars are dedicated experts on particular countries, such as China and Egypt or on geographical regions like Asia and Europe. The others specialize in functional areas, such as homeland security, international finance and public health. The scholars write books, articles and newspaper reviews on issues in their work areas. They share their knowledge and expertise with local, regional, national and international media, thus appeal to broad world audiences.

One of the most outstanding special reports is "Preventing Catastrophic Nuclear Terrorism", recently submitted by Charles D.Ferguson, a fellow for science and technology at the Council on Foreign Relations. The author makes a continuous research in the area of nuclear terrorism. In particular, Charles D.Ferguson co-directed a project that systemically assessed how to prevent and respond to nuclear and radiological terrorism at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies of the Monterey Institute of International Studies.

Preventing Catastrophic Nuclear Terrorism is a comprehensive work on this crucial subject, which reveals what is actually needed to decrease the possibility of nuclear terrorism. The author offers direct recommendations of how the USA as well as other countries can fill the gaps in the nuclear policies.

The organization also publishes Foreign Affairs, a leading journal covering the international affairs, the U.S. foreign policy and global politics and provides up-to-date information about the world and the U.S. foreign policy on the Council's website, www.cfr.org. The variety and con tents of reports, published by the authors and scholars of the Council on Foreign Relations, impress with their efficient approaches to world problems and their solutions.