Historical advisers council proposed

Harvard professors: Presidents need help

BOSTON — Imagine a dream team of the nation’s top historians, recruited by the White House to advise the president on major decisions. That’s the idea being pitched by two Harvard University scholars who say many U.S. leaders know alarmingly little about history, both of their own country and of others.

Professors Graham Allison and Niall Ferguson are calling on the next U.S. president to create a Council of Historical Advisers that would tackle present problems by looking to the past.

Trying to take down a terrorist group? The council would scour historical records to find similar groups, and then analyze which strategies worked against them.

Facing a financial crisis? The council would glean lessons from past meltdowns and report their findings to the president.

“I think there would be more than enough work for a council of applied historians,” said Allison, a professor of government and director of Harvard’s Belfer Center, a university think tank.

In an online manifesto published this month, the professors said they aim to close a “history deficit” in the White House. They contend that few leaders from any presidential administration have shown a deep understanding of history in the Middle East, for example, or of the United States’ involvement in the region.

Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., and a former history professor, said in an interview that the council would have value only if the president wanted its advice. Still, Cole said he supports the idea.

“We need leaders to understand the importance of making historically informed decisions. Most of them don’t,” Cole said.

“The idea that historians would reach consensus on anything is a lovely idea that’s not well borne out in practice,” said Jon Alterman, a senior vice president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank in Washington, D.C.