Salaries of Top Think Tank Leaders

If you ever wondered how well think tanks pay, Washingtonian magazine has compiled some data from James McGann's ongoing work (data below is from 2008) on the top think tanks top men and women. 

• The Brookings Institution, led since 2002 by former deputy secretary of State Strobe Talbott. Salary: $425,000

• The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, led since 1997 by Jessica Tuchman Mathews, former head of the World Resources Institute environmental think tank. Salary: $542,155.
  

• The Council on Foreign Relations, led since 2003 by Richard Haass, head of policy planning under Secretary of State Colin Powell. Salary: $664,000.

• The Rand Corporation, led by James Thomson, a former nuclear physicist and Pentagon official. Salary: $554,727.

• The Heritage Foundation, led since 1977 by Ed Feulner. Salary: $947,999.

• The Center for Strategic and International Studies, led by John Hamre, deputy secretary of Defense under President Clinton. Salary: $418,544.

• The Cato Institute, led by founder Edward Crane. Salary: $438,750.

• The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, led by Lee Hamilton, a former Indiana congressman and vice chair of the 9/11 Commission. Salary: $371,856. (Think Tanked note: Hamilon announced his retirement in May)

• The American Enterprise Institute, led since 2009 by Arthur Brooks, who was a business and government professor at Syracuse University. Salary of his predecessor: $675,000.

• The Hoover Institution, part of Stanford University, led by John Raisian, a government economist with the federal government. Salary not available.

Comments

[Moe]

Interesting that AEI and Heritage salaries are the highest, when in fact - for Heritage anyway - their impact outside the right wing noise machine is negligible.

[David Boyajian]

Dear ThinkTankedBlog and Allen McDuffee:

Many people do not know that the Woodrow Wilson Center is a public institution established by Congress and receives taxpayer funds. We must bear this in mind when considering Lee Hamilton's$371K salary listed above.

One wishes Mr. Hamilton all the best on his retirement, but the Woodrow Wilson Center (WWC) has received much deserved criticism due to his and the WWC’s decision to honor Turkish Foreign Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu with a “Public Service Award” in Turkey on June 17.

The truth is that the WWC (1/3 funded by the US taxpayer) is knee-deep in highly questionable cash donations provided by Turkish-affiliated corporations.

This investigative piece explains how:

http://www.countercurrents.org/boyajian060510.htm

A descendant of President Wilson’s family, Donald Wilson Bush, has twice blasted the WWC and Mr. Halilton for disregarding the mandate assigned to it by the US Congress in 1968 (the WWC is part of the Smithsonian Institution, and Hillary Clinton sits on the WWC board):

http://www.armenianlife.com/PawnForTheWrongPresident.html

http://www.armenianlife.com/PresLegacyforSale.html

Congressman Gary Ackerman (D- NY) recently wrote a widely circulated letter to Mr. Hamilton criticizing the Wilson Center for its award to Turkey's Davutoglu, among other things:

http://ackerman.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=186&sectiontree=4,186&itemid=1029

Many others have also criticized the WWC for its ineptitude. For example:

http://pajamasmedia.com/claudiarosett/yep-the-wilson-center-is-honoring-the-foreign-minister-of-turkey/ (Article by Claudia Rossett)

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?=ZjMwOTU0ZTQzM2ZjODkwMDRhOTQxMDI2NmNiOTc1YTM=

Let us hope that before Lee Hamilton leaves he will reform the WWC so that it complies with the law and becomes an institution that the American people can be proud of. This will decide what Mr. Hamilton’s legacy will be.

Regardless, Congress and the US taxpayer will be closely scrutinizing the WWC.

[a2b4u2]

Ed Feulner's worth every penny.