Although the formal membership in the C.F.R. is composed of close to 1500 of the most elite names in the worlds of government, labor, business, finance, communications, the foundations, and the academy -- and despite the fact that it has staffed almost every key position of every administration since those of FDR -- it is doubtful that one American in a thousand so much as recognizes the Council's name, or that one in ten thousand can relate anything at all about its structure or purpose.