One could argue that German-­speaking economists profited from a similar aura of "oracular infallibility" at this critical moment in the 1960s when an ambitious application of worldwide Keynesianism encountered a conservative anti-­Keynesian backlash. One of Röpke's correspondents from Venezuela, who studied with Haberler at Harvard and ­later worked with the EEC, called Röpke a "prophet." One newspaper described him as "one of the high priests of ­free enterprise" and another compared him to "a skilled medical authority." The "wise men" who advised international financial institutions and ­later helped direct programs of structural adjustment enjoyed a similar status, achieving a kind of superhuman detachment in their expertise. In 1960, the West German, American, and British central bankers sent to India by the World Bank to provide advice on its Five-­Year Plan ­were referred to as the "three wise men." The West German Council of Economic Experts (Sachverständigenrat) created in 1963, was known commonly as the Five Wise Men (Fünf Weisen).

Quinn Slobodian, Globalists, loc. 539