The founding conference reflected the mix of academic and professional backgrounds that would come to characterize the Mont Pèlerin Society. A majority of university professors mingled with journalists (like Fortune's John Davenport, Henry Hazlitt from Newsweek, and Cicely V. Wedgwood of Time and Tide), foundation/think tank executives (Floyd A. Harper and Vernon Watts of the Foundation for Economic Education, Herbert Corneulle from Volker), and business executives (Albert Hunold heading the Swiss watch manufacturing association) and publishing houses (George Révay from Reader's Digest). … By 1951 several leading political figures, including Ludwig Erhard and Luigi Einaudi, were accepted, contradicting Hayek's claims of a rather draconian renunciation of political activism.

Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, loc. 128