[2] After discussing the idea with President Eisenhower later that year, Cousins began to organize a meeting between prominent citizens of the two countries.

The American participants at the first conference included Agnes DeMille, the choreographer; Walter Rostow, then an aide to John F, Kennedy; Grenville Clark, a prominent lawyer; and Senator William Benton of Connecticut.

[3] Subsequent conferences included Members of Congress, prominent scholars, industrialists, and former diplomats, but also Marian Anderson and Arthur Miller.

Indeed, in 1981, at the beginning of the Reagan Administration, Secretary of State Alexander Haig suggested points that the Americans should emphasize in their discussions at Dartmouth XIII.

In 2014, immediately following the outbreak of armed conflict in the eastern Ukraine, in which Russian fighters and heavy equipment were soon engaged, US-Russian contacts at the official level ceased.

The Bilateral Presidential Commissions created by Presidents Medvedev and Obama in 2009, in large part as a conflict management mechanism, was suspended.

The result was that neither official nor informal, citizen-based channels were available to find creative ways out of what appeared to many to be a rapidly developing new Cold War.

Building upon its historical role, the Kettering Foundation proposed to Vitaly Naumkin and Harold Saunders, co-chairmen of the Task Force on the U.S. - Russia Relationship, that the Dartmouth Conferences be renewed.

To assure the effectiveness of these conferences, each side sought and received support for this process at high levels of their governments.

Since 2014, the Russian contingent has been co-chaired by Vitaly Naumkin, director of the Institute of Oriental Studies, and Yuri Shafranik, former Energy Minister.

After vigorous discussion of the concerns expressed by each side about the actions of the other, the participants focused on identifying steps that could be undertaken jointly to re-inject positive elements into the relationship.

In this context, as the report of the American delegation noted, "Powerful, influential elements in the Russian leadership, as they affirmed and re-affirmed to us, continue to see Russia as a part of the broader Euro-Atlantic community.

These included, 1) reconvening the Bilateral Presidential Commissions, noting that their absence in a period of crisis was "a high price to pay;" 2) reconvening the NATO-Russia military council; 3) strengthening the conventional arms control regime in Europe; 4) deepening the Lavrov/Kerry dialogue on Syria with the objective of coordinating or at least keeping each other more fully informed of our approaches and strategies; and 5) in regard to the Islamic State, create a contact group to work on common approaches to such issues as controlling the flow of fighters, financing and possibly sharing ideas on the sensitive issue of Turkey's role in this conflict.

Dartmouth XX met at Airlie House in Warrenton, VA in late October 2015 to continue work on the broad agenda of US-Russia relations.

These had proven to be valuable[11] The idea of establishing task forces to discuss particular issues between conferences was raised at Dartmouth IX in 1975.

[12] In Saunders’ estimation, these qualities allowed the discussions to become more analytical and begin a process that he believed could be important in resolving conflict.

Immediately following the Russo-Georgian War in 2008, the Regional Conflicts Task Force initiated a new series of meetings focusing on addressing key issues in the U.S. - Russia relationship, from Ukraine and Georgia to Afghanistan, Syria, and the Islamic State.

As with the larger conference, each task force produces a specific set of recommendations that are communicated jointly to the two governments in face-to-face meetings.

The influence of the Regional Conflicts Task Force came to be essential to Dartmouth, especially after the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union collapsed.

The Arms Control Task Force began to meet in April 1983 under the leadership of Paul Doty and Georgy Arbatov.

After the Berlin Wall fell, the discussion of the task force began to include additional topics, such as the expansion of NATO and nuclear proliferation in the face of the dispersal of Soviet weapons among Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan.

One result of the meeting was that American members of the task force were able to contribute to efforts by the Soviets to draft a law on joint ventures.

It also broadened its activity past discussions among the participants to include creation of an NGO, the Public Committee for Democratic Processes (PCDP) designed to create dialogue about everyday problems at local and regional levels.