On returning from his visit to Germany and Czechoslovakia from 6 to 15 August 1938, Lord Allen wrote that he had engaged in ‘hours and hours of talk and NOTHING else whatever’. Could the same assessment also be true of the All Souls Foreign Affairs Group? The group, in fact, never reconvened after the postponement notice sent out on 4 July 1938. What then can be asserted with regard to the impact and historical significance of the All Souls Foreign Affairs Group? Indeed, what was its ‘true character and influence’? Although its history was documented in the papers accumulated during the nine meetings from 18 December 1937 to 15 May 1938, what subsequent role did the more prominent members play in the period leading up to the outbreak of World War II? In reality, the group served precisely the purposes designed by Salter and Allen, essentially acting as a ‘Brains Trust’. The discussions helped the individual members, with diverse experience and with divergent views, to clarify their positions on foreign and domestic policy. They then spoke, wrote publicly, and lobbied the press and the Foreign Office, confident that the issues had been analysed by some of the best elite minds of the period.