brain truster

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brain′ trust`er

a member of a brain trust.

[1930–35]

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Noun

brain truster - an expert adviser involved in making important decisions but usually lacking official status

backroom boy

adviser, advisor, consultant - an expert who gives advice; "an adviser helped students select their courses"; "the United States sent military advisors to Guatemala"

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References in periodicals archive ?

Kamen, by the way; also reports that doubts as to who would be formulating national security policy inside an Al Gore White House seemed removed last month when Gore's brain truster Leon Fuerth announced himself to 300 members of the Council on Foreign Relations as the "putative national security adviser."

Who's Who

These included Rexford Tugwell, the Brain Truster, and Frances Perkins, the Secretary of Labor.

The worst tax: how payroll taxes have hurt America's working class

Of all that was said at the opening of the Roosevelt administration, it's striking that the most sensible words came not from a Brain Truster but from Rogers--a former cowboy rope twirler, star of the Ziegfeld Follies, and movie actor.