By Ellen Sorokin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The Trilateral Commission — long viewed by
critics and conspiracy theorists as a secret world-government-in-waiting — will
begin its annual meeting today in Washington to discuss the future of the
world's three main industrialized continents post-September
11.
Under the chairmanship of former
House Speaker Thomas S. Foley, the conference will gather 250 political,
business and academic leaders from Europe, North America and Japan, who will
analyze the global response to the September 11 terrorist attacks, the United
States' foreign policy and the situation in the Middle
East.
"The running line at this meeting is
definitely going, 'What do we do now, and where do we go from here?'" said
Francois Sauzey, the commission's press officer. As usual, all meetings and
panel discussions will be closed to the
public.
Prince El Hassan bin Talal of Jordan
will report on the Islamic world's contribution to globalization, and former
Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo will highlight his ongoing work on financing
development since the U.N. Monterrey
Conference.
Also, World Trade Organization
Director-General Mike Moore is scheduled to lead a panel discussion on the next
steps in the multilateral trading regime after his organization's recent Fourth
Ministerial Conference in Doha, Qatar, where the problems of developing
countries' implementing the WTO agreements were
discussed.
Other debates will focus on the
challenge of reducing poverty and financing development in lesser-developed
countries, economic reform and recovery in Japan, the state of the U.S. and
world economies, and China in the international
system.
Among other political leaders who are
expected to attend the three-day meeting are Vice President Richard B. Cheney,
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld,
Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan, former Secretary of State Henry
Kissinger, former U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata and former
head of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board Paul
Volcker.
The Trilateral Commission was founded
in 1973 by David Rockefeller, who was then chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank. A
few years later, the commission became a target of conspiracy theorists after at
least 25 commission members joined the Carter administration, including Vice
President Walter Mondale, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, Defense Secretary
Harold Brown and National Security Advisor Zbigniew
Brzezinski.
Since then, the commission has been
called a "shadow government," the "Establishment" and a "global elite" that runs
the world, among other things.
Lyndon H.
LaRouche Jr., a six-time presidential candidate who was convicted of conspiracy
charges, once said the commission is behind the international drug trade, and is
plotting to raise taxes on Americans and siphon the money overseas. Evangelist
Pat Robertson has said the commission "springs from the depth of something that
is evil."
Members of the 29-year-old commission
laugh off the conspiracy theories. Although it is a private organization, its
publications and memberships are public. "It's so absurd I can't help but, to
some extent, find it amusing," Mr. Rockefeller said in a 1996 interview with the
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
The commission also
invites as many as 10 news editors or reporters to attend the annual meeting.
"We're not a cult," Mr. Sauzey said. "These theories are total nonsense, but
they're fun to hear."
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020406-79741000.htm
THE END
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