The Enigmatic Trilateral Commission: Boon or Bane?

Trialogue (No. 2, November 1973).

Ibid.

Members of the Trilateral Commission serving in the Carter Administration were: Lucy Wilson Benson, Undersecretary of State for Security Assistance; C. Fred Bergston, Assistant Secretary of Treasury for International Affairs; W. Michael Blumenthal, Secretary of the Treasury; Robert Bowie, Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency; Harold Brown, Secretary of Defence; Zbigniew Brzezinski. Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs; Jimmy Carter, President ; Warren Christopher, Deputy Secretary of State; Richard Cooper, Undersecretary for Economic Affairs; Lloyd Cutler, White House Council; Hedley Donovan, Senior Advisor for Domestic and Foreign Policy and Media Relations; Richard Gardner, Ambassador to Italy ; Richard Holbrooke, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs; Samuel Huntington, Co-ordinator of National Security; Sol Linowitz, Special Mid-East Negotiator, later Co-negotiator of Panama Canal Treaties; Walter Mondale, Vice-President; Henry Owen, US Ambassador at Large (for Economic Summits); Elliot Richardson, US Ambassador at Large (for Law of the Sea); John Sawhill, Deputy Secretary of Energy; Gerard Smith, US Ambassador at Large (for Non-Proliferation); Anthony Solomon, Undersecretary of Treasury for Monetary Affairs; Cyrus Vance, Secretary of State; Paul Warnke, Director of US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency; Leonard Woodcock, Ambassador to Peking; Andrew Young, Ambassador to the United Nations; and Paul Volcker, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.

See for example Alan Stang's articles. 'What the Trilaterals Want from You', American Opinion (May 1980) and 'It's Time to Expose the Conspiracy', American Opinion (December 1980).

See Irving Kristol , ' The Trilateral Commission Factor ', Wall Street Journal, 16 April 1980; and Robert W. Lee , ' Confirming the Liberal Establishment ', American Opinion (March 1981).

See Holly Sklar (ed.) Trilateralism: The Trilateral Commission and Elite Planning for World Management (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1980).

See Laurence Shoup and William Minter , Imperial Brain Trust: The Council on Foreign Relations and United States Foreign Policy (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1977).

Jeremiah Novak , ' The Trilateral Connection ', Atlantic Monthly (15 July 1977).

See, for example, Laurence Shoup , 'Jimmy Carter and the Trilateral Presidential Roots', in Holly Sklar (ed.), op. cit.

Jimmy Carter , Why Not the Best (New York: Bantam Books. 1976).

Christopher Lydon ' Jimmy Carter Revealed: He's a Rockefeller Republican ', Atlantic Monthly (July 1977), pp. 50-57.

For a list of all current and former commissioners and his/her professional listing from the 1978-79 Who's Who, see Holly Sklar (ed.) op. cit.

Ibid., pp. 10-13,

Ibid., pp. 14-16.

Financial support during the first three years was solicited to cover a budget of approximately $1 million. It was provided by gifts from individuals and foundations, which included: David Rockefeller, David Packard, George Franklin, General Motors. Caterpillar Tractors, John Deere, Exxon, Texas Instruments, Coca-Cola, CBS, Wells Fargo, and the following foundations: Ford, Lilly, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Kettering, Volkswagen, Thyssen, German Marshall Fund and Sumitomo. New donors since then have included Honeywell, Cargill, Bechtel, and Weyerhauser. Over the years there has been a gradual increase in the donations from Canada, Europe and Japan. See, Thomas Ferguson and Joel Rogers , ' Another Trilateral Election ', The Nation (28 June 1980) and Holly Sklar (ed.), op. cit , p. 86 .

Trialogue (No. 8, Fall 1975).

David Rockefeller , ' Foolish Attacks on False Issues', excerpts from Remarks to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council , Wall Street Journal, 30 April 1980.

' Co-Prosperity Please ', The Economist (4 April 1981).

Robert Keohane , 'US Foreign Policy Towards Other Advanced Capitalist States: The Struggle to Make Others Adjust', in Kenneth Oye (ed.), Eagle Entangled: US Foreign Policy in a Complex World (New York: Longman, 1979 ), p. 91-122.

David Rockefeller , ' In Pursuit of a Consistent Foreign Policy', Remarks to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council , Vital Speeches of the Day (Vol. XLVI, No. 17, 15 June 1980).

See, for example, the collection of essays in the chapter entitled, 'Trying to Keep the Third World Safe for International Business', in Holly Sklar (ed.), op. cit, pp. 339-433.

Quoted in Robert Manning , ' A World Safe for Business ', Far Eastern Economic Review (22 April 1977).

Holly Sklar (ed.), op. cit, p. 63.

Edwin O. Reischauer , Towards the Twenty-First Century: Education for a Changing World (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1973).

Zbigniew Brzezinski , Alternatives to Partition ( New York: McGraw Hill, 1965).

Zbigniew Brzezinski , ' Peace and Power: Looking Towards the 1970s ', Encounter (November 1968).

Zbigniew Brzezinski , ' The Trilateral Relationship ' SAIS Review (Vol. 18, No. 4 1974), pp, 4-12.

Zbigniew Brzezinski , Between Two Ages: America's Role in the Technocratic Era (London: Penguin Books, Ltd , 1970).

Zbigniew Brzezinski , ' America in a Hostile World ', Foreign Policy (No. 23, Summer 1976).

Zbigniew Brzezinski , ' United States Foreign Policy: A Search for Focus ', Foreign Affairs (Vol. 51, No. 4, July 1973), pp. 708-727.

The following are the Trilateral Commission Task Force Reports ' The Triangle Papers' and their authors: No. 1. 'Towards a Renovated World Monetary System' (1973), Trilateral Monetary Task Force, Authors: Richard N. Cooper , Motoo Kaji , Claudio Segre ; No. 2. 'The Crisis of International Cooperation ' (1974), Trilateral Political Task Force, Authors: Francois Duchene , Kinhide Mushakoji , Henry D. Owen ; No. 3. 'A Turning Point in North-South Economic Relations' (1974), Trilateral Task Force on Relations with Developing Countries, Authors: Richard N. Gardner , Saburo Okita , B.J. Udink ; No. 4. 'Directions for World Trade in the 1970s' (1974), Trilateral Task Force on Trade, Authors: Guido Colonna de Paliano , Philip H. Trezise , Nobuhiko Ushiba ; No. 5. 'Energy: The Imperative for a Trilateral Approach' ( 1974), Trilateral Task Force on the Political and International Implications of the Energy Crisis, Authors: John C. Campbell , Guy de Carmoy , Shinichi Kondo ; No. 6. 'Energy: A Strategy for International Action' (1975), Trilateral Task Force on the Political and International Implications of the Energy Crisis, Authors: John C. Campbell , Guy de Carmoy , Shinichi Kondo : No. 7. 'OPEC. The Trilateral World, and The Developing Countries: New Arrangements for Cooperation, 1976-1980' (1975), Trilateral Task Force on relations with Developing Countries, Authors: Richard N. Gardner , Saburo Okita , B.J. Udink ; No. 8. 'The Crisis of Democracy' (1975), Trilateral Task Force on the Governability of Democracies, Authors: Michael Crozier , Samuel P. Huntington , Joji Watanuki ; No. 9. 'A New Regime for the Oceans ' (1976), Trilateral Task Force on the Oceans, Authors: Michel Hardy , Ann L. Hollick , Johan Jorgen Hoist , Douglas M. Johnson , Shigeru Oda ; No. 10. 'Seeking a New Accommodation in World Commodity Markets' (1976), Trilateral Task Force on Commodities Issues, Authors: Carl Beigie , Wolfgang Hager , Sueo Sekiguchi ; No. 11. 'The Reform of International Institutions' ( 1976), Trilateral Task Force on International Institutions, Authors: C. Fred Bergsten , Georges Berthoin , Kinhide Mushakoji ; No. 12. 'The Problem of International Consultations' ( 1976), Trilateral Task Force on Consultative Procedures, Authors: Edigio Ortona , J. Robert Schaetzel , Nobuhiko Ushiba ; No. 13. 'Collaboration with Communist Countries in Managing Global Problems: An Exmination of the Options' (1977), Trilateral Task Force on Constructive Trilateral-Communist Cooperation on Global Problems, Authors: Chihiro Hosoya , Henry D. Owen , Andrew Shonfield ; No. 14. 'Towards a Renovated International System' (1977), Trilateral Task Force on a Renovated International System, Authors: Richard N. Cooper , Karl Kaiser , Masataka Kosaka ; No. 15, ' An Overview of East-West Relations' (1978), Trilateral Task Force on East-West Relations, Authors: Jeremy R. Azrael , Richard Lowenthal , Tohru Nakagawa ; No. 16. ' Reducing Malnutrition in Developing Countries: Increasing Rice Production in South and Southeast Asia' (1978), Report of the Trilateral North-South Food Task Force, Authors: Toshio Shishido , D. Gale Johnson , Umberto Colombo ; No. 17. ' Energy: Managing the Transition' (1978), Trilateral Energy Task Force, Authors: John Sawhill , Kaichi Oshima , Hanns Maull ; No. 18. 'Collective Bargaining and Employee Participation in Western Europe, North America, and Japan' ( 1979), Trilateral Task Force on Industrial Relations, Authors: Benjamin Roberts , George Lodge , Hideaki Okamoto ; No. 19. 'Industrial Policy and the International Economy' ( 1979), Trilateral Task Force on Industrial Policy, Authors: William Diebold , Takashi Hosomi , John Pinder ; No. 20. 'Major Payments Imbalances and International Financial Stability ' (1979 draft), Trilateral Task Force on Payments Imbalances, Authors: Masao Fujioka , Bruce Mac-Laury , Alexandre Lamfalussy ; No. 21. 'Trade in Manufactures with Developing Countries: Reinforcing North-South Partnership ' (1980), Trilateral Task Force on North-South Trade, Authors: Albert Fishlow , Sueo Sekiguchi , Jean Carriere ; No. 22. 'Employment, Technological Progress, and Industrial Change' (1980), Trilateral Task Force on Labor Market Policies, Authors: Heinz Markmann , Tadashi Hanami , Richard Nelson : No. 23. ' The Trilateral Countries and the Middle East' (1981), Trilateral Task Force on the Middle East, Authors: Garret Fitzgerald , Arrigo Levi , Joseph J. Sisco.

Quoted in Holly Sklar (ed.), op. cit, p. 27.

Jeremy Azrael , et al., ' An Overview of East-West Relations ', Trilateral Commission Task Force Reports (No. 15 1978), p. vi .

Quoted in Jeremiah Novak, op. cit.

Michael Mandlebaum and William Schneider , ' The New Internationalism: Public Opinion and American Foreign Policy ', in Kenneth Oye (ed.), op. cit ; Richard Falk , ' Beyond Internationalism ', Foreign Policy {No. 24 Fall 1976); Robert Cox , ' Ideologies and the NIEO ', International Organization (Vol. 32, No. 2, 1979).

Michael Mandlebaum and William Schneider , op. cit

Ervin Laszlo (ed.) Goals of Mankind: A Report to the Club of Rome (London: Hutchinson Ltd., 1977).

Michael Crozier , Samuel Huntington and Joji Watanuki , The Crisis in Democracy (New York: New York University Press, 1975).

Quoted in James P. Sewell , ' Trade-offs of Trilateralism ', International Perspectives (No. 61 May/June 1977), pp. 30-44.

See Laurence Shoup and William Minter, op. cit.

Ibid., p. 255.

See ' An Exclusive Club, Perhaps Without Power, But Certainly With Influence ', The Times, 18 April 1978; and Robert Eringer , The Global Manipulators: Covert Power Groups of the West ( Bristol: Pentacle Books, 1980).

See Karl Kaiser , ' Transnational Relations as a Threat to the Democratic Process ', International Organization (Vol. 25, No. 2, 1971).

Thomas Kuhn , The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1962).

Richard J. Barnet , ' Carter's Patchwork Doctrine ', Harper's (August 1977), pp. 27-33; and Stanley Hoffmann , ' The Perils of Incoherence ', Foreign Affairs (Vol. 57. No. 3, 1979), pp. 463-491.

Stanley Hoffmann , Primacy or World Order: American Foreign Policy Since the Cold War (New York: McGraw Hill, 1978), p. 166.

Johan Galtung , The True Worlds: A Transnational Perspective (New York: Free Press, 1980), pp. 442-445.

Robert Heilbroner , The Worldly Philosophers ( New York: Simon and Schuster, 1953 ), p. 170.

Richard Ullman , ' Trilateralism: "Partnership" for What? ', Foreign Affairs (Vol. 54, No. 3, 1976), p. 12 .