DON BELL REPORTS

A WEEKLY COMMENTARY

Year Twenty-Nine ... Number Twenty-Two ... June 4, 1982

Table of Contents

THE STRATEGY BEHIND ECONOMIC SUMMITRY

United States Communications Chief David Gergen calls it "public diplomacy." His reference is to the ten day presidential tour of the capital cities of Europe: Paris to confer with Socialist Mitterand of France. Then to Versailles for the Economic Summit. From there to Rome for an audience with the Pope. Next to London for dinner and a horseback ride with Queen Elizabeth II and a conversation with Margaret Thatcher at 10 Downing Street. Bonn comes next, where the 15 nations of NATO will have some serious discussions, followed by a trip to the Berlin Wall and finally an inspection of U.S. troops in West Germany. Sandwiched in between these personal appearances will be major addresses before the British and West German parliaments, and a speech at the Vatican -- all of which being live broadcasts by European television. "A lot of people in Europe have not seen Reagan and don't understand him," explained Communicator Gergen, "so this will be an attempt to introduce the man and his message."

His "message" consists of a series of appeasements and compromises. He will hold out great hopes for the arms limitation talks with the Soviets, beginning on June 29 in Geneva. He will promise that interest rates will drop. But this is a rather idle promise, because it is the independent Federal Reserve and not the Federal Administration which determines how high or low interest rates are going to be. And the strangest promise of all: Reagan will hold out hope for "a quasi-governmental program aimed at promoting democracy in developing countries and, where possible, in communist nations." Quite frankly, the people in most developing countries would interpret democracy as license to rebel and terrorize, and in communist countries the people already have their "people's democracy."

"Public diplomacy" is an apt name for this series of appearances by President Reagan. However, the Economic Summit at Versailles -- probably concluded as you read this Report -- is not public diplomacy in any sense. These annual Economic Summits are very private and very serious. For this is the nearest approach to World Government in action that is possible at this stage of the game. We'll explain later.

For this particular Economic Summit a vast amount of briefing on the part of President Reagan was necessary. Steven R. Weisman of The New York Times reported on May 30 that "in between horseback riding and clearing brush at his Santa Barbara ranch last week, President Reagan pored over a fat briefing book on the conference of leaders of the big industrial democracies that he will attend this week in Versailles. Before leaving for Europe on Wednesday, he will have studied five more briefing books on issues and personalities he will encounter." Also, AP reported that "Reagan spent much of the 7 1/2-hour flight studying three thick books of briefing papers."

This intense study of briefing books has more significance than one would suspect. This Economic Summit was not merely a meeting of the heads of seven governments getting together to talk over their mutual problems as Presidents, Prime Ministers and Chancellors of independent, sovereign nations. This was a meeting called, arranged and managed by the Trilateral Commission and the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). It was, therefore, very important to the leaders of the Supranational, or World Government, that the seven leaders of the national governments know exactly what was to be expected of them after the Summit had ended and the heads of government had gone home.

For these Economic Summits, from the Rambouillet Summit near Paris in 1975 to the Ottowa Summit of 1981 and the present Versailles Summit of 1982, the plans and programs submitted to the seven heads of government had to be studied beforehand, then discussed at the Summit, and implemented by each of the Trilateral Governments after the meetings had ended. It may be recalled that when the TLC and OECD arranged Economic Summits while Jimmy Carter was President of the leading nation of these seven trilateral countries, things didn't go quite as expected by the arrangers. To use an appropriate colloquialism, Carter made an ass of himself, did little good for the Planners of the New World Order and no good at all for the poeple of the United States. We can be sure the Trilateralists had no intention of permitting things to get out of hand at Versailles, and after Versailles. This time Ronald Reagan was to represent their interests, and Ronal Reagan was not one of their members. However, being surrounded by members of the CFR and the Trilateral Commission, things should go much better for the Supranational Government. There was a precedent. In his first term Richard Nixon had done things for the New World Order Planners that a Democrat could never have done and gotten by with. The ping-pong diplomacy and the opening of the gates to Red China, for example. Now with Ronald Reagan in the leader's seat, let's see if we can come up with a reasonable explanation for all those fat briefing books.

Now, Ronald Reagan was (and is) an actor, and a good one. His outstanding ability in that field has to do with his reading, and memorizing, difficult scripts. Some say he has a photographic memory. So, a far better way to be assured of Reagan's performance would be, not to have him coached by a Kissinger or Brzezinski, or even a Haig; but to have him study the scripts in private and in his own time. Like resting after a horseride or a brush clearing, or during a long ride in an air jet. By the time he arrived at Versailles, or Bonn where the NATO Summit would be held, he would be better letter perfect in his part.

Does this sound too harsh and denigrating when we discuss President Reagan? Well, let's remember that he has on his official team more members of the Council on Foreign Relations and Trilateral Commission and graduates, than Carter ever had. Remember, too, that almost every time Reagan makes a positive statement or official action that can be sincerely applauded by the "new right", a few days or weeks later he has found it necessary or expedient to reverse himself and accept some compromise or watered-down policy. Jeremiah Novak, in an article entitled Trilateral Governance, published in 1979, stated very candidly that:

"Policy making in the age of Trilateralism has shifted from the Congress and even from the Administration of the United States to the Supranational Summits, where it is directly influenced by the members of the Trilateral Commission, the supranational preparatory groups and the supranational OECD. President Carter is not the President of the United States, but the general manager of a subsidiary institution. Policy comes from the Summits to the Administration, and is not the desires of the American people or the people of the summit countries, who are unaware that the summits have been institutionalized into a semifederal supranational directory." What Novak said of Carter can also be said of Reagan, or of any other future President of the United States who may be selected for that office by this supranational institution. If we are to understand the important role of these annual Economic Summits, and if we are to understand U.S. Foreign and Economic Policy in 1982, it is necessary to trace the origin of these arranged conferences.

Henry Owen has been a long-time Director of Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution. He is a ranking, policy-planning member of the Council on Foreign Relations. As a charter member of the Trilateral Commission he assisted Commission Co-ordinator George Franklin and Commission Director Zbigniew Brzezinski in the training of Candidate Jimmy Carter in foreign policy affairs. Owen then stayed on as Special Representative on Economic Summitry under President Jimmy Carter, with the rank of U.S. Ambassador at Large. When Brzezinski broached to David Rockefeller the idea of creating the Trilateral Commission, it was Henry Owen who suggested that Trilateral Commission Summit meetings attended by members only would not be sufficient; that there also should be annual Economic Summits to be attended by the heads of state and/or government of the nations represented in the Trilateral Commission; espcially the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, West Germany, France, Italy and Japan. In 1968 Owen had written an article entitled Foreign Policy Premises for the Next Administration. He probably wrote it in the expectation that Hubert Humphrey would be the next President, but Richard Nixon won the election by a very narrow margin. In any case, Owen's blueprint was accepted by the Eastern Establishment, probably by President Nixon, definitely by Henry Kissinger. Owen declared that:

As director of foreign policy at the Brookings Institution, Henry Owen continued to press for creation of a "community of nations" at first composed of the United States, Canada, Japan and the industrial nations of Western Europe. In this he was joined by Zbigniew Brzezinski and others of the Rockefeller administration. In 1973 he served as editor of the Brookings Institution book entitled The Next Phase in Foreign Policy. In its preface he echoed his 1968 cry for a New World Order, and wrote that "The day when Americans could speak, as John Adams did, of producing a grand design that would illuminate the future of all mankind is gone ... In the seventies, the focus will shift to economic needs within the non-communist world, and these will have to be met multinationally, as our unilateral role diminishes. Helping to create a world order in which international action for this purpose can be mounted should be a chief objective of U.S. strategy in the post-cold war era we are now entering."

After the Trilateral Commission had been established, Owen then explained that Economic Summits of "the elite" would not be sufficent. There also should be Economic Summits to be attended by the heads of state and government. He wrote: "Bending the political prerogatives of the nation-state to the economic needs of interdependence will require that the larger political considerations involved be brought to the attention of the public. This is more likely to occur if negotiations can be launched with a powerful impulse involving the active participation of heads of government." What Owen proposed in 1973 became a reality in 1975 with the first Economic Summit held at Rambouillet. This accomplished, Owen then was joined by two other Trilateralists; Francois Duchene, Director of the Institute of Strategic Studies in London; and Kinhide Mushakoji, Director of the Institute of International Relates for Advanced Studies on Peace and Development in Tokyo. These three produced the Trilateral Commission's Triangle Papers; 2. Their proposal was that, to put it bluntly, the United States, Japan, England, France, West Germany and Canada cease governing themselves as though they were independent nation-states, and submit to management by "international institutions and inter-governmental mechanisms." The IMF, World Bank, OECD, GATT, and other international institutions would form segments of a world economic order, and the Summit Preparatory Committee, drawn from the ranks of the three sections of the Trilateral Commission, would become a kind of supranational administrative group that would make plans and programs for the nation-states, which now would be little more than subsidiary administrative branches of a world government. No longer would any nation be able to claim itself to be independent or sovereign.

In 1977 Henry Owen was named Special Representative of the President for Economic Summits, and President Carter gave him the rank of Ambassador at Large. This gave Owen an opportunity to complete the work of establishing that Preparatory Committee which was made up of carefully selected individuals from the U.S., Western Europe and Japan. This Preparatory Committee would "arrange for the agenda of subjects to be discussed, serve as an 'early warning system' with respect to potentially critical situations and, if necessary, recommend ad hoc Ministerial meetings." In other words, this Preparatory Committee sets up the agenda, and manages the Economic Summits on behalf of the Trilateral Commission and its affiliated international organizations.

However, much of this was merely window dressing. Because we are told that there is not just one Economic Summit such as the Ministerial Summit just concluded at Versailles. There is another Summit, being conducted simultaneously; a Summit attended by the money managers of the seven countries. And this is said to be the really important summit.

We have no authentic information about how this Versailles Summit was managed. But Jim Cochran, who was a member of Jimmy Carter's National Security Council Staff assigned to Henry Owen's office, in an interview wtih Michael Lord Chadwick, then editor of the Freemen Digest, published shortly after the Tokyo Summit of 1979, Jim Cochran referred to this Preparatory Committee as the Owen Preparatory Committee. Cochran explained that all joint decisions, policies and programs are worked out privately before the Economic Summit is called. Then the leaders of the industrial nations are called together at the Summit, and are told how these policies and programs are to be carried out by each nation.

"Jim Cochran," Chadwick explained, "stated that when a summit meeting is held there are really two summits being conducted simultaneously. One meeting is between the official heads of state, such as President Carter, etc. The other meeting is between the Finance Ministers, Special Representatives for Economic Summits, Treasury and State Officials, etc. This latter meeting, Mr. Cochran states, is the real summit meeting. The other meeting is held for the press to stimulate public acceptance of the joint decisions and programs worked out previously and finalized at the summit by the Preparatory Group." (Emphasis added)

As Freeman Digest concludes: "There has been a constant effort to converge the economies of the West. Each of the summit declarations demonstrates the evolutoinary movement of individual nations into a global system of governance. With each summit international institutions are being strengthened to facilitate the new demand of 'decision-making in an interdependent world.' With each summit more and more decisions which affect domestic policy are being made at the international level. The end of the nation-state and national sovereignty is being heralded by influential members of the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Atlantic Council, Brookings Institution, etc.

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