Trilateral Commission

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The Trilateral Commission is a private organization, founded in July 1973, at the initiative of David Rockefeller, who pushed the idea of including Japan at the Bilderberg meetings he was attending but was rebuffed. Along with Zbigniew Brzezinski and a few others, including from the Brookings Institution, Council on Foreign Relations and the Ford Foundation, he convened initial meetings out of which grew the Trilateral organization.

1 History
2 Membership
3 See also
4 Further reading
5 External links

[edit] History

Its first executive committee meeting was held in Tokyo in October 1973. In May 1975, the first plenary meeting of all of the Commission's regional groups took place in Kyoto. Today it consists of approximatively 300–350 private citizens from Europe, Pacific Asia (Asia & Oceania), and North America, and exists to promote closer political and economic cooperation between these areas. Its official journal from its founding is a magazine called Trialogue.

Membership is divided into numbers proportionate to each of its three regional areas. These members include corporate CEOs, politicians of all major parties, distinguished academics, university presidents, labor union leaders and not-for-profits involved in overseas philanthropy. Members who gain a position in their respective country's government must resign from the Commission.

The organization has come under much scrutiny and criticism by political activists and academics working in the social and political sciences. The Commission has found its way into a number of conspiracy theories, especially when it became known that President Carter appointed 26 former Commission members to senior positions in his Administration; later it also came out that Carter himself was a former Trilateral member.

The North American continent is represented by 107 members (15 Canadians, seven Mexicans and 85 U.S. citizens). The European group has reached its limit of 150 members, including citizens from Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and United Kingdom.

At first, Asia and Oceania were represented only by Japan. However, in 2000, the Japanese group of 85 members expanded itself, becoming the Pacific Asia group, composed of 117 members: 75 Japanese, 11 South Koreans, seven Australian and New Zealand citizens, and 15 members from the ASEAN nations (Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand). The Pacific Asia group also includes nine members from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

[edit] Membership

The three current chairmen are:

Tom Foley: North America (Democratic Congressman, former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and ambassador to Japan);
Peter Sutherland: Europe (Irish businessman and former politician associated with the Fine Gael party; former Attorney General of Ireland and European Commissioner in the first Delors Commission; former director general of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the precursor to the World Trade Organization; Chairman of BP and Goldman Sachs International);
Yotaro Kobayashi: Pacific Asia (chairman of the Fuji Xerox company).

Some others who are or have been members:

George H.W. Bush: Former President of the U.S.
Jimmy Carter: Former President of the U.S.
Dick Cheney: Current vice-president of the U.S.
Bill Clinton: Former President of the U.S.
Hank Greenberg: Former chairman and CEO of American International Group (AIG), the world's largest insurance and financial services corporation.
Lee Raymond: Former CEO and Chairman, ExxonMobil, vice chairman of the Board of Trustees of the American Enterprise Institute, director of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., director and member of the Executive Committee and Policy Committee of the American Petroleum Institute.
David Rockefeller: Founder of the Commission; Chairman of the Chase Manhattan Bank board from 1969 to 1981; Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations from 1970 to 1985, now honorary Chairman; a life member of the Bilderberg Group.
Henry Kissinger: U.S. diplomat, National Security Advisor and Secretary of State in the Nixon and Ford administrations; former Chairman of the International Advisory Committee of JP Morgan Chase.
Zbigniew Brzezinski: U.S. National Security Advisor to U.S. President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981.
Paul Volcker: Chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve from 1979 to 1987, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Group of Thirty.
Paul Wolfowitz: President of the World Bank, former U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense and a prominent member of the neo-conservatives in Washington.
Gerald M. Levin: Former CEO of Time Warner, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Robert Zoellick: Deputy Secretary of State, formerly the U.S. Trade Representative.
Frank Carlucci: President of Carlyle Group, U.S. Secretary of Defense from 1987 to 1989.
William Cohen: Republican Congressman and Senator, U.S. secretary of Defense under President Clinton.
Mary Robinson: President of Ireland from 1990 to 1997 as a candidate for the Labour Party; United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1997 to 2002.
Sergei Karaganov: Presidential Advisor to Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin; member of the International Advisory Board of the Council on Foreign Relations from 1995 to 2005.
Jim Balsillie: Chairman and Co-CEO of Research In Motion.
Georges Berthoin: International Chairman of the European Movement from 1978–1981.
Ritt Bjerregaard: Danish Social Democrat MP, member of various cabinets; European Commissioner for Environment, Nuclear Safety and Civil Protection in the Santer Commission from 1995 to 1999.
John H. Bryan: former CEO of Sara Lee bakeries, affiliated with the World Economic Forum and a director on the Boards of Sara Lee, Goldman Sachs, General Motors, British Petroleum and Bank One.
James E. Burke: CEO of Johnson & Johnson from 1976 to 1989.
Catherine Ann Bertini: Former United Nations Under Secretary General in Management, former Director of World Food Program.
Gerhard Casper: Constitutional scholar, faculty member at Stanford University; successor trustee of Yale University and part of the Board of Trustees of the Central European University in Hungary.
Tim Collins: CEO of Ripplewood Holdings LLC investment company; also part of the Yale Divinity School and Yale School of Management board of advisors and U.S.-Japan non-profit organizations.
Bill Emmott: Former editor of The Economist magazine.
Dianne Feinstein: Democratic U.S. Senator, former mayor of San Francisco, member of the Council on Foreign Relations; ranking member of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security.
Martin Feldstein: Professor of economics at Harvard University; president and CEO of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers from 1982 to 1984; former director of the Council on Foreign Relations; member of the Bilderberg Group and of the World Economic Forum.
Hugh Fletcher: Chancellor of Auckland University and CEO of Fletcher Challenge.
David Gergen: Political consultant and presidential advisor during the Republican administrations of Nixon, Ford and Reagan; also served as advisor to Bill Clinton.
Allan Gotlieb: Canadian ambassador to Washington from 1981 to 1989, chairman of the Canada Council from 1989 to 1994.
Bill Graham: former Canadian Minister of National Defence and Minister of Foreign Affairs under Paul Martin; since 2006, interim parliamentary leader of the Liberal Party.
Mugur Isarescu: Governor of the National Bank of Romania since 1990 and prime minister from December 1999 to November 2000; he worked for the Minister of Foreign Affairs then for the Romanian Embassy in the U.S. after the 1989 Romanian revolution.
Otto Graf Lambsdorff: Chairman of the German Free Democratic Party from 1993 to 1998; Economic Minister for West Germany from 1977 to 1984.
Liam Lawlor: Irish politician who resigned from the Fianna Fáil party; died in a car-crash in Moscow in 2005.
Pierre Lellouche: French MP of the conservative Union for a Popular Movement party led by Nicolas Sarkozy.
Jorge Braga de Macedo
Kiichi Miyazawa: Japanese Prime minister in 1991–1993; Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1974 to 1976, Chief Cabinet Secretary from 1984 to 1986, Minister of Finance in 1987 and again from 1999 to 2002.
Akio Morita: Co-founder of Sony Corporation; vice-chairman of the Keindanren (Japan Federation of Economic Organizations) and member of the Japan-U.S. Economic Relations Group.
Andrzej Olechowski: Polish director of Euronet, USA; on the supervisory boards of Citibank Handlowy and Europejski Fundusz Hipoteczny; president of the Central European Forum; deputy governor of the National Bank of Poland from 1989 to 1991; minister of Foreign Economic Relations from 1991 to 1992; minister of Finance in 1992 and of Foreign Affairs from 1993 to 1995; economic advisor to president Lech Wałęsa from 1992 to 1993 and in 1995, etc.)
Carl Palme
Lucas Papademos: European Central Bank Vice-president.
Gerard C. Smith: First U.S. Chairman of the Commission; chief U.S. delegate to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks of 1969.
Jessica Stern: Former NSC staff member, author, and lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
George Vasiliou: President of the Republic of Cyprus from 1988 to 1993, founder and leader of the Cypriot United Democrats party.
Francisco Pinto Balsemão
Maldonado Gonelha
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa: Leader of the Social Democratic Party (Portugal) from 1996 to 1999.
Miguel Sousa Soares: Management Consultant, EMPORDEF, MDN (Portugal) from 2005.
Isamu Yamashita
Lorenzo Zambrano: Mexican chairman and CEO of CEMEX since 1985, the third largest cement company of the world; member of the board of IBM and Citigroup.

[edit] See also

[edit] Further reading

Memoirs by David Rockefeller, New York: Random House, 2002. Contains a brief history of the Commission's founding, composition of members and overall influence.
Trilateralism: The Trilateral Commission and Elite Planning for World Management by Holly Sklar, South End Press (November 1, 1980), 616 pages, ISBN 0-89608-103-6.
Trilaterals Over Washington, Vol. I and II by Antony C. Sutton and Patrick M. Wood, The August Corporation (1979/81), ISBN 0-933482-01-9.
American Hegemony and the Trilateral Commission (Cambridge Studies in International Relations) (collective), Cambridge University Press (November 7, 1991), 318 pages, ISBN 0-521-42433-X.
The Rockefeller triangle: A country editor's documented report on the Trilateral Commission plan for world government by Bill Wilkerson, Idalou Beacon (1980), 44 pages, ASIN B0006E2ZE4.
Who's who of the elite: members of the Bilderbergs, Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission, and Skull & Bones Society by Robert Gaylon Ross. - 2nd revision. - San Marcos, Tex : RIE, 2000, ISBN 0-9649888-0-1.
Tous pouvoirs confondus : État, capital et médias à l'ère de la mondialisation by Geoffrey Geuens, EPO (15 March 2003), 470 pages, ISBN 2-87262-193-8.