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A Straight Dope Classic from Cecil's storehouse of human knowledge
06-Nov-1987
Dear Cecil:
This may sound off the wall, but how about the straight dope on the Trilateral Commission?
All my life I've heard about this "secret" organization that supposedly actually
runs the world. What's the real story? --Alton F., San Antonio, Texas
Cecil replies:
Alton, you wound me. You should know by now the only person remotely together enough to
run the world is ... well, modesty forbids, but you just wouldn't believe what you can
accomplish with a home computer these days. (Sorry about that blip in the stock market, by
the way--I definitely gotta keep those floppies out of the taco sauce.)
But on to the Trilateral Commission, or TLC, as it's often coyly referred to. For
starters, unless you're a lad of very tender years, it's a safe bet you haven't been
hearing about the commission all your life, inasmuch as it was founded in 1973. Second, as
you probably already recognize, an organization that everybody already knows about hardly
qualifies as "secret." They're in the New York phone book, and if you ask
they'll send you a bunch of literature about the organization. Third, while it's
your constitutional right to be paranoid, you might at least try to be paranoid about
something reasonably up-to-date. The TLC-as-world-conspiracy theory peaked during the
early 80s, and has now pretty much gone the way of the hula hoop.
The Trilateral Commission is based on the quintessentially American notion that if we
could just get together and talk about stuff, we could solve all the world's problems.
Accordingly David Rockefeller, chairman of the Chase Manhattan bank, got together
several hundred opinion leaders from North America, Western Europe, and Japan (hence the
"tri-" in trilateral). They meet annually to hear speeches, participate in
seminars, and exchange idle gossip. In between times the commission puts together task
force reports on pertinent issues and publishes a magazine.
The TLC's first executive director was Zbigniew Brzezinski, and such well-known figures as
Walter Mondale, Caspar Weinberger, and Paul Volcker have been members. Also on the
rolls at one time, mainly because the commission needed some representation from the
South, was the then-governor of Georgia, Jimmy Carter. The prospect of spending hours
cooped up with the likes of Walter Mondale would probably send most of us screaming for
the exits. But Carter was an impressionable sort who found both the commission's meetings
and its members deeply fascinating. He got chummy with many of the latter and appointed
more than a dozen to posts in his administration, including Cyrus Vance, Michael
Blumenthal, and of course the redoubtable Brzezinski.
All of this was noted with great interest by the conspiracy buffs, but what really got
their juices flowing was the revelation during the 1980 presidential campaign that not
only was Carter a member of the commission, so were two of his potential opponents, John
Anderson and George Bush. Holy Illuminati, they screamed, the power elite is conspiring to
enslave us! They heaped poo on Jimmy and friends and flocked to nonmember Ron Reagan. But
then Ron went and signed up Bush and Weinberger, which set off the howling anew.
Among true believers, opinions about what the Trilateral Commission is up to fall
roughly into two categories: the merely dubious and the totally insane. The John Birch
Society and its confreres see the commission as the latest manifestation of the
international conspiracy that is trying to create a one-world totalitarian state, or at
least a New World Economic Order. (Before the TLC it was the Council on Foreign Relations
and an annual meeting of Western business leaders called the Bilderberg Conference.) The
less extreme view is that while the Trilateralists may be well intentioned, the clubby
atmosphere tends to create a climate of opinion (either socialist or fascist, depending on
whether you're on the far right or far left) that is inimical to America's real interests.
The controversy died out after a short time. Reagan even had a reception for commission
members in the White House in 1984. But obviously in a few dark corners the
anti-Trilateral flame still burns bright.
REPORT FROM (AS USUAL) BALTIMORE
Dear Cecil:
Twice in recent weeks you have mentioned the Illuminati in your column. In your answer to
the question about the Trilateral Commission, you stated that "an organization that
everybody already knows about hardly qualifies as secret."
If you know anything at all about the workings of the Illuminati, you must surely know
that they virtually always hide their "secrets" in plain sight.
They do this as a sign of their power, and also as a great cosmic joke at the expense of
the public (or "robots," as they condescendingly refer to them) because they
know that the vast majority of people are too dim to pick up on it.
All the clues are right under our noses and always have been. We just have to open our
eyes. An example is the "3172" that can be seen in the bushes at the left side
of the Lincoln Memorial on the reverse side of the five-dollar bill. It's a numerical
anagram of the 17/23 correlation.
This is an ideal way for the Illuminati to protect themselves.
Anyone who is perceptive enough to figure out what is going on is immediately branded a
crackpot and censured by the public or worse, a paranoid schizophrenic, and is thereby
censured by the state, i.e., hospitalized, where Illuminati-trained operatives have
special techniques designed to actually drive the person insane.
It puzzles me that a man of your intelligence and knowledge could scoff at the Illuminati
and compare the TLC conspiracy to a fad like the hula hoop. Have they gotten to you too?
Just in case, and to avoid any further attention from the Secret Chiefs of the Order, I'll
sign this ... --Adam Kadmon, Baltimore
Dear Adam:
The 17/23 correlation?
--CECIL ADAMS
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