A little further reading into the Bldg 7 issue begs this simple question. Wouldn't rigging the building for explosives been very obvious to those who worked there? Was the entire bldg staff in on this thing? Starting to look fishy.
Agreed.....and with any Conspiracy Theory the first and most important question is...WHY??
A little further reading into the Bldg 7 issue begs this simple question. Wouldn't rigging the building for explosives been very obvious to those who worked there? Was the entire bldg staff in on this thing? Starting to look fishy.
I can't be arsed to look stuff up and link here now (too busy actually working) but I've read some reasonable explanations
A little further reading into the Bldg 7 issue begs this simple question. Wouldn't rigging the building for explosives been very obvious to those who worked there? Was the entire bldg staff in on this thing? Starting to look fishy.
For me, one of the greatest flaws with conspiracy theories is that they require government to act in an intelligent, efficient manner. Anybody who's worked in government can tell you how absurd a proposition this is. Or maybe they're part of the conspiracy...
I have changed my position from Lihop to Lihbm (Let it happen by mistake)
But all you skeptics of the skeptics, be aware that I'm skeptical of you and your motivations for being skeptical of the skeptics. GET ON MY LEVEL. Challenge Everything. Just Do It. I am real. Now More Than Ever. The More You Know. Mmm-mmm Good.
Don't you know that out of respect of the victims that you're not supposed to consider and especially not talk about what really happened on 9/11? Just believe the official story wholsale and buy some NYCFD garb already.
Just believe the official story wholsale and buy some NYCFD garb already.
When or where ever there is a tragic event you can bet that there will be people who are opportunists and either try to, or already have, figured out how to make $$$ as a result of the tragedy.
These Opportunists are leeches, scavengers who take advantage and make profit on people's misery.....scum.
But by no means are they smart enough, nor powerful enough, to have actually caused and covered up these tragic events themselves.
They're like the people who see a terrible accident but instead of trying to save a victims life they steal his wallet.
Anytime you hear a conspiracy theory in this day and age that would require 100's or possibly 1,000's of people to have co-operated and keep quiet you can bet it's bogus.
Commentary courtesy of Grolsch Blonde / A Product of Holland.
Just believe the official story wholsale and buy some NYCFD garb already.
When or where ever there is a tragic event you can bet that there will be people who are opportunists and either try to, or already have, figured out how to make $$$ as a result of the tragedy.
These Opportunists are leeches, scavengers who take advantage and make profit on people's misery.....scum.
But by no means are they smart enough, nor powerful enough, to have actually caused and covered up these tragic events themselves.
They're like the people who see a terrible accident but instead of trying to save a victims life they steal his wallet.
Anytime you hear a conspiracy theory in this day and age that would require 100's or possibly 1,000's of people to have co-operated and keep quiet you can bet it's bogus.
Commentary courtesy of Grolsch Blonde / A Product of Holland.
Rock I appreciate your scepticism about gov't efficiency. Paper pushers are not the most motivated people. But don't let that confuse you about who is running things. The intelligence service has proven rather apt at getting things done over the years. And furthermore the people who run the agencies are smart, crazy smart. But you make a good point about the problems in pulling off something the scope of 9/11. It just doesn't pass the smell test.
The speakers were Annie Machon, David Shayler, ex-MI5 agents who were pretty sure 911 was an inside job, Ian Henshall co-author of 911 Revealed who gave a survey of the various theories and the missing evidence, and lecturer Bill Durodi?? in support of the official story.
[This report has not been checked with the other participants it is for background use in response for numerous requests for some material on this very popular and successful meeting. It is circulated in haste to 911 Truth Campaigners and the media, many of whom have been asking for transcripts. The meeting was filmed and the Oxford Union would consider providing the material to interested news organisations (full transcripts likewise but the cost would be approximately ??200 for secretarial fees)]
The meeting took the form not of a traditional debate but of a forum, partly because the US Embassy had refused to send a speaker. It attracted a turnout of over 300, vastly more than similar events. Oxford Union President Sapona Agrawal said afterwards that she had had many messages congratulating the Union on holding the debate.
Annie Machon said that from her personal knowledge of how the spy world works it was absolutely possible that 911 was an inside job, the influence of MI5 in Fleet Street was far greater than most people realised and the penetration of the political world, particularly left wing groups, was very thorough. This might explain why the media and most political leaders had been convinced the official 911 story was true.
David Shayler said that it was certain that MI6 had worked with Al Qaeda and that many individuals in the intelligence agencies had a complete contempt for the law. He focused on details of the collapse of the Twin Towers and the supposed airliner attack on the Pentagon as clear instances of why the official story of 911 could not be right.
Ian Henshall said there were three main approaches, the official story (in which he included gross incompetence by officials), the notion that the attacks were deliberately allowed to happen and thirdly that they were engineered, in an update of the Pentagon's documented Operation Northwoods plot to fake a plane shootdown over Cuba. He said that the striking thing in working on his book was that most of the issues could be cleared up if only the US authorities had not seized vital evidence and refused to reveal it. Moreover there was a pattern of intimidation of witnesses and dishonesty by the 911 Commission. There was a strong likelihood at least of complicity, even add-ons to an Al Qaeda plot, and until the evidence was produced an Operation Northwoods type hoax could not be ruled out. It is agreed the anthrax attacks with US weapons grade anthrax were indeed an add-on to the 911 attacks, he said.
Bill Durodie expounded the view known to sociologists as conspiracism. This holds that with no real mainstream politics any more, disenfranchised people are believing in "infantile" conspiracy theories because there is nothing else. His department had counted over sixty rumours about the 911 attacks. He had little to say about the 911 attacks themselves. He drew little distinction between different conspiracy theories. He said the media would be only too keen to report 911 conspiracy theories if there was anything in them.
During the subsequent discussion a number of questioners supported Durodie's line, one said that many Democrats hated Bush and would certainly have raised the alarm if they were suspicious. Shayler and Machon said that their experience with the media was the living proof that when really important issues come up the media is easily cowed by the state. Henshall said most Washington Democrats were not a serious opposition as their continued support, in defiance of their supporters, for the Iraq war showed, and that Durodie seemed to be using the expression conspiracy theory as a term of abuse against anyone who believed the government was lying.
A similar number of questioners were well-informed 911 sceptics asking detailed questions about the collapse of the Towers and the Pentagon and recommending various informational web sites and dvds.
There was no vote taken.
Note on Conspiracism
Conspiracism contains veiled appeals to the traditional Left but originates in Durkheim's theory of anomie, generally regarded as a right wing response to the sociology of Karl Marx. It was promoted by supporters of the official story on the Kennedy assassination (long debunked by the House Committee on Assassinations): uneducted lower class disenfranchised "white trash" were believing wild stories becasue they had nothing else to believe. The message from Durodie was that conspiracy theories are "dangerous", which could be taken as a covert hint to media editors that they should be censored. I have heard that leading 911 sceptic David Ray Griffin was attacked in similar terms on Amy Goodman's west coast programme Democracy Now. In the UK this analysis is associated with a group originally around Living Marxism magazine but who are generally regarded with suspicion by most on the left. They get generous access to the mainstream media, making sound points on media distortions of eg health scares, but more often attacking Greenpeace and the anti-globalisation movement.
The Trilateral Commission was formed in 1973 by private citizens of Japan, Europe (European Union countries), and North America (United States and Canada) to foster closer cooperation among these core democratic industrialized areas of the world with shared leadership responsibilities in the wider international system. Originally established for three years, our work has been renewed for successive triennia (three-year periods), most recently for a triennium to be completed in 2006.
When the first triennium of the Trilateral Commission was launched in 1973, the most immediate purpose was to draw together???at a time of considerable friction among governments??? the highest level unofficial group possible [/b] to look together at the key common problems facing our three areas. At a deeper level, there was a sense that the United States was no longer in such a singular leadership position as it had been in earlier post-World War II years, and that a more shared form of leadership???including Europe and Japan in particular???would be needed for the international system to navigate successfully the major challenges of the coming years.
Two strong convictions guide our thinking for the 2004-2006 triennium. First, the Trilateral Commission remains as important as ever in helping our countries fulfill their shared leadership responsibilities in the wider international system and, second, its framework needs to be widened to reflect broader changes in the world. Thus, the Japan Group has become a Pacific Asian Group, and Mexican members have been added to the North American Group. The European Group continues to widen in line with the enlargement of the EU. We are also continuing in this triennium our practice of inviting a number of participants from other key areas.
The ???growing interdependence??? that so impressed the founders of the Trilateral Commission in the early 1970s is deepening into ???globalization.??? The need for shared thinking and leadership by the Trilateral countries, who (along with the principal international organizations) remain the primary anchors of the wider international system, has not diminished but, if anything, intensified.[/b] At the same time, their leadership must change to take into account the dramatic transformation of the international system. As relations with other countries become more mature???and power more diffuse???the leadership tasks of the original Trilateral countries need to be carried out with others to an increasing extent.
The members of the Trilateral Commission are about 350 distinguished leaders in business, media, academia, public service (excluding current national Cabinet Ministers), labor unions, and other non-governmental organizations from the three regions.[/b] The regional Chairmen, Deputy Chairmen, and Directors constitute the leadership of the Trilateral Commission, along with an Executive Committee including about 40 other members.
The annual meeting of Trilateral Commission members rotates among the three regions. It was held in Washington in 2005, Warsaw in 2004, and Seoul in 2003. The 2006 plenary will be held in Tokyo. The agendas for these meetings have addressed a wide range of issues, an indication of how broadly we see the partnership among our countries. Presentations from these meetings have been published in the Commission's (Trialogue) series and/or posted under Recent Activity on this web site.
The project work of the Trilateral Commission generally involves teams of authors from our three regions working together for a year or so on draft reports which are discussed in draft form in the annual meeting and then published. The authors typically consult with many others in the course of their work. The task force reports (Triangle Papers) to the Trilateral Commission have covered a wide range of topics.
The regional groups within the Trilateral Commission carry on some activities of their own. The European Group, with its secretariat based in Paris, has an annual weekend meeting each fall. The North American Group, with its secretariat based in Washington D.C. began North American regional meetings in 2002 and occasionally gathers with a special speaker for a dinner or luncheon event. The new Pacific Asian Group, with its secretariat based in Tokyo, began regional meetings in 2000. Each region carries on its own fund-raising to provide the financial support needed for the Trilateral Commission???s work.
Executive Committee Stelios Argyros, Chairman and Managing Director, Preveza Mills, Athens; former Member of the European Parliament; Chairman of the Board, STET Hellas; former Vice President of UNICE, Brussels; former President and Chairman of the Board of the Federation of Greek Industries, Athens Erik Belfrage, Senior Vice President, Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken; Director, Investor AB, Stockholm C. Fred Bergsten, Director, Institute for International Economics, Washington DC; former U.S. Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs Georges Berthoin, International Honorary Chairman, European Movement; Honorary Chairman, The Jean Monnet Association; Honorary European Chairman, The Trilateral Commission Jorge Braga de Macedo, President, Tropical Research Institute, Lisbon; Special Advisor to the Secretary General, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Paris; Professor of Economics, Nova University at Lisbon; Chairman, Forum Portugal Global; former Minister of Finance Zbigniew Brzezinski, Counselor, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington DC; Robert Osgood Professor of American Foreign Affairs, Paul Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University; former Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs Fran??ois Bujon de l'Estang, Ambassadeur de France; Chairman, Citigroup France, Paris; former Ambassador to the United States Richard Conroy, Chairman, Conroy Diamonds & Gold, Dublin; Member of Senate, Republic of Ireland Vladimir Dlouhy, Senior Advisor, ABB; International Advisor, Goldman Sachs; former Czechoslovak Minister of Economy; former Czech Minister of Industry & Trade, Prague Bill Emmott, Editor, The Economist, London Nemesio Fernandez-Cuesta, Executive Director of Upstream, Repsol-YPF; former Chairman, Prensa Espa??ola, Madrid Michael Fuchs, Member of the German Bundestag; former President, National Federation of German Wholesale & Export Traders, Berlin Antonio Garrigues Walker, Chairman, Garrigues Abogados y Asesores Tributarios, Madrid Toyoo Gyohten, President, The Institute for International Monetary Affairs; Senior Advisor, The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, Ltd., Tokyo Stuart Harris, Professor of International Relations, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University; former Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, Canberra Carla A. Hills, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Hills & Company, Washington, DC; former U.S. Trade Representative; former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Toomas Hendrik Ilves, Member of the European Parliament; former Estonian Foreign Minister and Member of the Parliament, Tallinn; former Ambassador to the United States, Canada and Mexico Mugur Isarescu, Governor, National Bank of Romania, Bucharest; former Prime Minister of Romania Max Jakobson, Independent Consultant and Senior Columnist, Helsinki; former Finnish Ambassador to the United Nations; former Chairman of the Finnish Council of Economic Organizations Baron Daniel Janssen, Chairman of the Board, Solvay, Brussels B??la Kadar, Member of the Hungarian Academy; Member of the Monetary Council of the National Bank; President of the Hungarian Economic Association; former Ambassador of Hungary to the O.E.C.D., Paris; former Hungarian Minister of International Economic Relations and Member of Parliament Lord Kerr, Member of the House of Lords; Director
of Rio Tinto, Shell, and the Scottish American Investment Trust, London; former Secretary General, European Convention, Brussels; former Permanent Under-Secretary of State and Head of the Diplomatic Service, Foreign & Commonwealth Office, London; former British Ambassador to the United States Otto Graf Lambsdorff, Partner, Wessing Lawyers, D??sseldorf; Chairman, Friedrich Naumann Foundation, Berlin; former Member of German Bundestag; Honorary Chairman, Free Democratic Party; former Federal Minister of Economy; former President of the Liberal International; Honorary European Chairman, The Trilateral Commission, Paris Lee Hong-Koo, Chairman, Seoul Forum for International Affairs; former Prime Minister of Korea; former Ambassador to the United Kingdom and the United States Cees Maas, Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer of the ING Group, Amsterdam; former Treasurer of the Dutch Government Roy MacLaren, former Canadian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom; former Canadian Minister of International Trade; Toronto, ON Minoru Makihara, Senior Corporate Advisor, Mitsubishi Corporation, Tokyo Sir Deryck C. Maughan, former Vice Chairman, Citigroup, New York Kiichi Miyazawa, former Member of the House of Representatives; former Finance Minister of Japan, former Prime Minister of Japan, Tokyo Minoru Murofushi, Counselor, ITOCHU Corporation, Tokyo Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Distinguished Service Professor at Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA; former Dean, John F. Kennedy School of Government; former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Yoshio Okawara, President, Institute for International Policy Studies; former Japanese Ambassador to the United States, Tokyo Silvio Scaglia, Managing Director, Fastweb, Milan; former Managing Director, Omnitel Guido Schmidt-Chiari, Chairman, Constantia Group; former Chairman, Creditanstalt Bankverein, Vienna Carlo Secchi, Professor of European Economic Policy, Bocconi University, Milan; former Member of the Italian Senate and of the European Parliament T??ger Seidenfaden, Editor-in-Chief, Politiken, Copenhagen Thorvald Stoltenberg, President, Norwegian Red Cross, Oslo; former Co-Chairman (UN) of the Steering Committee of the International Conference on Former Yugoslavia; former Foreign Minister of Norway; former UN High Commissioner for Refugees Petar Stoyanov, President, Centre for Political Dialogue, Sofia; former President of Bulgaria George Vassiliou, Head of the Negotiating Team for the Accession of Cyprus to the European Union; former President of the Republic of Cyprus, former Member of Parliament and Leader of United Democrats; Nicosia Paul Volcker, former Chairman, Wolfensohn & Co., Inc., New York; Frederick H. Schultz Professor Emeritus, International Economic Policy, Princeton University; former Chairman, Board of Governors, U.S. Federal Reserve System; Honorary North American Chairman and former North American Chairman, The Trilateral Commission Marko Voljc, General Manager of Central Europe Directorate, KBC Bank Insurance Holding, Brussels; former Chief Executive Officer, Nova Ljubljanska Banka, Ljubljana Jusuf Wanandi, Co-founder and Member of the Board of Trustees; Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Jakarta Serge Weinberg, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Weinberg Investissements; former Chairman of the Management Board, Pinault-Printmps-Redoute; former President, Institute of International and Strategic Studies (IRIS), Paris Norbert Wieczorek, Former Member of the German Bundestag & Deputy Chairman of the SPD Parliamentary Group, Berlin
The full membership list is available by e-mail or by contacting any of the regional offices.
Comments
Agreed.....and with any Conspiracy Theory the first and most important question is...WHY??
pick yer poorly written theory here
the northwood thing just shows how the powers that be think,
like sinking the maine, etc
I can't be arsed to look stuff up and link here now (too busy actually working) but I've read some reasonable explanations
For me, one of the greatest flaws with conspiracy theories is that they require government to act in an intelligent, efficient manner. Anybody who's worked in government can tell you how absurd a proposition this is. Or maybe they're part of the conspiracy...
But all you skeptics of the skeptics, be aware that I'm skeptical of you and your motivations for being skeptical of the skeptics. GET ON MY LEVEL. Challenge Everything. Just Do It. I am real. Now More Than Ever. The More You Know. Mmm-mmm Good.
Hahahaha, awesome.
When or where ever there is a tragic event you can bet that there will be people who are opportunists and either try to, or already have, figured out how to make $$$ as a result of the tragedy.
These Opportunists are leeches, scavengers who take advantage and make profit on people's misery.....scum.
But by no means are they smart enough, nor powerful enough, to have actually caused and covered up these tragic events themselves.
They're like the people who see a terrible accident but instead of trying to save a victims life they steal his wallet.
Anytime you hear a conspiracy theory in this day and age that would require 100's or possibly 1,000's of people to have co-operated and keep quiet you can bet it's bogus.
Commentary courtesy of Grolsch Blonde / A Product of Holland.
Rock I appreciate your scepticism about gov't efficiency. Paper pushers are not the most motivated people. But don't let that confuse you about who is running things. The intelligence service has proven rather apt at getting things done over the years. And furthermore the people who run the agencies are smart, crazy smart. But you make a good point about the problems in pulling off something the scope of 9/11. It just doesn't pass the smell test.
26.Jan 2003
Report on Oxford Union 911 Meeting
The speakers were Annie Machon, David Shayler, ex-MI5 agents who were pretty
sure 911 was an inside job, Ian Henshall co-author of 911 Revealed who gave
a survey of the various theories and the missing evidence, and lecturer Bill
Durodi?? in support of the official story.
[This report has not been checked with the other participants it is for
background use in response for numerous requests for some material on this
very popular and successful meeting. It is circulated in haste to 911 Truth
Campaigners and the media, many of whom have been asking for transcripts.
The meeting was filmed and the Oxford Union would consider providing the
material to interested news organisations (full transcripts likewise but the
cost would be approximately ??200 for secretarial fees)]
The meeting took the form not of a traditional debate but of a forum, partly
because the US Embassy had refused to send a speaker. It attracted a turnout
of over 300, vastly more than similar events. Oxford Union President Sapona
Agrawal said afterwards that she had had many messages congratulating the
Union on holding the debate.
Annie Machon said that from her personal knowledge of how the spy world
works it was absolutely possible that 911 was an inside job, the influence
of MI5 in Fleet Street was far greater than most people realised and the
penetration of the political world, particularly left wing groups, was very
thorough. This might explain why the media and most political leaders had
been convinced the official 911 story was true.
David Shayler said that it was certain that MI6 had worked with Al Qaeda and
that many individuals in the intelligence agencies had a complete contempt
for the law. He focused on details of the collapse of the Twin Towers and
the supposed airliner attack on the Pentagon as clear instances of why the
official story of 911 could not be right.
Ian Henshall said there were three main approaches, the official story (in
which he included gross incompetence by officials), the notion that the
attacks were deliberately allowed to happen and thirdly that they were
engineered, in an update of the Pentagon's documented Operation Northwoods
plot to fake a plane shootdown over Cuba. He said that the striking thing in
working on his book was that most of the issues could be cleared up if only
the US authorities had not seized vital evidence and refused to reveal it.
Moreover there was a pattern of intimidation of witnesses and dishonesty by
the 911 Commission. There was a strong likelihood at least of complicity,
even add-ons to an Al Qaeda plot, and until the evidence was produced an
Operation Northwoods type hoax could not be ruled out. It is agreed the
anthrax attacks with US weapons grade anthrax were indeed an add-on to the
911 attacks, he said.
Bill Durodie expounded the view known to sociologists as conspiracism. This
holds that with no real mainstream politics any more, disenfranchised people
are believing in "infantile" conspiracy theories because there is nothing
else. His department had counted over sixty rumours about the 911 attacks.
He had little to say about the 911 attacks themselves. He drew little
distinction between different conspiracy theories. He said the media would
be only too keen to report 911 conspiracy theories if there was anything in
them.
During the subsequent discussion a number of questioners supported Durodie's
line, one said that many Democrats hated Bush and would certainly have
raised the alarm if they were suspicious. Shayler and Machon said that their
experience with the media was the living proof that when really important
issues come up the media is easily cowed by the state. Henshall said most
Washington Democrats were not a serious opposition as their continued
support, in defiance of their supporters, for the Iraq war showed, and that
Durodie seemed to be using the expression conspiracy theory as a term of
abuse against anyone who believed the government was lying.
A similar number of questioners were well-informed 911 sceptics asking
detailed questions about the collapse of the Towers and the Pentagon and
recommending various informational web sites and dvds.
There was no vote taken.
Note on Conspiracism
Conspiracism contains veiled appeals to the traditional Left but originates
in Durkheim's theory of anomie, generally regarded as a right wing response
to the sociology of Karl Marx. It was promoted by supporters of the official
story on the Kennedy assassination (long debunked by the House Committee on
Assassinations): uneducted lower class disenfranchised "white trash" were
believing wild stories becasue they had nothing else to believe. The message
from Durodie was that conspiracy theories are "dangerous", which could be
taken as a covert hint to media editors that they should be censored. I have
heard that leading 911 sceptic David Ray Griffin was attacked in similar
terms on Amy Goodman's west coast programme Democracy Now. In the UK this
analysis is associated with a group originally around Living Marxism
magazine but who are generally regarded with suspicion by most on the left.
They get generous access to the mainstream media, making sound points on
media distortions of eg health scares, but more often attacking Greenpeace
and the anti-globalisation movement.
The Trilateral Commission was formed in 1973 by private citizens of Japan, Europe (European Union countries), and North America (United States and Canada) to foster closer cooperation among these core democratic industrialized areas of the world with shared leadership responsibilities in the wider international system. Originally established for three years, our work has been renewed for successive triennia (three-year periods), most recently for a triennium to be completed in 2006.
When the first triennium of the Trilateral Commission was launched in 1973, the most immediate purpose was to draw together???at a time of considerable friction among governments??? the highest level unofficial group possible [/b] to look together at the key common problems facing our three areas. At a deeper level, there was a sense that the United States was no longer in such a singular leadership position as it had been in earlier post-World War II years, and that a more shared form of leadership???including Europe and Japan in particular???would be needed for the international system to navigate successfully the major challenges of the coming years.
Two strong convictions guide our thinking for the 2004-2006 triennium. First, the Trilateral Commission remains as important as ever in helping our countries fulfill their shared leadership responsibilities in the wider international system and, second, its framework needs to be widened to reflect broader changes in the world. Thus, the Japan Group has become a Pacific Asian Group, and Mexican members have been added to the North American Group. The European Group continues to widen in line with the enlargement of the EU. We are also continuing in this triennium our practice of inviting a number of participants from other key areas.
The ???growing interdependence??? that so impressed the founders of the Trilateral Commission in the early 1970s is deepening into ???globalization.??? The need for shared thinking and leadership by the Trilateral countries, who (along with the principal international organizations) remain the primary anchors of the wider international system, has not diminished but, if anything, intensified.[/b] At the same time, their leadership must change to take into account the dramatic transformation of the international system. As relations with other countries become more mature???and power more diffuse???the leadership tasks of the original Trilateral countries need to be carried out with others to an increasing extent.
The members of the Trilateral Commission are about 350 distinguished leaders in business, media, academia, public service (excluding current national Cabinet Ministers), labor unions, and other non-governmental organizations from the three regions.[/b] The regional Chairmen, Deputy Chairmen, and Directors constitute the leadership of the Trilateral Commission, along with an Executive Committee including about 40 other members.
The annual meeting of Trilateral Commission members rotates among the three regions. It was held in Washington in 2005, Warsaw in 2004, and Seoul in 2003. The 2006 plenary will be held in Tokyo. The agendas for these meetings have addressed a wide range of issues, an indication of how broadly we see the partnership among our countries. Presentations from these meetings have been published in the Commission's (Trialogue) series and/or posted under Recent Activity on this web site.
The project work of the Trilateral Commission generally involves teams of authors from our three regions working together for a year or so on draft reports which are discussed in draft form in the annual meeting and then published. The authors typically consult with many others in the course of their work. The task force reports (Triangle Papers) to the Trilateral Commission have covered a wide range of topics.
The regional groups within the Trilateral Commission carry on some activities of their own. The European Group, with its secretariat based in Paris, has an annual weekend meeting each fall. The North American Group, with its secretariat based in Washington D.C. began North American regional meetings in 2002 and occasionally gathers with a special speaker for a dinner or luncheon event. The new Pacific Asian Group, with its secretariat based in Tokyo, began regional meetings in 2000. Each region carries on its own fund-raising to provide the financial support needed for the Trilateral Commission???s work.
Executive Committee
Stelios Argyros, Chairman and Managing Director, Preveza Mills, Athens; former Member of the European Parliament; Chairman of the Board, STET Hellas; former Vice President of UNICE, Brussels; former President and Chairman of the Board of the Federation of Greek Industries, Athens
Erik Belfrage, Senior Vice President, Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken; Director, Investor AB, Stockholm
C. Fred Bergsten, Director, Institute for International Economics, Washington DC; former U.S. Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs
Georges Berthoin, International Honorary Chairman, European Movement; Honorary Chairman, The Jean Monnet Association; Honorary European Chairman, The Trilateral Commission
Jorge Braga de Macedo, President, Tropical Research Institute, Lisbon; Special Advisor to the Secretary General, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Paris; Professor of Economics, Nova University at Lisbon; Chairman, Forum Portugal Global; former Minister of Finance
Zbigniew Brzezinski, Counselor, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington DC; Robert Osgood Professor of American Foreign Affairs, Paul Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University; former Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs
Fran??ois Bujon de l'Estang, Ambassadeur de France; Chairman, Citigroup France, Paris; former Ambassador to the United States
Richard Conroy, Chairman, Conroy Diamonds & Gold, Dublin; Member of Senate, Republic of Ireland
Vladimir Dlouhy, Senior Advisor, ABB; International Advisor, Goldman Sachs; former Czechoslovak Minister of Economy; former Czech Minister of Industry & Trade, Prague
Bill Emmott, Editor, The Economist, London
Nemesio Fernandez-Cuesta, Executive Director of Upstream, Repsol-YPF; former Chairman, Prensa Espa??ola, Madrid
Michael Fuchs, Member of the German Bundestag; former President, National Federation of German Wholesale & Export Traders, Berlin
Antonio Garrigues Walker, Chairman, Garrigues Abogados y Asesores Tributarios, Madrid
Toyoo Gyohten, President, The Institute for International Monetary Affairs; Senior Advisor, The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, Ltd., Tokyo
Stuart Harris, Professor of International Relations, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University; former Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, Canberra
Carla A. Hills, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Hills & Company, Washington, DC; former U.S. Trade Representative; former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
Toomas Hendrik Ilves, Member of the European Parliament; former Estonian Foreign Minister and Member of the Parliament, Tallinn; former Ambassador to the United States, Canada and Mexico
Mugur Isarescu, Governor, National Bank of Romania, Bucharest; former Prime Minister of Romania
Max Jakobson, Independent Consultant and Senior Columnist, Helsinki; former Finnish Ambassador to the United Nations; former Chairman of the Finnish Council of Economic Organizations
Baron Daniel Janssen, Chairman of the Board, Solvay, Brussels
B??la Kadar, Member of the Hungarian Academy; Member of the Monetary Council of the National Bank; President of the Hungarian Economic Association; former Ambassador of Hungary to the O.E.C.D., Paris; former Hungarian Minister of International Economic Relations and Member of Parliament
Lord Kerr, Member of the House of Lords; Director of Rio Tinto, Shell, and the Scottish American Investment Trust, London; former Secretary General, European Convention, Brussels; former Permanent Under-Secretary of State and Head of the Diplomatic Service, Foreign & Commonwealth Office, London; former British Ambassador to the United States
Otto Graf Lambsdorff, Partner, Wessing Lawyers, D??sseldorf; Chairman, Friedrich Naumann Foundation, Berlin; former Member of German Bundestag; Honorary Chairman, Free Democratic Party; former Federal Minister of Economy; former President of the Liberal International; Honorary European Chairman, The Trilateral Commission, Paris
Lee Hong-Koo, Chairman, Seoul Forum for International Affairs; former Prime Minister of Korea; former Ambassador to the United Kingdom and the United States
Cees Maas, Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer of the ING Group, Amsterdam; former Treasurer of the Dutch Government
Roy MacLaren, former Canadian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom; former Canadian Minister of International Trade; Toronto, ON
Minoru Makihara, Senior Corporate Advisor, Mitsubishi Corporation, Tokyo
Sir Deryck C. Maughan, former Vice Chairman, Citigroup, New York
Kiichi Miyazawa, former Member of the House of Representatives; former Finance Minister of Japan, former Prime Minister of Japan, Tokyo
Minoru Murofushi, Counselor, ITOCHU Corporation, Tokyo
Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Distinguished Service Professor at Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA; former Dean, John F. Kennedy School of Government; former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs
Yoshio Okawara, President, Institute for International Policy Studies; former Japanese Ambassador to the United States, Tokyo
Silvio Scaglia, Managing Director, Fastweb, Milan; former Managing Director, Omnitel
Guido Schmidt-Chiari, Chairman, Constantia Group; former Chairman, Creditanstalt Bankverein, Vienna
Carlo Secchi, Professor of European Economic Policy, Bocconi University, Milan; former Member of the Italian Senate and of the European Parliament
T??ger Seidenfaden, Editor-in-Chief, Politiken, Copenhagen
Thorvald Stoltenberg, President, Norwegian Red Cross, Oslo; former Co-Chairman (UN) of the Steering Committee of the International Conference on Former Yugoslavia; former Foreign Minister of Norway; former UN High Commissioner for Refugees
Petar Stoyanov, President, Centre for Political Dialogue, Sofia; former President of Bulgaria
George Vassiliou, Head of the Negotiating Team for the Accession of Cyprus to the European Union; former President of the Republic of Cyprus, former Member of Parliament and Leader of United Democrats; Nicosia
Paul Volcker, former Chairman, Wolfensohn & Co., Inc., New York; Frederick H. Schultz Professor Emeritus, International Economic Policy, Princeton University; former Chairman, Board of Governors, U.S. Federal Reserve System; Honorary North American Chairman and former North American Chairman, The Trilateral Commission
Marko Voljc, General Manager of Central Europe Directorate, KBC Bank Insurance Holding, Brussels; former Chief Executive Officer, Nova Ljubljanska Banka, Ljubljana
Jusuf Wanandi, Co-founder and Member of the Board of Trustees; Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Jakarta
Serge Weinberg, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Weinberg Investissements; former Chairman of the Management Board, Pinault-Printmps-Redoute; former President, Institute of International and Strategic Studies (IRIS), Paris
Norbert Wieczorek, Former Member of the German Bundestag & Deputy Chairman of the SPD Parliamentary Group, Berlin
The full membership list is available by e-mail or by contacting any of the regional offices.