The consequences of a possible oil crisis had also been discussed at a Bilderberg meeting in Saltsjöbaden, Sweden (May 11–13), 5 months before the real “crisis”. The meeting included political advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, Robert O. Anderson (ARCO), Gianni Agnelli (Fiat/Club of Rome), Carroll L. Wilson and representatives of Exxon, BP, and Royal Dutch Shell.
Subjects discussed at this Bilderberg meeting included what would happen to the world economy if oil prices were to increase by 400 per cent!
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Critical Choices for Americans
In December 1973, Nelson left his position as Governor of New York State to chair the Nixon Administration's Commission on Critical Choices for Americans, in response to the identified crises in energy, population, ecology, etc. The project – which had similarities with Nelson’s earlier Special Studies Project – was to investigate the rapid changes that were taking place in American society, as well as the role of the U.S. on the world stage.
Just as for the Special Studies Project, Nelson and Kissinger gathered an impressive list of top brains for the project, including future U.S. President Gerald Ford, Carroll L. Wilson, Edward Teller, George Schultz (Minister of Finance 1972–74; Minister of Foreign Affairs 1982–89), Robert O. Anderson, and Laurance Rockefeller. The six panels were:
A critical article in
New York Times
– which also tried to make an estimation of the family’s immense wealth and influence – voiced the suspicion that Nelson’s new project was little more than another tool for his aspirations to become President.
Once again, Nelson Rockefeller is apparently a candidate for President. And once again, as he roams across the country trying to convince the Republican faithful that he is worthy of their trust—and as he revs up the engine for what has been called his vehicle for getting the Republican nomination, the $6.5‐million Commission on Critical Choices for Americans —the problem central to a candidacy is being ignored.
The problem is this: The Rockefeller family wields enormous power. It controls one of the largest private fortunes in the United States and one of the country's largest banks, Chase Manhattan.
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Nelson had originally estimated the project cost to $20 million, which he tried to get from government funds. This was stopped by Democrat congressmen skeptical of his Commission. Instead it was funded with $2 million in gifts from Nelson and his brother Laurance, supplemented by funding from the Rockefeller Foundation.
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The final reports,
Critical Choices for Americans
, were issued in 13 volumes in 1976 and 1977.
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The stage was now set for major shifts in the global economy and trade.
New International Economic Order (NIEO)
NIEO was a set of proposals from some developing countries through the
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in the 1970s, in the wake of the oil crisis. A new economic order was called for; a revision of the international economic system in favour of developing countries, replacing the Bretton Woods system which had benefited mainly the nations that had created it (especially the United States). NIEO was said to be based on equity, sovereign equality, interdependence, and cooperation among all states.
The D
eclaration on the Establishment of a New International Economic Order
and the
Programme of Action on the Establishment of a New International Economic Order
were adopted by the General Assembly at its sixth special session, on May 1, 1974
.
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The chosen date was highly symbolic.
The aim of NIEO was a redistribution of the wealth of the world and eliminating the widening gap between developed and developing countries.
This was an old socialist ambition that had been pushed by the developing countries in G77 Group (formed in 1964 during the first UNCTAD conference) and supported by Social Democrats in the West.
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The Programme of Action included:
The purpose of NIEO was to strengthen North-South relations. It was widely debated in the seventies but never actually implemented in practice. Instead the market-oriented neoliberal economic order, with free trade, globalisation, privatisations and deregulations, would gain momentum in the coming decades, especially after the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War.
But NIEO wasn’t completely abandoned. The ambitious action plan would be intertwined with the environmental and population concerns of the time and the aspirations would later evolve into alter-globalisation – a synthesis or middle ground between neoliberalism and anti-globalisation.
The term itself would resurface 45 years later in a UN resolution as a part of Agenda 2030, and become a stated priority for the G20 Focus Groups (see Chapter 11).
Co-opting the South
North-South relations were also seen as crucial by the newly founded Trilateral Commission in their long-term vision for the world. A new economic order, based on interdependence and cooperation between developed and developing nations, was an integral part of their agenda. Several reports were published during the seventies that outlined their idea of NIEO.
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Brzezinski, however, was of the opinion that the aspirations from the developing nations was a major threat that could create an unstable and chaotic world.
After the liberation of previous European colonies, there were also concerns within TriCom about the continued availability of raw materials, and a fear that the West could be cut off from essential supplies in cases of nationalisation, as the
NIEO Declaration (§4.d) included:
Full permanent sovereignty of every State over its natural resources and all economic activities. In order to safeguard these resources, each State is entitled to exercise effective control over them and their exploitation with means suitable to its own situation, including the right to nationalization or transfer of ownership to its nationals…
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The oil embargo after the oil crisis had been a wake upp call for the North. The South had to be co-opted into a cooperative endeavour.
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Columbia Professor of Law, Richard Gardner (1927–2019), a U.S. ambassador and founding member of TriCom, was the leading U.S. negotiator at UNCTAD. In a report for the Trilateral Commission (with Gardner as main author) he wrote,
We categorically reject not only old-fashioned colonialism but also latter-day concepts of neo-colonialism, paternalism and tutelage. All countries should be free to determine their own political, economic and social systems, free of external coercion (
A Turning Point in North-South Relations
, Trilateral Task Force Report
,
1974
).
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Gardner later admitted that the wording was a concession to the spokesmen from the developing countries, in order to “gain a hearing in the rest of the world.” The interests he represented in the Trilateral Commission’s network (e.g., Exxon Corporation) had no intentions whatsoever of staying out of the domestic affairs of the South.
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In April 1974, Gardner wrote more candidly about the necessity for global planning and the need for a new order, using deceptive methods.
In short, the ‘house of world order’ will have to be built from the bottom up rather than from the top down. It will look like a great ‘booming, buzzing confusion,’ to use William James' famous description of reality, but an end run around national sovereignty, eroding it piece by piece, will accomplish much more than the old-fashioned frontal assault. (…)
The hopeful aspect of the present situation is that even as nations resist appeals for ‘world government’ and ‘the surrender of sovereignty,’ technological, economic and political interests are forcing them to establish more and more far-reaching arrangements to manage their mutual interdependence. (Richard Gardner, “The Hard Road to World Order”,
1974)
.
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The ever increasing global crises would in the end force reluctant nations to accept TriCom’s aim of a global management of the global commons. They clearly played both sides of the chessboard.
It was therefore no surprise when U.S. Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, lent his support for some of the demands for NIEO in a speech made at the Seventh Session of the UN General Assembly on September 1, 1975.
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He knew what the demands
really
meant: a bait to get the South on the hook. The new economic system become a perfect vehicle for
the
Trilateral Commission’s power ambitions and was merged with the environmental agenda as a way of securing the raw materials for the multinationals. This coincided with some of the aspirations of the closely linked Club of Rome (with TriCom members such as Max Kohnstamm and Carroll L. Wilson).
The ambitions of NIEO would later be mirrored in the Brandt Report,
North-South: A Program for Survival
(1980). The Brandt Commission was initiated by Robert McNamara, President of the World Bank Group and a trilateral in spirit and action.
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Both McNamara and Fabian Society member Barbara Ward had been consulted in Gardner’s
Task Force Report
.
Other leading Social Democrats, such as Gro Harlem Brundtland and Fabianist Roy Jenkins (President of the European Commission 1977–81), were also recruited to join the Trilateral cause.
Reforming International Institutions
An underhanded way of securing the TriCom version of the new international economic order was to include the strongest economies of the developing world into the international system of decision making. In 1976, TriCom issued the report
Reform of International Institutions
(with Bergsten, an economist and former assistant to Henry Kissinger, as one of its authors)
.
The report proposed
an extensive program, including recommendations for GATT, IMF and OECD, in order to make the world “safe for interdependence.” The goal was a control system for interdependent states, based on a three-tier system:
C. Fred Bergsten suggested that emerging economies like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Brazil, and Mexico should be brought into the inner circle in order to avoid “outsiders” from “disrupting the system.”
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The remaining developing nations of G77 would thereby be excluded. This concept was actualised in 1976 through the G7 Group and its global institutional partners.
The founders of G7 were deeply anchored in the Trilateral Commission (both Brzezinski and David Rockefeller took credit for its inception).
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These links have remained.
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In the following decades, the G7/G8 group (and later the G20 group) would evolve into a proto-World Government, where many important global decisions and action plans have originated (see Chapter 9, 10, and 11).
The Trilateral Commission usually has its annual summit before the G7 summit and around one-third of the sherpas (the personal representatives of the heads of state’s who prepare the annual summits) have been members of TriCom.
The ‘G’ Groups