Logistical duties can turn into combat with a single shot. Both Cheney and Rumsfeld are old-timers with international power groups. As secretary of defense under President Bush the Elder, Cheney participated in the annual closed meetings of the Trilaterals.

Rumsfeld has participated with the Trilaterals and its brother group, Bilderberg, as a White House aide under President Ronald Reagan and as defense secretary under the current President Bush.

Bilderberg and the Trilateral Commission have interlocking leadership and a common agenda. David Rockefeller and Henry Kissinger are leaders of both groups. The Trilaterals’ European chairman, Peter Sutherland, head of Goldman-Sachs International, is also a Bilderberg leader. Former House Speaker Tom Foley is the TC’s North American chairman.

Appearances by Cheney, Rumsfeld and other administration officials were viewed as top secret. The appearances were not listed on their public schedules, not even as involving a “private group.” There were no transcripts available, which is routine in normal functions.

The U.S. invasion of Iraq created the first serious dissent among participants from the United States and Europe in both the Trilateral Commission and Bilderberg. On all other major issues, including empowering the United Nations to directly tax the citizens of the world as a crucial enhancement of its evolving as a world government, both groups are united and collaborating.

Cheney spoke on “policy directions for the U.S. administration” on April 16. Rumsfeld addressed the 300 Trilaterals shortly before they headed for the airports Monday afternoon.

Paul Wolfowitz, deputy secretary of defense and president-elect of the World Bank, addressed the TC’s dinner meeting April 17. Wolfowitz assured everyone that the United States would be a “willing partner” in helping “developing nations” enhance their economies, meaning more American tax dollars would be shipped to poor countries.

Following Cheney’s speech on opening day, David Gergen provided an “analysis of the American electorate.” He warned that “nationalism” remains a strong force in America and selling the idea of surrendering sovereignty to the UN will be difficult. In TC and Bilderberg dictionaries,“nationalism” is an obscenity.

Gergen is professor of public service at the John Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. He is of no fixed ideology. Gergen voted for Hubert Humphrey in 1968 but worked for President Richard Nixon and later for President Bill Clinton.

“The rise of China and its impact on global governance” was the subject of a panel led by Yotaro Kobayashi, TC’s Pacific Asian chairman.

Other panelists were Ren Xaio, director of the Department of Asian-Pacific Studies at the Shanghai Institute for International Studies, and Yuan Ming, director of the Institute for International Relations at Peking University.

They discussed a prospective “Asian-Pacific Union” similar to the European Union and the evolving “American Union” as NAFTA expands throughout the Western Hemisphere. The dollar is to be the common currency of the “American Union.”

It has long been the Bilderberg-TC goal to divide the world into three great regions for the administrative convenience of the world government.

Kissinger participated in a panel on “searching for a new Trilateral partnership.” Bill Emmott, editor of The Economist of London, joined a discussion on “community building in East Asia, holding his vows of secrecy loftier than his duty as a journalist. Thomas Pickering of the Boeing Co. participated in a panel on “understanding the Muslim world.”

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan addressed the Trilaterals on the subject “resolving global currency and trade conflicts.” Greenspan suggested that it would be difficult to increase the U.S. income tax in the “current political atmosphere in Washington.” He said interest rates would gradually rise.

The only other coverage of the meeting appeared in The Washington Times. Reporter Joseph Curl overheard Francois Sauzey of Paris, a member of the TC staff, complain that “Everyone’s beating up on France because of the coming referendum.”

Sauzey was referring to several polls in France that indicate voters will reject the proposed European Union constitution, a reversal of public sentiment. If just one nation rejects it, the constitution dies.

An internal TC document obtained by AFP said “Europeans must be more explicit, privately if not publicly, in committing themselves to sanctions if Iran resumes its uranium enrichment program. For its part, the U.S. needs to engage the Iranians not just on the economic front but also on questions of regional security.”

Israel is pressing the United States to attack Iran, which has missiles that can strike Israel.

The document was produced by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. It was authored by Giuliano Amato, former prime minister of Italy; Harold Brown, secretary of defense under President Jimmy Carter; Carla Hills, U.S. trade representative under President George H. W. Bush; and George Robertson, former secretary-general of NATO and long-time Bilderberg luminary.

“When both the U.S. and Europe face profound economic challenges from China, India and other rising economies, a high-level political commitment at the U.S.-EU summit in June to reduce regulatory and other non-tariff barriers to transatlantic trade and investment could bring long-term improvements to the competitiveness and growth of the U.S. and European economies,” the document said.

“Summit” was probably a reference to the Group of Eight meeting of heads of state from the industrialized nations, scheduled July 6-7 (not June) at the Gleneagles resort in Scotland.

Another internal document, obtained by the Times, was entitled “Trilateral Memorandum No. 8” and dealt with the continuing skirmish between Japan and China. It was issued by Akira Kojima, a TC member and chairman of the Japan Center for Economic Research in Tokyo. Relations soured because of revisionist Japanese textbooks that China claims fails to address atrocities committed in World War II. Kojima appears to share China’s views. He wrote:

“Japan still has a history of [government] textbook approval, and this misguided system is at the root of these unnecessary misunderstandings and must be abolished.”

The memo called Japan’s prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, “a peculiar character in that he is basically stubborn. If he is criticized for one thing, he intentionally sticks to it and repeats it.”

This year, the Trilaterals returned to their earlier policy of trying to keep their gathering secret. Its Washington office angrily refused to say when and where they would meet.

The huge staff refused to provide papers and the only working journalist on the scene was under constant surveillance.

“The Trilateral Commission’s meetings have inspired conspiracy theories of powerful puppeteers who secretly pull the strings of world power as they seek to establish a new world order,” the Times story said. “The theories are based partly on fact.”