The
Switching
Yard

Topic 04 · The Director · One closed loop, both archives open

A model yard built on a dark desk. Brass rails curve between a panelled boardroom with a long table, a private office, and open drawers of index cards. A red signal stands on one branch and a green one on another, a point lever with a red ball waits at the junction, and a wax-sealed envelope lies beside it on a set of architectural drawings.
Illustration. Drawn for this file. The pictures here are not photographs of anything and they carry no evidence — every finding on the page rests on the documents in Road 09, not on the art.
A panelled office: a high leather chair behind a desk carrying a brass lamp, a globe and a stack of folders.

In 1970 a Columbia professor published the design for a body that did not exist. In 1973 he was made its Director, and the job was to decide who would be invited to join. In December 1976 one of the men he had invited — a one-term governor of Georgia — was President-elect of the United States, and chose him as National Security Adviser.

Every step of that is described by the institution that took it. The private body deposited its records at the Rockefeller Archive Center in 2003. The government's half sits in the National Archives. Between them the two finding aids hold the founding, the membership rules and the directorship; the President's own daily log holds the afternoon the two sides met; and one letter he signed holds what he thought the arrangement was.

An airliner climbing away from an airfield, drawn in an engraved style.
Road 01

The chain, dated

Ten steps from a book to an office. Each one carries the archive that holds it and the kind of evidence it is. Switch the kinds off and watch what survives.

Evidence

  1. 1970Columbia University

    Publishes the design

    Three years before the body existed, Brzezinski proposed it in print, in Between Two Ages: America's Role in the Technetronic Era. The Rockefeller Archive Center's finding aid for the Commission's own records quotes the passage with its page citation.

    a high-level consultative council for global cooperation, regularly bringing together the heads of governments of the developed world to discuss their common political security, educational-scientific and economic-technological problems, as well as to deal with their moral obligations toward the developing nationsBetween Two Ages, 1970, p. 297

    Stated Zbigniew Brzezinski, Viking Press, 1970 ↗

  2. April 1972In transit

    The conversation on the aeroplane

    David Rockefeller and Brzezinski talk on a flight to the Bilderberg meeting in Belgium. Rockefeller had twice asked Bilderberg's executive committee to include Japan and twice been refused. The finding aid names Brzezinski at this point by his Columbia title, Director of the Research Institute on Communist Affairs.

    While on an airplane headed to the Bilderberg group meeting in Belgium in April 1972, David Rockefeller spoke with a like-minded colleague Zbigniew Brzezinski, Director of the Research Institute on Communist Affairs, Columbia University.Rockefeller Archive Center, institutional history

    Published Rockefeller Archive Center ↗

  3. 23–24 July 1972Pocantico Hills, New York

    Seventeen men agree to found it

    A two-day meeting at Pocantico Hills, New York. The finding aid names everyone in the room. Its citation for the decision is a document titled The Trilateral Commission: A Proposal, 15 March 1973, held in the Rockefeller Brothers Fund records.

    • C. Fred Bergsten
    • Robert Bowie
    • Zbigniew Brzezinski
    • McGeorge Bundy
    • Karl Carstens
    • Guido Colonna di Paliano
    • François Duchêne
    • René Foch
    • George S. Franklin
    • Max Kohnstamm
    • Bayless Manning
    • Kiichi Miyazawa
    • Kinhide Mushakoji
    • Saburo Okita
    • Henry Owen
    • David Rockefeller
    • Tadashi Yamamoto

    Published Rockefeller Archive Center ↗

  4. late 1972 – early 1973New York

    Selected as Director

    Regional chairmen are designated and Brzezinski is selected as the Commission's Director. He holds the post from 1973 to 1976. Seed money comes from David Rockefeller, supplemented by the Kettering and Ford foundations.

    Shortly thereafter in the Fall of 1972 and early 1973, the respective areas designated regional chairman, Zbignew Brzezinski was selected as the Commission's DirectorRockefeller Archive Center, institutional history

    Published Rockefeller Archive Center ↗

  5. 1973–1976North America, Europe, Japan

    Chooses who is asked

    The National Archives describes the job in one clause. The Director did not administer a competition; he identified people and invited them. Membership in this body has no other door.

    worked with regional chairmen to identify and invite relevant participants and experts from each region to join the CommissionNational Archives, Carter Library finding aid

    Published National Archives and Records Administration ↗

  6. 1973Atlanta / New York

    A Georgia governor is among those asked

    Jimmy Carter, then in his single term as Governor of Georgia, joins the Commission at its outset. He is not yet a national candidate. The National Archives finding aid, written to describe Brzezinski's papers, records where the two men met.

    Published National Archives and Records Administration ↗

  7. December 1976Plains, Georgia

    The man who issued the invitations is chosen by an invitee

    Five weeks after the election, the President-elect appoints the Commission's first Director to the most senior foreign-policy post in the United States that requires no Senate confirmation. The National Archives states the connection in the same sentence as the appointment.

    In December 1976, President-elect Jimmy Carter, who met Brzezinski while a member of the Trilateral Commission, chose him to be his Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs.National Archives, Carter Library finding aid

    Filed National Archives and Records Administration ↗

  8. mid-1977Washington, D.C.

    The chairman leaves the chair for the government

    Gerard C. Smith had chaired the Commission's North American group since its founding in 1973. He gives up the chairmanship to take a presidential appointment — the same crossing the Commission's own membership rule requires.

    In mid-1977, he relinquished his Commission chairmanship to become Ambassador for Non-Proliferation Issues in the Carter administration.Rockefeller Archive Center, officers' files

    Published Rockefeller Archive Center ↗

  9. 12 June 1978The White House

    The body is received in the East Room

    The President's own Daily Diary logs it to the minute. The Commission's archive holds the folder for the same reception. Neither record needs the other to be believed.

    The President hosted a reception for members of the Trilateral Commission. For a list of attendees, see APPENDIX "F."The President's Daily Diary, 12 June 1978

    Filed Jimmy Carter Presidential Library (NARA) ↗

  10. 10 November 1980The White House

    The President writes down what the body was to him

    Accepting Gerard Smith's resignation, Carter describes the private body in a letter published in the Public Papers of the Presidents. No one else has to characterise the relationship; the President does it himself, on the record, in office.

    As the first Chairman of the Trilateral Commission, where you were one of my early mentors in foreign policy, you forged one of the most valuable private links we have to bring the leaders of the free world together.Jimmy Carter to Gerard C. Smith, 10 November 1980

    Stated Public Papers of the Presidents, 10 November 1980 ↗

An open book showing an engraved public building on one page and a geometric diagram on the other, with dividers, a ruler and an inkwell beside it.
Road 02

The design was published first

The usual order is that an institution exists and then someone describes it. Here the description came three years early, in a trade book, under the author's own name.

a high-level consultative council for global cooperation, regularly bringing together the heads of governments of the developed world to discuss their common political security, educational-scientific and economic-technological problems, as well as to deal with their moral obligations toward the developing nations
Zbigniew Brzezinski · Between Two Ages: America’s Role in the Technetronic Era, Viking Press, 1970, p. 297 — quoted with its page citation in the Rockefeller Archive Center’s institutional history of the Commission’s own records.
What he proposed

A standing council of the developed world’s governments, meeting regularly, outside the United Nations, which he judged limited by the Cold War and the north–south divide.

What was built

A private membership body with the same geography and no governments in it. Rockefeller had asked the Bilderberg executive committee to add Japan and been refused twice. The Commission was the version that did not need anyone’s permission.

A heavy envelope closed with a wax seal, and a card beside it carrying three interlocking rings.
Road 03

A gate with no door

The ladder of access on Topic 01 is ordered by what each rung publishes about itself. This body belongs on the bottom rung, and it is explicit about why.

Membership is by invitation. For the North American group, invitations are decided upon by the Executive Committee, on the basis of recommendations by members and staff.Rockefeller Archive Center · Published
New members are chosen on a national basis. Membership procedures differ slightly depending on the national region.Rockefeller Archive Center · Published
The Trilateral Commission archives does not contain much documentation of the Commission's membership. Most North American membership files remain at the North American Office in Washington, D.C.Rockefeller Archive Center · Published
RungCan you apply?The gateWho selects
A vote
Can you apply?
No application exists
process published
The gate
Age and citizenship
Who selects
No one selects you
A Rhodes Scholarship
Can you apply?
You may apply
process published
The gate
Your university must certify or endorse you first
Who selects
Constituency and regional committees
A Marshall Scholarship
Can you apply?
You may apply
process published
The gate
A President, Provost or Academic Dean must endorse you
Who selects
Regional committees; commissioner posts are advertised
Trilateral Commission membership
Can you apply?
No application exists
no published process
The gate
You must be identified and invited
Who selects
The Executive Committee, on recommendations by members and staff
A brass revolving door in a marble lobby, with a sealed card propped against the floor in front of it.
Road 04

The rule the body wrote about itself

Private access converts into public authority at a particular point. One institution has written that point into its own membership rules.

Members who accept positions in the executive branch of their government must forfeit their Commission membership.
The Trilateral Commission (North America) records, finding aid, Series 4 — Membership. Rockefeller Archive Center.
And the other half of it

A 1980 account assembled by the Congressional Research Service adds the clause the rule leaves out: members who join a government forfeit their membership — “but they often rejoin when their official service ends”. A magazine's account, not a filing.

What that makes it

The body wrote the conversion boundary into its own membership rules. It is the rare institution that names the crossing explicitly — and the rule treats the crossing as temporary.

A large formal reception room with a chandelier, tall windows, portraits and arranged seating.
Road 05

One afternoon, two archives

One day, two archives, three venues. The Federal government's own log and the private body's own file cabinet describe the same afternoon from opposite sides of the boundary.

The federal record

The President’s Daily Diary

12 June 1978 · Jimmy Carter Presidential Library · National Archives

  1. 17:32The President went to the East Room.
  2. 17:32–18:13The President hosted a reception for members of the Trilateral Commission. For a list of attendees, see APPENDIX "F."
  3.  The President addressed approximately 167 guests attending the reception.
  4. 18:13The President returned to the Oval Office.

The log is kept for the President, not for the body. It gives the room, the clock and the headcount: 41 minutes, 167 guests.

The private record

The Commission’s own file cabinet

Deposited at the Rockefeller Archive Center, March 2003 · described 2011

  1. The receptionThe East Room, The White HouseBox 14, folder 172 — Plenary Meeting – White House Reception, Washington, D.C., June 12, 1978
  2. A letter to the President about his remarksFrom the Commission's founderBox 16, folder 213 — President's Remark, June 12, 1978 (Letter to President Carter written by David Rockefeller)
  3. A dinner for the body, addressed by the Secretary of StateThe State DepartmentBox 17, folder 220 — Plenary Meeting – State Department Dinner (Cyrus Vance Speaker), Washington, D.C., June 12, 1978

Folder-level description, by box number, of the same afternoon from the other side of the boundary.

A boardroom: a long polished table ringed with high-backed leather chairs, a city visible through the window.
Road 06

Forfeiting membership is not leaving the room

Harold Brown was Secretary of Defense for all four years. His name is in the Commission's own publication list five times across thirty-seven years, and the dates straddle the office on both sides. Forfeiting a membership and leaving the room turn out to be two different things.

  1. 1974
    T5

    Trialogue: A Bulletin of North American–European–Japanese Affairs, May–July 1974

    With Kazushige Hirasawa.

  2. 1978
    T18

    Energy, Industrial Relations and Trilateral Economic Problems: Major Issues At Trilateral Meeting in Washington, D.C., June 1978

    While Secretary of Defense

    With Klaus von Dohnanyi, W. Michael Blumenthal, Nobuhiko Ushiba, Etienne Davignon, Kiichi Miyazawa.

  3. 1979
    T21

    Security In The 1980s

    While Secretary of Defense

    With Alexander Haig, François de Rose, Karl Kaiser, Takuya Kubo, Toru Yano.

  4. 1988
    34

    Science and Technology in Trilateral Relations: Competition and Cooperation

    With Takashi Mukaibo, Luis Solana.

  5. 2011
    64

    Nuclear Disarmament and Nonproliferation

    With Graham Allison, Gilles Andréani, Kim Sung-han, Sergei Karaganov, Ariel E. Levite, Masashi Nishihara, Rajiv Sikri.

Two public buildings seen from above, with railway track running out of each, crossing, and curving back round in a loop.
Road 07

The roster does not run one way

The roster does not run one way. A 1980 account assembled by the Congressional Research Service names members and former members across both American parties.

George BushResigned from the organization in 1978; Republican presidential candidate in 1980.
John AndersonRepublican presidential candidate in 1980; named as a present or former member.
Caspar WeinbergerAdviser on Ronald Reagan's team and a member; later Reagan's Secretary of Defense.
Alexander HaigContributed to the Commission's 1979 security paper; later Reagan's Secretary of State.
David StockmanAppears in the Commission's later publication record; Reagan's budget director.
To suggest that those that belong to the commission . . . are involved in a conspiracy is absurd.
George Bush, 1980, who had resigned his own membership in 1978, quoted in U.S. News & World Report, 7 April 1980, as reprinted in a Congressional Research Service information packet.
A railway point lever and its mechanism beside the rails, with a signal showing red, amber and green.
Road 08

What the record does not show

The record shows a structure, not an effect. It settles less than it appears to, and the questions it cannot answer are set out below rather than left implied.

Does the Commission explain the Carter foreign policy?

The record cannot settle it. Shared membership and a shared vocabulary are consistent with a body that shaped an administration and equally consistent with an administration and a body that found each other useful. Nothing in the archives chooses between them.

What would settle it
The policy papers on both sides, read against the decisions actually taken, with the counterfactual stated. The Commission's own task-force reports are published; the Carter deliberative record is largely in the Carter Library and in part still restricted.

Was the selection unusual?

No, and that is the point. A private body choosing whom to ask is ordinary. What makes this case legible is only that both sides kept archives and both archives are open.

What would settle it
Nothing. This is the record, not an inference from it.

Is this a conspiracy?

Nothing in the record shows one and nothing in it requires one. A private body invited a provincial governor; four years later he was President and appointed the man who had done the inviting. Each step was recorded by the institution that took it. Secrecy is not needed to explain a structure that published itself.

What would settle it
Evidence of a concealed agreement, of which there is none in either archive.

How many of the administration were members?

Not from a primary source. A 1980 press account assembled by the Congressional Research Service says 'nearly 20 present or former top members of his administration'. That is a magazine's count, not a filing, and nothing above rests on it. Named instead are the five crossings both archives document.

What would settle it
The Commission's printed membership lists for 1973–1976, which its deposited archive says it does not substantially hold.

Two open filing drawers packed with tabbed index cards and brass label holders.
Road 09

The record

Nine sources. Two archival finding aids do most of the work; one presidential log and one presidential letter close the loop. Where a source is press and not a filing, it is marked.

  1. The Trilateral Commission (North America) records — finding aid ↗Rockefeller Archive Center · PublishedThe body's own records, deposited in March 2003 and described by the repository. Carries the institutional history, the membership rules, the officers' biographies, the publication list and the folder-level container list. The single richest account of how the Commission worked.
  2. Zbigniew Brzezinski Collection: A Guide to His Papers at the Jimmy Carter Library ↗National Archives and Records Administration · Filed42 containers, 17 linear feet, 1972–1981. Describes the directorship, the invitation work, and the December 1976 appointment in NARA's own words.
  3. The President's Daily Diary, 12 June 1978 ↗Jimmy Carter Presidential Library (NARA) · FiledThe official log of the President's day. Times the East Room reception to the minute and counts the guests.
  4. Ambassador at Large — Exchange of Letters on the Resignation of Gerard C. Smith ↗Public Papers of the Presidents, 10 November 1980 · StatedCarter's own description of the Commission's first chairman as one of his early mentors in foreign policy.
  5. Digest of Other White House Announcements, 12 June 1978 ↗Public Papers of the Presidents · FiledThe published White House announcement of the same reception the Daily Diary logs.
  6. Between Two Ages: America's Role in the Technetronic Era ↗Zbigniew Brzezinski, Viking Press, 1970 · StatedQuoted with page citations (pp. 293–297) in the Rockefeller Archive Center's institutional history of the Commission's records. The design, published three years before the body.
  7. About the Trilateral Commission ↗The Trilateral Commission · PublishedThe body's current self-description. States the 1973 founding and David Rockefeller's authorship. Says nothing about how members are chosen.
  8. Info Pack IP0092 — Trilateral Commission ↗Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, 1981 · StructuralA Congressional reference packet reprinting contemporary press, including 'We've Been Asked', U.S. News & World Report, 7 April 1980. Press within a Congressional document: cited as press, not as a filing.
  9. Dealing with an Interdependent and Fragmented World: The Origins of the Trilateral Commission ↗Fulvio Drago, Rockefeller Archive Center research report, 2010 · PublishedResearch conducted in the Commission's own records at the Rockefeller Archive Center. States that Carter joined the Commission from its onset.
1970The design is published, three years before the body exists
17Men in the room at Pocantico Hills who agreed to found it
0Applications accepted. Membership is by invitation
1973–1976Brzezinski’s term as the Commission’s Director
167Guests the President addressed in the East Room, 12 June 1978
41 minHow long the reception lasted, by the President’s own log
2Commission publications carrying Harold Brown’s name while he was Secretary of Defense
1Rungs on the access gradient with no published process at all
Road 10

Circulate

Eight cards. Each is one finding that stands on its own, and each links back here.