The Gstaad Symposium; Soros' World; Gordon Brown in Provincetown; Dubya's Secret Correspondence

They Seek Him Here Cape Cod ? I am delighted to have witnessed the debacle of the British tabloid press on the bosky dunes of Cape Cod in recent weeks. They were strewn about the peninsula like Napoleon's chasseurs at Waterloo just as I embarked on my accustomed summer break in tranquil Truro, on the Cape's farther reaches. Just so happened that my sojourn coincided with the secret honeymoon nearby of Britain's chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown. Gordon Brown was one of those Blair cabinet members everyone believed would never marry... Catch my drift? That he should undergo such a drastic correction of his personal tastes could only mean one thing. He has ambitions to be prime minister. Imagine the ravening Brit hack frenzy. For the very reasons that Gordon Brown might find the Cape ideal, it isn't quite as agreeable for us political tortoises who just can't slide into the Blair-Clinton slipstream. Up the road from Truro glitters the gay people's republic of Provincetown. Try as I might I remain unable to adjust to the density of bulldykes per square inch on its dreamy maritime streets. I like to think that it's just a sartorial prejudice. At least that's what I'll plead to the sentencing tribunal at the reeducation camps.

I can't seem to digest the rugged tool-and-die factory esthetic so uniformly favored by so many women in crewcuts. Gordon Brown, for all I know, may find it irresistible. But perhaps what drew Gordon thither on his lovestruck honeymoon, what made him feel he really belonged, was the Cape's longstanding liberal political community. It may be the Kennedy compound in Hyannisport, or it may be that all those Labor Party ex-ministers employed at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government habitually holiday on the Cape?whatever the reason, the place is full of them.

Wellfleet Woods, on the other side of Truro, seems to be the political asylum epicenter. There abide the wise old couple of transatlantic liberalism, Richard Neustadt, adviser to several Democratic presidents, and his English wife Shirley Williams, the onetime pre-Thatcher Labor minister of education. Neustadt himself ran the Kennedy School's Institute of Politics for many years, as did Williams after him. Let me say here and now that I know them personally and secretly adore them to distraction. They're as openhearted, hospitable, approachable and uncalculating as nobody is anymore in public life. Many Brits view Williams as a leveling harridan who destroyed their high school education system. Certainly British education standards never recovered, and she must carry a chunk of the blame. Yet she and Neustadt are simply irreproachably decent in person, and great sailing companions to boot.

So I felt genuine alarm at the thought of tabloid wolves slavering at their gates in search of Gordon Brown's secret love nest. In the event, the peaceable old couple happened fortuitously to be absent. Their unsuspecting nieces and nephews held the fort. Someone did spot Gordon Brown leaving a hotel way back down the other end of the Cape and managed to click a blurry picture of his back.

Meantime, the journo chase turned into high slapstick. Most of them had flown over specially and knew nothing of the terrain, sexually or geographically. Think of them in Provincetown. Those unsuspecting cockney photographers having to approach burly men in tight shorts and nipple rings to ask about Gordon Brown. It's just too fabulous to contemplate. Some of the out-of-towners actually spent a night in a gay hotel, checking in late and unaware. Until, that is, the first knock on the door inquiring whether they planned to join the party. (I'm not making this up.) Others fanned out through the woods and dunes, getting lost and bogged down day after day. Someone saw Brown driving off in a midsize cream-colored car. Word went out and numerous such cars were chased up and down the Cape at high speed until the bewildered occupants drew into a lobster shack or boat rental with a posse of tailgating Brits bounding after them, cameras bouncing.

The grand overarching virtue of the Brit tabloid horde is its equal-opportunity harassment code. When was the last time you heard of a U.S. public figure being hounded in the press for gay shenanigans? As everyone knows, the French have far and away the healthiest political attitudes in these matters. Nobody has to out anybody sexually, because nobody cares. It applies even more emphatically in matters of religion. A French intellectual friend told me how shocked he was at the prominent role of religion in American politics, how God or church or synagogue is incessantly invoked during campaigns here. He pointed out to me that in French politics, God is never mentioned, nor is the fact that leading candidates have been Protestant or Jewish in a largely Catholic country.

That is possible in a country where the national culture is the religion. In the U.S., as the culture fragments into tribal or minority interests, much as it has in the world of Islam, God becomes the unifier of last resort. Hence, we have the dour mores of Joseph Lieberman commended to us. For all our sakes, he should spend a weekend in Provincetown with Gordon Brown.

Charles Glass The London Desk You Know Me, Al Nantucket ? The Kennedy and Clinton legacies hang heavy over this isle of Republicanism, where aged WASPs worry how two such scoundrels captivated the American imagination. Perhaps Jack and Bill, unlike the current claimants to the presidential crown, liked and enjoyed women. I can think of no other explanation than that the Irish and Southern charm that seduced so many vulnerable and willing young women works on most of us, despite the broken promises, the lies about the spread of wealth, the hoaxes that are used to plunder the public treasury for the arms dealers, the denial of civil liberties in the name of national security and combating drug scares, the indifference to the taking of human lives abroad (in Vietnam for the Bostonian, in Iraq for the Arkansan), and the transfer of the nation's prosperity to the few who own the corporations that increasingly determine where and how people shall survive. The choice between them is no choice at all for the rich of Nantucket, whose love of Republicans borders on the pathological, and the rich of the neighbor island, Martha's Vineyard, whose favorite sons are all Democrats tried and true. We are in the last flowering of Tory and Whig, with the Whigs losing their raison d'etre and preparing to cede the field, inevitably, to a party with, at least, another point of view.

On one of these islands, I came across the secret correspondence of George W. Bush to his friend, Al Gore. With some hesitation, I publish the first of these epistles, with apologies to Ring Lardner.

A Busher's Letter to his Homeboy Indianapolis, IN Friend Al:

Well, Al old pal I suppose you seen in the paper where I been sold to the public by more 'n 15 percentages over you. Believe me Al it comes as a surprise to me and I bet it did to you and Tipper and all your friends down in Nashville. You could of knocked me over with a checkbook when the old man, dear old Poppy, who used to be president himself (your old man never did make president, did he Al?) come up to me and says, Dubbaya son, we've sold you to the American people no two ways about it. He and Dick read it out to me, and boy Al it looks like I can't lose.

I didn't have no idea I was gonna be ahead by so much and so soon. You helped a whole lot Al, so I'm bound to thank you right now. That little pow-wow in Hollywood, where let's face it old William Jefferson gave a rip-roarer that was a helluva lot better than yours, sure did send my mercury upwards of 55 percentages. And you know Dick and me wasn't joking when we told the boys from the papers what a great number-two choice Joe Lieberstein was. Great for us. Think about Joe going one on one with Dick, who fought a war beside the old man to save Kuwait for Halliburton and works every Saturday. Where was Joe when the Marines were making the end run into Eye-rak? Thanks Al. Kind of a home run for us.

We're out here on the road, taking the choo choo to one Podunk after another, preaching the gospel of free enterprise, public executions and union-free labor markets. You probably heard how some smart-ass paperboy aksed me how we could put down so many black folk down in Texas every year with nobody asking how many are retards or whatever. I just stared him down, you know the old Bush hate stare. I coulda punched him right then and there for what he said about Texas. I coulda told him straight out how Death Row is just that, a place where bad guys die. I was fixin to hit him with my retort and woulda done it. You know me Al. But I had this real sore throat. I just couldn't get a word out.

That was pretty good work you done getting nominated, and I'm glad it's down to you and me Al. We go way back, our daddies go way back (even if yours didn't even make vice president), our wives woulda gone way back if they'd a been to school together (not that Tipper coulda got into Laura's alma mater), and it's right we should be fighting it out fair and square for our generation. Let's keep it a clean contest, not like those bastards McCain and Bradley woulda done. We both want to put folks to death, to starve the Iraqis into going our way, calling in the WTO whenever workers get out of line or them environmental boys and girls act up. Why would anybody give us their hard-earned millions if we were pushing different game plans?

This race boils down to character. Sad to say Al old pal I'm a character and you're not. If some jerk in Idaho wants something different, let him vote for Ralph Nader, ha, ha, ha. Just joking. You know me Al. But we gotta fight it out so folks'll come out and vote. The old man says I gotta talk about putting the O for Onesty back in the Oval Office, but that don't mean you Al. If it sounds like we're tarring you with the Clinton brush, that's just horse racing. Nothing personal. You and Tipper are always welcome to come by for dinner at the White House. But you bring the potato salad. I'm starting to hate the stuff.

Your old pal, W

Taki LE MAÎTRE Gstaad Symposium The Gstaad Symposium?a mini version of the Aspen Institute?was thought up by yours truly during a dinner at my chalet as an outlet for the discussion of topics other than Gstaad real estate prices. For any of you who may have been in Albania the last 50 years, Gstaad is the beautiful alpine village favored by the rich and famous and, alas, also by the nouveaux riches and infamous. Papa Hemingway loved the place when he was young, and skied all its mountains (he climbed on seal skins and schussed down on unmarked snow, ski lifts being as yet unknown), as did Sir Arnold Lunn, the inventor of the slalom and modern ski racing, a gentleman whom I met long ago. Gstaad and its environs are among the few places left on Earth where strict zoning laws make it difficult for Hollywood types to show off and indulge their grotesque tastes in houses. Ergo, every dwelling conforms to the Siebenthaler style of the traditional Swiss chalet. Mind you, there are large chalets with indoor swimming pools, bowling alleys, ballrooms and what have you, and there are smaller chalets, mostly inhabited by the locals, without swimming pools and ballrooms, but room for a cow or two. But, as I said, from the outside, we all look sort of the same, the rich and the even richer. (There are as many poor people in Gstaad as there are in Hobe Sound.)

Gstaad first became popular around the turn of the century when the Palace Hotel was built and Le Rosey school opened up a winter campus. (The school is located in nearby Rolle, between Geneva and Lausanne.) Le Rosey specialized in educating royals, aristocrats and the very rich. In fact, its alumni rolls are straight out of the Almanach de Gotha, including the Duke of Kent, the Shah of Iran, the Aga Khan, Rainier of Monaco and so on. More than 20 years ago, I wrote a profile of the school for Esquire. And claimed that the only old Rosey boy to ever make good on his own was Richard Helms, who became head of the CIA. When I ran into him years later he burst into laughter. My claim is still valid.

By the time my own son attended the place in the mid-90s, the aristos and royals were long gone, replaced by scions of Russian mafiosi and heirs to oily Gulf fortunes. (JT?as my boy styles himself?got on the ski team, a team that could easily beat most American college teams, and his teammate was Alex Amundsen, a wonderful boy and skier and great-grandson of the great Norwegian explorer and first man to reach the South Pole.)

Whether Gstaad made Le Rosey or vice versa is still debated in this town. All I know is that as royals and aristos took up residence to be near their children, Gstaad quickly surpassed St. Moritz as mecca for the elite. And it was yours truly who long ago wrote that Gstaad is full of young people with old money, as opposed to St. Moritz, which is full of oldies with new money. (St. Moritz did not take kindly to my barbs, and they let me have it during a ski race?all in fun, of course.)

The Eagle Club, situated high up on the Wassengrat, was started by a few friends in 1957. It now boasts around 700 members?way too many?but only about 250 ever use the place. Our new president, Prince Romanov, has now made admission extremely difficult, which has angered some of the newest arrivals. In 42 years I have never blackballed a candidate, although I was sorely tempted when someone put up a Hollywood type during the 60s. (The guy was openly smoking pot in the gents', and stripped down to his bikini while sunbathing; my record of never ever having blackballed anyone remained intact, however. The secretary just threw him out.)

If the Eagle is the social focus during the day, the grill at the Palace Hotel helps get one through the night. The 50s, 60s and 70s were glory days for Gstaad. Then the place became too chic, with predictable results. Men wearing furs and jewelry were sighted. Elizabeth Taylor brought Michael Jackson and, worse, her ghastly children by Michael Wilding. Wise men like me moved to Rougemont, the next village, where Bill Buckley has always ruled the roost. Needless to say, chalet prices skyrocketed. And people who know how to count but are illiterate talked nonstop about them. That is when some of us decided it was time for the Gstaad Symposium.

Its format is simple and taken from Plato's original "Symposium." A speaker addresses us, we then dine and drink rather a lot, and for postprandial pleasure we discuss. I usually act as moderator.

This week Lady Thatcher is our guest speaker. The Iron Lady and I go back a long way. I am among her greatest admirers, and one of the pleasures of my life was seeing the British left being driven to near psychosis by her triumphs. Maggie Thatcher is a giant when one looks at the phonies and pygmies lording it over us nowadays. She bequeathed legislation that ensured the trade unions could no longer make Britain ungovernable, and because of her heroic stance against civil disobedience and industrial action, turned Britain from the sick man of Europe into the power that it is today. She sent an armada 8,000 miles away to recapture the Falklands, having been warned by her own cabinet that no one, including Uncle Sam, can win fighting 10,000 miles away from home. When stabbed in the back by her own party, she left with dignity and aplomb, unlike the scum that so reluctantly left center stage last week in El Lay.

Next week I'll tell you more about Lady T and the Gstaad Symposium.

George Szamuely The Bunker Soros' World Last week 900 NATO troops, under UN auspices, stormed into a smelting factory at Zvecan in Kosovo and closed the place down. According to the UN Interim Administration in Kosovo (UNMIK) chief, Bernard Kouchner, pollution from the plant?part of the vast Trepca mining complex that produces gold, silver, lead, zinc and cadmium?was raising lead levels in the environment to 200 times World Health Organization norms. "I would be a debauched person if I let this threat to the health of children and pregnant women continue operating any longer," he announced. One wonders if the Frenchman managed to keep a straight face as he said this. Kouchner is running the province on behalf of a NATO that littered the place with cluster bombs and depleted uranium shells, that presided over the expulsion of some 200,000 Serbs, that sent bridges crashing into the Danube, that happily released clouds of toxic fumes from bombed-out petrochemical factories into the atmosphere. The residents of this town?particularly the women?showed their usual ingratitude to their benefactors by throwing stones at them. Trepca is the leading employer of Serbs in Kosovo and is Yugoslavia's chief exporter. The protesters got the Los Angeles treatment: tear gas and rubber bullets.

The Yugoslav government disputes Kouchner's claims. Yugoslavia's record for telling the truth is considerably better than NATO's. Seizure of Zvecan gives UNMIK control of the Trepca mines. Already an agreement has been signed with a group of major mining companies, ITT Kosovo Consortium, to begin rehabilitation of the complex. Some $16 million is forthcoming from the EU, the United States, France, Italy, Holland and Sweden.

UNMIK, needless to say, does not have the right to take over property that belongs to others. The agency was set up by UN Security Council Resolution 1244; strangely enough, it remained silent on the matter of stealing. However, as is the way with NATO, Kouchner simply issued a decree last year: "UNMIK shall administer movable or immovable property, including monies, bank accounts, and other property of, or registered in the name of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia or the Republic of Serbia or any of its organs, which is in the territory of Kosovo."

Interestingly enough, the seizure of Trepca had been urged on him as long ago as last November by the International Crisis Group (ICG). The ICG, invariably described in the media as an "independent" and "private" think tank, is largely financed and run by the billionaire financier George Soros. Its "independence" can be gauged by the fact that on its board sits Louise Arbour, former chief prosecutor at that travesty of justice, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia; as well as Wesley Clark, loony chief bomber from last year. Financial support also comes from the governments of France, the UK and the U.S.

The ICG is a fascinating case study of the way human rights organizations, governments and international corporations work hand in glove these days. "Independent" figures like Soros identify a "crisis" demanding urgent government attention. Governments act on them and then parcel out the lucrative contracts to Soros and his pals. The Trepca report begins with the usual tendentious boilerplate: "The future of Trepca cuts to the heart of the Kosovars' identity. Its great mineral wealth is the basis of the economy of Kosovo, but the complex is badly run-down as a result of under-investment and over-exploitation by governments in Belgrade? Trepca?is Kosovo's Berlin Wall. It has long stood for Kosovar Albanians as the symbol of Serbian oppression and of their own resistance." Therefore, "UNMIK?should implement a rapid and categorical takeover of Trepca complex, including the immediate, total shutdown of the environmentally hazardous facilities at Zvecan." There is no question of turning the mines over to the Kosovar Albanians. And forget about there being lots of jobs for the locals. Trepca is to be rehabilitated and then divided up among foreign investors.

The report notes, with pleasure, that the KLA appears to be thoroughly up-to-date on the issue of turning Kosovo over to international financiers. George Soros has littered the world with innumerable think tanks and foundations, all dedicated to promoting his nebulous notions of the "open society." Cut away the pompous verbiage and what his pronouncements amount to is that enlightened businessmen like himself and enlightened governments with the appropriate globalist outlook should help each other out. To hell with national sovereignty.

It is an outlook that has been happily in conformity with that of the Clinton administration. And it has gone out of its way to be very helpful to Soros. Last month, Soros Private Funds Management announced that it will invest $50 million of its own equity in the Balkans. The U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corp. will provide a loan guarantee for another $100 million of investments. The Soros investment was chosen over 16 other proposals.

Last December the Clinton administration ordered the U.S. Export-Import Bank to delay approval of $500 million in credit guarantees to a Russian company, Tyumen Oil, following complaints by Western investors, including Soros, that they had been swindled. The U.S. Export-Import Bank argued that the loan met all its financial criteria. After talking to Soros, however, it was announced that it was not in the "national interest" to go ahead with the loan "for the time being." Now comes the seizure of Trepca. There is little mystery as to what it is our society is "open" to.