Chapter 5

May 1997 - Five years earlier

'The concept of mass migration during the twentieth century has been widely recognized and documented by both academics and governments alike. Throughout the early-to-middle part of the century, this has been attributed primarily to the effects of war and politics. However, in the second half of the century, there has been a trend towards migration for purely economic, or even social, reasons. Worldwide affordable travel has encouraged millions to change continent, or hemisphere, permanently in search of a better standard of living or lifestyle.

Although the term ‘globalization’ has been in use since the 1940s, its popular meaning is credited to Theodore Levitt, an American economist and professor at the Harvard Business School who used the phrase in 1985 to describe the phenomenon of increasing global connectivity, and integration between nation states, businesses - both national and multi-national - and individuals. The significance of Levitt’s work has not been lost on governments who have seen a potential risk to national identity through the influx or exodus of large numbers of people.’

Those within the American Government whose job it was to research and, if required, find practical applications for ideas put forward by academics like Levitt, came to a startling conclusion in early 1997. The theory was tantalizing and eminently provable, but in order to convince the Senate Committees responsible, they had to be persuaded to put in motion a daring social experiment.

The Migration Manipulation Program would be a bold and highly risky course of action, intended primarily to control and influence the mass movement of people from one country to another without the knowledge of the government of any country involved or, more importantly, the people themselves.

The theory was based on research conducted by a team from the University of Southern California who had used published statistical evidence to demonstrate that when the price of fuel rose, Californians drove their automobiles less.'

A simple fact even this current reader found little argument with. He sighed deeply and read on.

'The theory model has been extrapolated into the wider population. In the past thirty years, when fuel prices have increased, people have also been less inclined to fly, so the number of foreign holidays taken has decreased.'

He peered over his half-moon spectacles at the illustrative graph showing a correlation between the fluctuating prices of crude oil from 1973 to the present against the number of overseas flight taken by Americans during the same twenty year period. He could not yet see the point, but still pressed on.

He continued reading as the clock struck midnight. The lengthy report explained that other factors also had a bearing on travel decisions which, in turn, had a measurable effect on population migration trends. Economic and political factors in the homelands of migrants worldwide had been recognized influences for a hundred years but the Californian sociologists had uncovered evidence to suggest that far more subtle issues could, over time, influence a person, or whole families, to decide to move not just house but country. Crime rates, employment and weather were unsurprising, elements on the list.

With increasingly heavy eyes, he read on. Just this last report to finish tonight, he thought, although he could really see little point as to why this was supposed to be so valuable.

By page twenty-four he was ready to give up. His eyes were sore and dry. The clock on the oak mantle chimed half past midnight. He was about to close the cover when the title of the next chapter across the page caught his eye:

'Economic Invasion - how to create and influence a migrant influx and thereby manipulate the economy of a nation.'

By two-fifteen, what he had read convinced him how to potentially save the United States economy nine hundred and fifty billion dollars over the next twenty years whilst quietly bringing down the governments of probably eight countries whose leaders were hostile to the US or whose economies represented a threat to America’s growth.

Within the week he would convene a meeting of the Chairs of the Senate Committees to discuss the implications of this report and how the information could best be exploited. He scribbled on the notepaper emblazoned with the White House seal as he replaced the file back into its leather case marked ‘For the Presidents Eyes Only’ and, sliding the case under his bed, clicked off the light.

Ten days later, the Chairmen of the twenty-one standing Senate Committees convened noisily in a White House meeting room. There was initial confusion, suspicion even, that this unusual unplanned meeting had been called. There was no imminent threat to national security that anyone was aware of, no looming natural disaster or man-made crisis about to unfold.

Most of those present had at least made an attempt to read the report that had been sent to them. Some had merely thumbed through, confused by what seemed to be a report by some hippy Californian post grads discussing holidays and family trends. A few had got their advisers to read it and to summarize the contents for them. What possible significance could this have to bring together such a high powered group of influential senators?

Senator Elmerstein, the Chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, who had been given an advance copy of the report and had read and understood its implications thoroughly, sat calmly as he waited for the final arrival. He looked up at the clock high on the wall opposite him. It was now ten-thirty. Lifting his stiff white cuff to glance at his watch, he looked up and coughed loudly, instantly bringing the meeting to order. Senators, who had been greeting each other, enquiring after wives and mistresses, stopped talking and looked expectantly towards Elmerstein.

“Gentlemen, thank you for coming this morning. I hope you have read the report in front of you.”

Fresh copies had been neatly positioned, like table mats, one for each person present. Those who had discussed the meeting privately beforehand glanced at each other, exaggerated perplexed looks on their faces. There was a thud on the large wooden door. It was a courtesy, not a request for permission to enter. He needed no permission to enter a room in his own house.

The President strode in. There was an audible gasp, combined with a teeth-clenching screech of polished wood on wood as eighty-four chair legs slid sharply back on the parquet floor, their occupants standing to attention as their Commander-in-Chief entered the room.

“Morning gentlemen, sorry I’m late. Have I missed anything Elm?”

Elmerstein had been a Senator for thirty years and had earned the respect, and in most cases the confidence, of every president since Nixon. “No, Mr. President, we were just getting started.”

“Good. Gentlemen, let’s talk about energy.”

The senators looked around for some sign that they were not the only one in the room who had missed that part of the report. The President, sensing the confusion, launched straight into a speech he had spent the previous evening drafting, intending it to eventually be for public broadcast. “Keeping America competitive requires affordable energy, and here we have a serious problem. America is addicted to oil which is often imported from unstable parts of the world. The best way to break this addiction is through technology. We must change the way we power our homes and our automobiles, We must begin to look at cutting-edge methods of producing ethanol and other so-called bio-fuels using by-products of corn, wood and switch grass, to name a few.”

The committee members were already very confused. The President had entered the room and launched into a speech about energy. The report in front of them was about human migration patterns. Elmerstein adjusted his position in his seat, turning to face the President, attempting to interrupt him using body language alone. The President responded. “Senator Elmerstein, I sense you wish to say something?”

“Mr. President, if I may interject?” Elmerstein turned again to face his assembled peers. “The point of calling you all here today, in the presence of the President, is that I, that is he, wishes to discuss a matter which relates to the future of the world’s energy supply and that the method by which we assure, and indeed secure, this future supply involves an extremely controversial and delicate, not to say highly confidential, matter. The potential, or indeed the likely effective destruction of another sovereign state.”

Elmerstein and the President sat patiently, waiting for the mass exhalation by twenty ageing politicians interspersed with the stage-whispers of, as far as Elmerstein could make out, the words Iraq, Iran, Arabia and Kuwait to subside. The pair glanced at each other before the President continued once more.

“Some years ago now, the United States acquired the technology to produce an ethanol-based fuel derived from something called bovine caseinate. Put simply, a milk by-product. The problem is the milk which is produced containing the bovine caseinate, is different from the milk we all put on our coffee, or on our breakfast cereal, each day. The extra component, which makes the milk relatively easy and cheap to refine a high percentage of the whey by-product into fuel, makes it essentially poisonous to drink. Therefore we have to somehow ensure this particular milk never gets anywhere near the human food chain.”

The Chairman of the Committee on Agriculture Nutrition and Forestry interjected. “Impossible, Mr. President. Look at the Brits and their mad cow disease.”

“Then the answer,” continued the President, “is to produce and process the milk in complete isolation; that is offshore, thereby assuring the integrity of our own domestic milking herd.”

The Senators began questioning the reasoning of their President. “But any offshore production would still leave us vulnerable and exposed to the security of the country in which we produce, as well as the territories which we import through. Look at our exposure in the Middle East.”

“Not if we control that source of production completely and we don’t transport across any other sovereign border.”

By now the Senators were shuffling in their seats. Some were glancing up at the clock.

“Gentlemen, there is a country, friendly towards the United States, which is perfect. Isolated, and with no other significant land mass between it and us. Furthermore, one of its prime industries for years has been dairy production. It is a democratic country, about the size of the United Kingdom, but with a population just twice the size of Manhattan’s.”

They stared blankly.

“I propose that we utilize the resources of New Zealand in order to produce enough of this modified milk to satisfy the demands of eighty-five percent of this country’s fuel requirements by the year 2015.”

A ricochet of twenty different questions fired at the President and Senator Elmerstein simultaneously. The bait had been taken.

It was clear by the President’s attendance at this meeting that he backed this audacious plan. However, he left it to Senator Elmerstein to fill in the details. Before he had a chance, Senator McCluskey, a prominent Irish-American, interjected. “But, Mr. President, last time I looked, New Zealand was a loyal part of the British Commonwealth. Heck, they share a monarch. The Brits would never condone such a thing. It would mean the end of NATO; it would cause uproar in the UN Security Council. I’m sorry, but count me out. I can see it now. There’ll be US Marines pitched against the Household Cavalry. Jesus, sir, you may as well declare war on the Queen herself.”

The President merely smiled his urbane, indulgent smile. He could always rely on Paddy McCluskey not to mince his words.

“Senator McCluskey, gentlemen, let me reassure you …. let me reassure every single person in this room this morning that what I am proposing will be for the benefit of not only the economies of both New Zealand and the United Sates, but for the greater good of the whole world. Let me further reassure you that not a single shot will be fired, not one uniformed American serviceman will land in New Zealand during the course of this operation as part of any invasion force either overtly or covertly, and not one New Zealander will even have the slightest suspicion that his country’s good fortune in securing a multi-billion dollar deal to supply what they will believe to be a home-grown technological breakthrough was actually instigated, controlled and manipulated by us in the first place, and will continue to be so throughout the lifetime of the fuel production program.”

The President aimed his smile around the room once again. Paddy McCluskey nodded and smiled back. He had been placated. “Gentlemen, I have another pressing engagement. I shall leave you in the capable hands of our esteemed colleague.” With that, the door behind him opened, the committee stood once more, and he was gone.

Elmerstein got straight to the point, as usual. “Our intention is to infiltrate the economic and political system of New Zealand at every level, using perfectly ordinary members of the public. As the President has already said, there will be no military intervention and minimal use of professional intelligence staff. Within five years, people sympathetic to our intentions will own or control the means by which the fuel can be produced, and through both overt and subliminal persuasion, we will be pumping bio-fuel across the Pacific and into California within twelve years.”

“We’re gonna run a pipeline across the Pacific?”

“Absolutely. It’s perfectly possible from an engineering point of view. It’s also safer and cheaper than using tankers and allows us full control in terms of supply. No more shortages caused by political unrest, weather, mechanical failure, terrorism or maintenance downtime.”

A number of senators were scribbling notes, and whispered discussions were taking place at a number of points around the table.

“How do we fund this?”

“How are we gonna get these New Zealanders to agree to all this?”

“How do we know this fuel works?”

“Fuel from milk? Never heard of it!”

“Who is the President of New Zealand anyway?”

The questions grew into an excited cacophony. Elmerstein took this as subdued enthusiasm. He had them. “Gentlemen, gentlemen, all in good time. I will be making an appointment to see each and every one of you separately over the course of the next few weeks to discuss your department’s role in more detail, but the key thing at this stage is that you know only what role your own staff will be playing. Let me just say this to you. The key to the success of this whole plan is that there is no plan. The theory model indicates each Department must work in isolation, only implementing its assigned tasks. In this way, there remains a natural fluidity, an evolution if you will. Things seep out. A minor act by one Department will have an effect in another which may influence someone in, say Illinois, or Japan, or Germany, hopefully a great many people. But these people will not recognize the source or even the influence itself.”

Elmerstein began to encircle the table. He was in his element. “Let me give you an example. You will all be aware that I was involved in many of the decisions made around our space program in the seventies and eighties. Who can remember our original Strategic Defense Initiative announced by President Reagan in 1983?”

The sudden direct question startled the assembled politicians and there were a few mumbles and nods.

Senator Duggan spoke for them. “You mean the star wars program Elm?”

“No, Star Wars was a movie about a galaxy far, far away. But it’s what SDI became known as, right? But does anyone remember how? Who in this room thinks we can trace the origins of the nickname of our multi-billion dollar sub-orbital missile system back to one man? And I don’t mean George Lucas. Well, we can. Because the term was coined by a Doctor Bowman who worked on the project from 1977 until it was made public by the President in 1983. Bowman realized that such a controversial plan would need to capture the American public’s imagination in order to receive its unquestioning backing, so he decided that we should borrow from the most popular movie franchise at the time, capture the youth of America. And we did.”

Elmerstein paused and leaned over the table, placing his large craggy palms face down on the burnished maple. He shot a dramatic glance, catching the gaze of every man as his eyes swept the room. “Why was the first space shuttle called 'Enterprise'? I’ll tell you why. Popular myth has it that it was due to a public campaign to persuade NASA to begin a dynasty of spaceships that would carry the name hundreds of years into the future, blurring fact with television fiction. To boldly go where no man has gone before etc etc. A romantic notion, which again captured the imagination of a public actually pretty bored with space travel at that time. So it was decided to call the first Space Transportation Craft 'Enterprise'. The public thought they had influenced the choice of name and it became their spacecraft. Anyway, gentlemen, I digress. Nowadays the corporate guys have gotten hold of the idea, and the technique they are using is termed, I believe, 'viral marketing'. It’s just starting to be looked at as a serious marketing tool in the commercial world but we believe we can also use it to good effect.”

‘Vile what?”

“Viral marketing, taking a pre-existing social network, say a group of kids the same age, or members of a particular profession, and manipulating them to create what is known in the commercial consumerist world as brand awareness. So an example might be, say kids in a school yard talking about a new T.V. show, and the next week more kids tune in. It’s a word of mouth thing.”

“And this is gonna help us invade New Zealand? We’re gonna do it by word of mouth?”

Senator Elmerstein could not resist a smile at how his own over-simplification had been taken so literally. “Yes, well kind of. Over the next few years, we need to make sure we are those kids in the school yard, sowing the seeds, nurturing the dreams and aspirations of thousands of people, shaping their perceptions, allowing us to control, as much as we are able, the kind of men and women who we need to be in New Zealand in the next ten years. But I have said enough already. The key to our success is that you each in turn put in place the strategies I will outline to you individually over the coming weeks. I know you have many questions, and I will try to answer them all, but I will do so face-to-face, one-on-one, at the proper time.” Senator Elmerstein raised himself from the table slowly, as if to emphasize that the gravity of the proposal was actually weighing him down. “Thank you for your time, gentlemen. This meeting is now closed and the detail will, of course remain confidential and un-minuted as necessity dictates. God bless America.”

Over the next few weeks during July and August of 1997, Senator Elmerstein visited each of the Chairs of the twenty one standing Senate Committees. To each man he gave a dossier and a two hour explanation of what was expected of his Department over the next eighteen months to two years. After that time there would be an update meeting where progress so far, and the next steps forward, would be discussed.

The dossier each Senate Chair received contained a summary of the meeting which had taken place at the Whitehouse a few weeks before. It highlighted the United States’ huge appetite for energy, and forecast the likelihood of dwindling world oil reserves within forty years.

It pointed out some startling facts relating to the Military’s energy consumption to emphasise America’s insatiable thirst for oil. It was noted that in 25 minutes an F-15 fighter jet burned 625 gallons of fuel, more than an average motorist used in a year. An aircraft carrier used that much in 7 minutes. In 1989, the US Military had consumed about 200 million barrels of oil, enough to run the entire US urban mass transit system for 14 years.

There was a page devoted to a draft speech the President intended to make to the United Nations Convention on Climate Change in Kyoto in December that had been written shortly after the Senate had voted that the United States should not be a signatory to what was to become known as the Kyoto Protocol on the basis that it contained no binding targets or timetable for either developing or developed nations. In the speech, the President called for all countries to work together to develop existing and new technologies which would rid the planet of its addiction to oil.

The President would propose international co-operation on the construction of a vast North Atlantic wave farm, an array of wave energy converters stretching over 500 square miles, 70 miles off the North West coast of Scotland. The harnessed energy, it had been calculated, could supply enough power for the five biggest cities in Western Europe or, more importantly, the major cities of the US eastern seaboard.

He proposed international funding for what he had personally christened the Felin Project, an ambitious plan to construct a ring of solar panels around the equator - passing through jungles, deserts and across the oceans - to harness the unlimited power of the sun at that latitude. Cables radiating out from the belt north and south would carry the converted power, supplying an estimated five per cent of the world’s electricity. The final suggestion was the conversion of vast tracts of agricultural land into fuel production farms, growing grasses or fast growing trees which could be converted to fuel. The stumbling block, of course, being this would mean using land currently in food production.

But the speech was never made. The Senate Committee Chairmen, one by one, realized that the President was actually blackmailing them. He was preparing to offer American technology, scientific knowledge and financial resources to the world for free unless they backed his plan, the one technology not mentioned in the speech - bovine caseinate additive.

They read on. Sections specific to their own committee’s terms of reference had been placed in individual dossiers. There were paragraphs relating to military and trade relations with New Zealand and policy suggestions over the next ten years designed to keep relations between the two countries cool, at least at a political level.

In the dossier handed to the Chair of the Senate Committee for Agriculture Nutrition and Forestry was a specific section on the President’s recommendation that an agreement be reached to allocate funds for research into the possibility of using crop-related technology to produce bio-fuel. That was all, no budget allocation, no further clues as to which university or private company was currently engaged in research into such a thing. In this way the agenda remained completely hidden. The individual seeds planted into each committee would be nurtured by its respective chairman until slowly, over a number of years, the tree would grow almost unnoticed, spreading its branches into every facet of American politics, business and beyond.

Alex Weisner, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, was, as he had anticipated, handed a particularly weighty dossier. He speed-read the summary of the meeting with the President fifteen days earlier and was keen, excited almost, to learn what had been delegated to his team. He was therefore somewhat taken aback when he opened the dossier to read the first heading.

Identifying nurturing and encouraging investment by companies and individuals expressing an interest in developing motion picture opportunities in New Zealand.

Senator Weisner could not think of a single film or TV show he had ever seen that originated from that small country. He was expecting to be dealing with political, even military, influence. How was encouraging Hollywood to make some kind of film in New Zealand going to encourage people to want to go and live there? Weisner sighed. This was going to be even harder than he expected. The title of the following chapter, however, whetted his politician’s appetite:

Maintaining the diplomatic and economic status quo whilst ensuring there is no Free Trade Agreement between the US and NZ until 2015 and beyond.

Now that was more his sphere of interest and influence.

And so, in the late summer of 1997, the seeds were sown. All the Administration had to do now was to wait patiently. No one would even be able to detect the germination phase; that took place out of sight; subtle, unnoticeable. Eventually a combination of apparently unrelated factors would come together to create the environment for the next phase of the program to take its course. No-one was directly controlling what was happening since no one person or group could be seen to be influencing the decisions that were being made as a result of that initial secret meeting in July 1997.

For the experiment and the migration manipulation policy to work, it had to be left to take its own course.