We originally published this book in 1989. The first copies met with a bit of disbelief. "Farfetched. Can't happen." Because, for most people, if it's not on the TV news or the Holmes Show, it hasn't happened.

Then, slowly, implants and IDs and surveillance systems became commonplace.

After all - you go into your friendly bank or service station - and there, up on the wall is a Peeping Tom video camera watching every twitch and wriggle you make. Maybe the monitor is on the counter. Maybe the boss does his Big Brother bit in the back room. Wherever. But there's also a tape running that keeps the last fifteen minutes on record, just in case.

And ask yourself this one. How big is a video camera? Answer: around 30mm square - about postage stamp size. How much does it cost? Answer: under $100. In August 1991, researchers working for VSLI Vision Ltd. in Edinburgh announced that they had perfected such a camera. It only takes black-and-white pictures, but colour is being worked on.

It'll be commonplace. Still overseas...

The Royal Netherlands government in 1990 ordered all Dutch farm animals to have a numbered electronic microchip implanted. A Maftech scientist said the initial order was for some 25 million implants, and forsaw the cost of the tiny insert dropping to around a couple of dollars in a year or so.

In 1990, "extortioners" were said to be demanding two million pounds from the British government, or they'd release the disease rabies. Was it genuine? Was it orchestrated? Governments and international agencies do worse things than that. But think of the effect of a rabies scare: the disease is spread through bites (but the news item merely said "through saliva"), nothing happens for six weeks, then death occurs after four days of convulsions and delirium. It fuelled fears of all stray dogs, provoking demands that all strays be killed to prevent future threats of this kind, and for pet dogs to be implanted to prove they aren't strays.

In 1968, Margaret Thatcher said the potential clout in the hands of a government who linked all state dossiers on a citizen "would place too much power in the hands of the state over the individual. But her 1989 Poll Tax required registration of everyone's location on pain of mounting fines, including legal duty to advise all future movements as well. And local Councils were to be fined if they allowed people to slip through the net. Brits were alarmed to learn that the Data Protection Act, designed to control access to computerised information, deliberately did not apply to information gathered by the Poll Tax. Okay, Thatcher has departed - but it shows what can happen in a so-called democratic country.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch: A totally accessible database has been available for the North Shore as a pilot scheme since mid-1990. The rest of NZ will follow. Anyone can touch a button and find out who lives where, how many dogs, swimming pools or brick houses are down your street, where power, gas and sewer pipes run... In short: a total land-use picture on one computer. No guarantees are being given as to the limits to the personal information available. Commercial and governments interests are excited about the possibilities.

Nobody thinks these things are far-fetched any more. And we have had to repeatedly revise this book to keep up-to-date with the steadily tightening grip of national and international control on individuals.

Now...

Hands up if you believe in funny coincidences. Here's our one.

The day we published the first edition of this book, we felt a bit of a prompt to draw our money out of our account. In cash. (Note to burglars - we've since spent it.) At the bank, they tapped our number into the computer, stared at the screen, stared at us, called other staff to tap on the keys. Went on for quite a time. "Your account has a 'REFER' notice on it," said they. That's a big black mark usually reserved for chronic cheque bouncers and others who need watching. We assured them we'd never abused our account, and asked what the computer claimed we'd done. "That's the odd thing; when we ask the reason, the screen just goes blank." So we got our money. A few days later, the 'REFER' notice had vanished. We were told that any bank person can put a 'REFER' on without having to key in a password to authorise it. Funny it happened on publication day. Was it intimidation, someone checking on the Anderson millions, or just a stray cosmic ray? It doesn't much matter - the fact is, it can (and did) happen; we "just happened" to discover it; and while it was there our credit rating hit absolute zero, our cheques would have only cleared sluggishly, and our money machine card mightn't have worked. Hmm!

And, despite living far from the madding etc, we've been on the receiving end of six surveys in two years. Some on the phone, some face-to-face. One from "The Federation of Rural Women and the Social Research and Consulting Agency, Massey University", with Dr Cheleen Mahar as principal researcher, assured us of total confidentiality, although the 34(!) page questionnaire had a consecutive number at the top. It asked if Eileen is ever "physically or verbally abused" by me, what we worry about, who we go to for help, who we regularly phone, areas of conflict 'twixt us two, what debts we have... A friend who runs similar surveys has advised us to get the name of the caller, their phone number and the firm they work for - then hang up. The information has great potential for anyone who wants to build a personality profile of you. You are seldom "chosen at random", and there is no assurance of confidentiality. Forget the ego trip; close the door firmly, hang up, or whatever. If they want to leave the forms with you, accept, photocopy them - and hand 'em back blank. There are too many folk out there a-gathering information.

Speaking of gathering information... You've known for years that phone tapping is something every government does. Probably you've known that our new electronic exchanges make it a simple matter for the Telecom officials or the SIS to tap in a code sequence of digits, then your number, in order to monitor you. But did you know you can buy hi-tech goodies over the counter for the purpose?

Tempest picks up the electronic mush from your computer, fax or telex, and turns it into a clear printout of what you've been sending, receiving or working on. (Hold a tranny beside a TV or keyboard to get an idea of how those things broadcast.) Promon is a complete but tiny telephone exchange that intercepts your calls, recording them or "losing" them as necessary - and dialling its owner's number if the call has certain predetermined features. The Brady Bug uses phone lines to collect ordinary room sounds even when the phone isn't in use. Hmm! We wondered why our phone gives one complete ring at 9.00 pm most nights. Nobody there even if we pick it up while the phone is ringing. However, the phenomenon doesn't occur if we unplug the phone and plug in a thingy that honks if a genuine call is coming through. Perhaps our phone is paranoid?

But that was a digression.

* * *

So, Kiwis after the Budget of 1991 were asking themselves "Who runs this country?" Those with a good memory might have remembered a cover story in TIME ("The Debt Police", 31/7/89) on the work of the International Monetary Fund, where it said: "Each of the 151 member countries has pledged to relinquish a measure of national sovereignty". In 1989, the then Finance Minister David Caygill said although work on a "high integrity taxation number" was under way, he was unaware of plans to spread the number more widely than the tax department. This conflicted with Dr. Cullen's statement saying there would be "a unique inter-departmental number".

Not only the Labour Party were having problems when they spoke of the ID.

On the 5th January 1990, MP John Banks - then part of the Opposition, wrote to us saying: "'Let not your hearts be troubled' - a common ID card is not on the National Party agenda." On the 16th October of the same year, the Northern Advocate reported John Banks as stating: "Identification cards were one step away from the introduction of a police state." That sounded reassuring, so when rumours of an ID began to circulate early in 1991, we asked Banks, now Minister of Police what the government is doing with regard to ID numbers and ID cards, and whether he still regarded identification cards as being "one step away" from a police state. He replied on the 7th May: "I can assure you that any media comment on the issue of ID cards is, at this stage, purely speculation."

So we interviewed Judge Ken Mason, who was chairing the working party where seven government departments looked at a common ID number "for all clients" and the pooling of information. He hadn't heard the head of Sweden's ID system resigned "in protest" at the way IDs affected Swedes. We also pointed out that China's Tiananmen Sq d caused, in part at least, by 1500 million citizens being given ID cards that regulated most vital activity. And we stressed that Christians are forbidden to take an implanted or imprinted ID.

His ID committee has already done an experimental swap of "secret client information" relating to 1000 Social Welfare beneficiaries. The Privacy Commissioner was not informed and learned of this questionably legal trial through the news media. There's a lot of un-reassuring secrecy surrounding the whole ID question. David Caygill, Minister of Finance, took three months to reply to our queries. And even the existence of Judge Mason's committee had to be "discovered" by the media. The committee was ordered to report in secret to the government and not call for public submissions.

Then came Ruth Richardson's notorious Budget and news of the Kiwicard.

What prompted the move toward Big Brotherism?

Simply that New Zealand was told to give IDs to everybody. Sure, it sounds impossible. But we used the official Information Act to get hold of a closely guarded document: the report by the International Monetary Fund after they investigated our Inland Revenue.

What did the International Monetary Fund say?

"...every country should create a nationwide, universally used personal identification number system."

Why has the International Monetary Fund told our government what to do? Because this country is head over heels in debt to them. (Ever heard the phrase: "the borrower is servant to the lender"!)

So the Kiwicard - the folksy name was an attempt to sugar a very bitter pill - is Phase I of a plan to number and control all Kiwis. As Jenny Shipley said: "Use of the card will be voluntary - but to receive a reduction in health care costs, you will be required to show your card to the doctor, chemist, hospital or laboratory". And, of course, no card, no benefit. That's how voluntary it is.

Later, when the drivers licence is merged with the Kiwicard, it will still be voluntary - just remember: no card, no car when that happens.

Oh - and don't forget that the International Monetary Fund wants the same ID produced whenever you go to the bank. They said happily that Israel and Sweden had accepted similar heavy controls. They ignored the fact that Israel is a nation in a perpetual state of virtual war, and the head of Sweden's Data Inspection Board has resigned "as an act of protest over his failure to protect the privacy of ordinary Swedes, who are issued with a Personal Identification Number which lasts from birth to the grave".

Perhaps some official will claim the Kiwicard isn't an ID. If that's true, are we going to be given another ID card to identify the Kiwicard as ours?

Okay. What do you know about these plastic cards?

Some stores give you one. A bit of printing, and your name embossed on one side. Nothing more.

Banks are more fancy. The black stripe ("mag stripe") on the back of theirs has your bank, branch, account and pin number coded in the iron filings. Phonecards keep a running total of cash left for pre-paid calls in a similar way.

Maybe the Kiwicard will have a little black stripe too. (And - adding this bit later - the Community Services Card does have a mag stripe; and oddly enough, some government press releases have assured us it isn't going to be used...)

But what if it's a Smart Card? Do you know what a Smart Card can do?

Just bear in mind that we're not writing science fiction; this is simply normal production-line stuff available over the counter in N.Z. today.

One type of Smart Card is produced by GEC Avery.

It's the same shape, same thickness as any bank or store card. Pretty picture printed on it; your name neatly embossed; even a black stripe if you want that sort of thing. So what's special about it?

Lots.

It has a long-life computer built in. Part of its powerful memory is a set of programmes where it can respond in various situations. The rest of its memory is equivalent to three- and-a-half pages of information about you, typed solid.

It's designed to be used in many areas. For example: your financial details could be accessed by the tax office, medical details by the doctor, bank balance by bank and shops, it would open security doors at your work or let your employer know how often you used the toilet.

That's powerful. That's not all...

The card has a built-in aerial and transmitter that needs no power source. You don't push it into a swipe machine. A scanner reads it - while it is still in your pocket. Distance doesn't matter - the bigger the scanner, the further away you can be.

And you never know when the Smart Card is being read. Nor would you know whether your card is Smart or not. And only the government would ever know the full extent of the information on it. Say the very first character indicates sex. "M" should mean "male", "F" should mean "female". But what if "m" (small letter) or "f" (small letter) is used - say to indicate "European male or female". Now, bear in mind that a computer can recognise between 96 and 256 different characters, so a vast quantity of subtle coding is possible.

There's a problem, though. Cards can be stolen or lost. And a Kiwicard that's a Smart Card that holds everything from your medical history to your bank balance would be worth stealing.

So the next step stands a good chance of being the implant. Which, as we have said, fits the prophecies concerning the Mark of the Beast.

Meanwhile, the European Community has been running trials in France, Belgium, Italy and Britain since 1988 giving Smart Cards to doctors' patients to "pave the way for a standard Smart Health Card for Europe by 1992" (NEW SCIENTIST, 21/4/88). Again, the card can be read - and altered - at a distance without being placed inside a machine.

The trouble is - in a country as isolated as New Zealand, people tend to think that what happens to them is just a local government decision. Our news is so (...no, we won't say "censored", because it's hard to prove; let's just say...) filtered, that by the time it's come from the main offices of the press agencies in Australia and passed through various editors with all their unstated prejudices and policies (...not to mention any pressures from government agencies...) and has been trimmed back "for reasons of space and time", any overseas news is pretty sketchy.

Try listening to any foreign shortwave station giving an English-language broadcast. There are thousands of them. The difference in the news is startling. Listen long enough, and a pattern starts to emerge.

What kind of pattern?

Sorry if it sounds dramatic: world control.

It's not as far-fetched as it sounds. After all, conquest of the world has been the aim of nations and individuals (not always madmen; the "madmen" label is often just the propaganda label given by others) throughout history. Why should things have changed now?

Answer: things haven't changed.

Correction: perhaps one aspect is different. Warfare is a bit more devastating. Nuclear and germ warfare has the high potential to make vast areas of the world uninhabitable for a long, long time. So if you're into world conquest, you try to avoid becoming king of a radioactive globe-sized cinder. Limited war may be okay, but the global bit has to be conquered differently.

The problem is: how? Surely anyone who could come up with that kind of technique would be a powerful person indeed? Surely their methods would be studied, tested, and actively sponsored by many groups looking for absolute world control?

Answer: one person has discovered such a method - and his method is working...

Once upon a time, there was a great man known to the world as Doctor Henry Alfred Kissinger. Originally named Heinz, he was born on the 27th May 1923 in the predominantly Catholic town of Furth, Bavaria to orthodox Jewish parents. He grew up under an expanding Nazi regime and escaped to America in 1938. Towards the end of the war he returned to Germany as an American Intelligence Officer. Later at Harvard he studied for a PhD. His marriage in 1949 to Anne Fleisher produced a son and a daughter; and was dissolved in 1964. Ten years later he married Nancy Maginnes. His jet-plane diplomacy in the Middle East won him a joint Nobel Peace prize while serving as USA's Secretary of State. And then...

"You never hear about Kissinger these days".

Who says that?

Everyone says that. Unless they subscribe to "Bulletin" or "Newsweek" and happen to notice a heavy-looking article under the professor's by-line every year or so.

Why does a man like that fade away?

Answer: he doesn't.

Sure, there isn't much in the New Zealand media about him. Either we enjoy heavy censorship - it happens - or we have what Kissinger himself describes as an "island mentality".

Overseas news isn't news unless it directly affects our Kiwi society. Okay, maybe that's a generalisation. But count the number of non-NZ-related items on a news broadcast and surprise yourself.

And try twiddling the shortwave knob of your ghetto blaster. Then count the number of times "Dr. Henry Kissinger, former US Secretary of State" gets a mention.

The world's greatest diplomat isn't ready for retirement yet.

Note the title the overseas media give him. Former US Secretary of State. For goodness' sake - that dates back twelve-plus years. What handle does he have now?

None. He doesn't need one.

At Harvard he made a point of meeting everyone who was somebody. We don't mean celebrities; that's not his style. More importantly, he met everyone who was going to be somebody.

It's not easy, but he did it.

And within two years of getting his doctorate (...doctorates are pretty commonplace in the US of A, remember...) he was adviser to the President.

(In Kissinger's case, it's what he knows and who he knows; which is why he is quoted as saying to one Foreign Minister: "Sign the treaty and I give you this", significantly tapping his personal notebook of phone numbers.)

To understand the power and potential of the man, you need to do some solid reading. Your local library can get the books free from the National Library if you ask. Just bear in mind that neither Kissinger nor his commentators write in Women's Weekly (...or Anderson...) style. But, rightly or wrongly, they say something.

Begin with the thesis that earned the professor his doctorate. It's in most libraries, surprisingly, under the snappy title "A World Restored: Castlereagh, Metternich and the Restoration of Peace" (pub. Gollancz 1964) Keep the words "Restored" and "Restoration" in your mind: restoration has a significance we'll deal with later. And, for the moment, remember that Kissinger also won the Sumner Prize for "the best dissertation...dealing with any means...tending towards the prevention of war and the establishment of universal peace."

"A World Restored" looks at the efforts, successes and defeats of Austrian Prince Metternich to stabilise Europe while Napoleon was marching all over the map. (Now, don't you wish you'd been listening in the history class?)

Quite a few significant points leap out. 1. Generals don't keep peace; statesmen do. 2. Peace is a delicate balance of treaties that give everybody an advantage; nobody gains if there are losers. 3. Revolutionaries never want to negotiate, whatever they say. They desire conquest for conquests' sake. They have to be destroyed, at any cost. 4. By the time something happens, it is too late to act. A statesman must be a prophet, anticipating and acting before the event.

Those are our paraphrasings. A couple of other thoughts also emerge.

There are "island mentalities" and "continental mentalities". Austria, surrounded by land, was in effect threatened by each and every soldier marching towards her. And needed to react positively, no matter how far away those tramping feet might be. Hence the fear of Napoleon, treaties notwithstanding.

Britain, surrounded by water, wasn't greatly bothered what happened until boatloads of the enemy were actually sailing across the channel. And Britain's pressure for everyone to take a "wait and see" attitude was threatening Austria's safety. (There's a parallel with Chamberlain at Munich.)

Now - if you're following the implication of these comments, you'll see they relate to a situation greater than US involvement in Vietnam and Cambodia, greater than scraps between Israel and Syria.

Kissinger is presenting a blueprint for, first, a united and stable Europe; second, "a world restored" to peace by interlocking agreements where everyone benefits. Where revolutionaries (because they will not negotiate) are put down by the use of intense and localised force.

If the remarks about statesmen and prophets, a few paragraphs back, strike you as untypically mystic for a man like Kissinger - know that all who write about Kissinger are intensely aware that he is no local politician, shortsightedly pursuing the stubborn dogmas of his political party. He is a philosopher-historian, peering over the narrow boundaries of laws and customs, manipulating, balancing and anticipating. Always anticipating.

This mystic element appears - incongruously - in a book by CIA political analyst Peter Dickson ("Kissinger and the Meaning of History" p.73; Cambridge Univ. Press, 1978):

"Kissinger no longer believes in the Judeo-Christian conception of history as a spiritual progression toward the Kingdom of God. Nor does he appear to believe in the Greek idea of the universe as a rationally ordered cosmos. His existentialist philosophy of history instead considers life as completely imminent - possessing no transcendent meaning and having no final destination. History is an unending process devoid of any ultimate value or purpose. It is chaos, the infinite abyss that Metternich and the eighteenth-century rationalists failed to acknowledge. If history has any meaning, it is whatever meaning men choose to give their lives as Kissinger suggested in one of his later writings." [Our emphasis.]

Kissinger (doctorate thesis p322) wrote:

"Lacking in Metternich is the attribute which has enabled the spirit to contemplate an abyss, not with the detachment of a scientist, but as a challenge to overcome - or perish in the process." [Our emphasis]

On p329 he added, "The statesman is therefore like one of the heroes in classical drama who has had a vision of the future but who cannot transmit it directly to his fellow-men and who cannot validate its 'truth'. Nations learn only by experience; they 'know' only when it is too late to act. But statesmen must act as if their intuition were already experience, as if their aspiration were truth. It is for this reason that statesmen often share the fate of prophets".

And he concluded a speech "The Reality of Interdependence" significantly:

"If we act with large spirit, history could record this as a time of great creativity, and the last quarter of this century could be remembered as that period when mankind fashioned the first truly global community."

Already, Dr. Henry Kissinger's fine-tuning of world affairs is outworking some ten years on. Israel's veto (as we write these words) of the PLO at peace talks is the outworking of a secret "Memorandum of Understanding" passed to the Israelis by the doctor on the 20th December 1973.

His shuttle diplomacy has laid foundations. His solo seminars, given one-to-one for any head of state who would listen, are paying off in terms of rulers understanding that there is more to governing than mere rhetoric for the voters.

In 1976, Edward Sheehan wrote (p230 of "The Arabs, Israel and Kissinger"):

"Most probably [Arafat] will not deal his most potent card - explicit recognition of Israel's right to exist - until he is explicitly assured by the United States that it will work for the creation of a Palestinian state on the west bank and in Gaza."

Now follow this sequence...

December 1988 (Herald): "Arafat asked Israel yesterday to come to Geneva to work with him for peace in the Middle East, but... the United States said he had not clearly met its conditions for a dialogue."

December 1988 (Advocate): "Pope John Paul told PLO chairman Yasser Arafat today that Israelis and Palestinians had an 'identical, fundamental right' to their own land but they must shun reprisals and terrorism."

May 1989 (Herald): "Yasser Arafat made a gesture for peace in the Middle East yesterday by declaring that the original Palestine Liberation Organisation charter calling for the destruction of Israel was null and void."

This is why Yasser Arafat is now saying that the PLO acknowledges Israel's right to exist - and he renounces terrorism. You see, it isn't a question of "getting people to trust him". Under the Kissinger approach, if Arafat is a revolutionary, nothing will satisfy him and he must be put down, regardless of any so-called "rightness" of his cause; if he is not a revolutionary, he can be negotiated with, and treaties made to his advantage.

If the Kissenger-Pope-Arafat link sounds odd - ponder this...

Mohammed Yasser Arafat, born 24th August 1929 is "of course" a Moslem. But what kind of Moslem?

Moslems are required to pray five times a day. Arafat's special assistant, Um Jihad, says: "Usually he gathers the five time a day into one". It is, frankly, an inconvenience to the PLO chairman.

Has he no religious associations? In the 560-page pro- palestinian book "Arafat" by Alan Hart (Indiana University Press, 1989) time and time again we learn of Arafat's meeting with a close friend - Catholic Priest Father Ibrahim Iyad. The author's observations on this strange relationship are scattered through the book. "Arafat turned to Father Iyad for moral support." "He did not finally make up his mind until he had talked with Father Iyad." "Father Iyad had been giving Arafat his blessing." "The two men [Arafat and his second-in- command Wazir] visited Father Ibrahim Iyad."

The author ponders: "Why Arafat chose a Catholic priest to be his spiritual adviser is a mystery".

Is it? Certainly it makes sense of Arafat's obeying the Pope's instructions in December 1988.

(And - this is written later - it makes sense of his attending midnight mass in Bethlehem in December 1996.)

Israel has a tricky task, working a mind-switch on the voters, deconditioning them from the kneejerk PLO-is-nasty reaction. The process is being performed with care. Already the "Jerusalem Post" uses (in its English edition; we get it air-mail) the Hebrew word "intifada" to describe acts of terrorism or the terrorists themselves.

By contrast, the term "PLO" is now only used in the context of negotiation. This re-establishes thought patterns and attitudes.

For example, the closing paragraph of the "Jerusalem Post's" editorial for Thursday, 27th April 1989 reads:

"King Hussein does not want the intifada to cross the river onto his home ground. In this, at least, with considerable cooperation from Israel and, it must be said, the PLO, he is succeeding."

Peace is orchestrated, the Kissinger way.

Why else would East Germany - the communist bit - suddenly announce that they recognise Israel diplomatically and want to start paying reparations for their war crimes against the Jews?

Why has Russia begun releasing countless thousands of Jews, previously denied exit visas? Why did Russia allow the Judaic Studies Centre to open in Moscow?

The plan for the restoration of world peace is working.

After all - who wins in an all-out nuclear war? It's little consolation for the last surviving Chief of General Staff, 5kms down in a shelter hewn from solid granite, to know that he has conquered a world made dark, cold and unliveable by a perpetual pall of radioactive dust.

So even the most power-hungry must exercise a certain finesse. Or perish in the destruction of their prize.

But Kissinger is confident. Again to quote Sheehan (p202):

"Dr. Kissinger pronounced words to this effect: 'I arranged detente with Russia. I opened the door to China. I brought peace to Vietnam. I want to bring peace to the Middle East. I hate failure. I have not failed. I shall not fail'. If we juxtapose the immense egoism of the pronouncement, this conviction of Kissinger's that he could manage reality with the veracity of Professor Hoffman's diagnosis [that he plays several roles at once], we may glimpse the essence of Kissinger's method in the Middle East."

p212 "[Israelis] - like so many others the world over - follow the indefatigable Secretary of State, who is of Jewish origin, with wonder. His methods fire the imagination. The impression he creates is one of global authority."

Remember the Wall? Berlin used to have a wall. And then, surprise, surprise, down it came, just like that. Dr. Henry Kissinger said in September 1988: "It is possible to envisage a plan to reunite Europe... This is not a negotiation that would lend itself to formal diplomacy... Its initial phase must be highly confidential." He has for years been laying the foundations for the "spontaneous" events of the past months. But (as they say) read on for details of how some aspects have been somewhat contrived...

Remember Cromwell? Before our time - but that benign British dictator and his men destroyed any number of Catholic "art treasures" that offended their Protestantism. It's understandable. But in Russia at the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, those hard-line atheists didn't destroy the ikons, images, baubles, bangles and beads to any great extent. They put 'em on show in museums. Funny, that. And according to the glossy, well-presented literature the Russian Embassy have sent us - they've now given back these "art treasures" to the church. And nine churches a day are being reopened. Just as if religion was always intended to be restored as part of a bigger plan...

"And what is Kissinger doing now?" you may wonder.

Until the Russian leadership crisis in August 1991, shuttling between Gorbachev and Bush, often enough, organising summit meetings.

But he has also widened his activities.

Only a child imagines that monarchs and governments hold all the reins.

Sprawling multi-national conglomerates can be empires more wealthy, more powerful, more capable of upsetting the economy than many conventional states.

The moguls who guide their gigantic business kingdoms also need to be orchestrated. Wooed in a language they understand, so that they, too, will act in harmony in the world.

Henry Alfred Kissinger has become Kissinger Associates.

Fees reportedly start at $US100,000 key money and climb sharply. Clients get "oral briefings, telephone access to Dr. Kissinger and Associates... and as many as four annual talks with the oracle"; according to a report in the Herald on the 10th April 1989. Plus introductions to a powerful network of Kissinger friends around the world.

Clients include Volvo, Coca-Cola, Union Carbide, H.J.Heinz.

Big business is learning that there is more to achieving success in this wide and wicked world than employing a bunch of salespeople trained in positive thinking.

Big business is learning who pulls the strings. Why they are being pulled. How to have a few pulled in their favour.

As long as they co-operate. Tip-toeing where they might have trampled. Fitting the overall pattern. Helping to restore peace in the world.

Now...

A recap on a few facts, then a conjecture.

Fact: Kissinger does visit, teach and negotiate with rulers and governments. That's common knowledge.

Fact: Kissinger does visit, teach and negotiate with business empires. Maybe not everyone knows about it, but Kissinger Associates was founded in 1982 and has been openly discussed in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Conjecture: Kissinger would be likely to deal with big, power-wielding religious groups.

Conjecture like we say. You're going to have to watch points in the future. See what connections you can make. But here are a few thoughts in that direction.

First, an "argument from silence"...

Some logicians are suspicious of any argument that relies on lack of evidence. However, the argument is worth considering if evidence ought to be there. (For instance, while the absence of bundles of files and documents in someone's bed-sitter mayn't mean a thing, the absence of files in a city office suggests a scared executive's been doing overtime on the shredder.)

There is an unusual absence of any link between Henry Kissinger and the Catholic Church. There is no sign of hostility, just as absence of contact.

Think about it. Consider the vast influence of the Vatican. Consider Kissinger's use of top people. Whether he likes them or not; whether he accepts their philosophies or not.

There's no link. Even his doctorate thesis, written concerning a time when Napoleon was as big a problem to the Pope as to any temporal ruler, the bare half-dozen references to the pontiff in 320 pages are totally lacking in the wealth of detail found elsewhere.

Now, it's worth noting a clever bit of timing that relates to the current Pope...

Carol Wojytla is now Pope JPII. During the don't blink you'll miss it reign of Pope John Paul I (33 days, then they murdered him) he was a second-in-command Polish cardinal. However - during those 33 days he found enough time to sign and send "a strong appeal to the Polish government to allow the Church access to the media." Guess what the first religious TV broadcast in Poland was? Carol Wojytla's own coronation as Pope. Lucky bit of timing? Or was it orchestrated. The facts are from his authorised biog by Lord Longford.

Try another jack-up...

In the first edition of this book, we wrote early in 1989: "Watch Albania. Hardline, independent Communist. It'll go all democratic. And who will go there in a blaze of humility? None other than Mother Teresa. An Albanian, remember. She's been set up for this. No, we're not knocking her - but there are any number of selfless, devoted nuns in the world who have her capacity for dedication. How come she gets the publicity? Answer: she's Albanian."

And of course in March 1991 she did just that, entering Albania, starting one of her famous homes for the destitute, handing out the wafers in a hastily reconsecrated cathedral with full media coverage, worldwide.

There are a lot of clever folk out there.

But, back to Kissinger and the Vatican Connection.

We've already mentioned Peter Dickson's "Kissinger and the Meaning of History", and said the author works for the CIA. Throughout that book, the author is at pains to paint Kissinger as a "Protestant". Not broadly Christian. Specifically "Protestant".

His "Protestant notion of inwardness" (p39), "strong Protestant tinge" (p40), "Protestant notion of inner spirituality" (p40), "fascination with the Protestant notion of spiritual inwardness" (p41), "the role the Protestant- Idealist tradition played in his cultural formation" (p49), "Kissinger belongs to the high cultural tradition of philosophical Protestantism" (p86).

The author has even felt the need to devote an individual heading to Kissinger's so-called "Protestantism" in the index. And whenever Kissinger's studies lead him to a Protestant writer, that fact is pounced on, commented on - and featured in the index.

Methinks the lady doth protest too much. That's Shakespeare.

Was the CIA spreading a little disinformation, d'you think? Why the elaborate need to push the Protestant (always capitalised, note) angle? With never a fact to back it.

One fact that does get overlooked by our CIA author is that one of Kissinger's favourite stamping grounds - Georgetown University, where since 1977 he has been Professor of Diplomacy in its School of Foreign Service, and Counsellor to the Centre for Strategic and International Studies - is that that particular establishment is a Jesuit university.

(For the record - the Jesuits are the secret service of the Vatican, and in the course of history have been banned from just about every major country on earth!)

In David Mitchell's "The Jesuits: a History" (Macdonald Futura, 1980) a thumbnail sketch of Georgetown University is drawn. Founded in 1793 by the Jesuit Bishop of Baltimore (p210), it allowed the renowned Jesuit Edward Boyd Barrett to conduct "a short course in heavily vetted psychology" (247- 248), figured in a "long success-story feature on the Jesuits in America" by "Life" magazine (p274), and boasted that the first Medical Ethics Scholar of the Kennedy Foundation was Fr. George Shoup, SJ, surgeon at the university hospital (p294).

Was the CIA agent unaware of this? Scarcely. He devotes nearly a page of condensed type in the appendix (pp 178-179) to a learned discussion between himself and the doctor - after a private seminar held at Georgetown University itself.

The Protestant label is simply whitewash.

So the expensive Dr. Kissinger is retained by Jesuits to educate Jesuits and others of their choice. A stronger Catholic link would be harder to imagine.

And - just remember - rumours abound that Kissinger is a Freemason. Not only is he said to belong to the Monte Carlo lodge but also to the infamous P2 - the Vatican's own lodge If so, this is a straightforward link with all top level Vatican policy-making.

A further point...

When Kissinger negotiates, teaches, advises, he does so in a way his audience can understand. He speaks their language, as it were. He wouldn't press the trade advantages of coals to Newcastle or pork chops to Tel Aviv.

So if he approached religious leaders he would adapt his concept of "A World Restored" to carry religious overtones.

Is there any evidence of Restorationism being taught in the church today?

In case you didn't know, religion has its fads and fashions that come and go like fashions in the rag trade. Currently, many diverse religious groups and individual churches are teaching that the world is going to get better and better because of the way God is going to work through them. They push hard for a strong political control on citizens. They use the label "Reconstructionism", "Restorationism", "Kingdom Now" and similar to describe their idea of enforcing world peace by religious means.

It is what the Vatican has said for centuries. It is the Kissinger theme tune re-scored for clergy and congregation.

Maybe you'll think that it's just an unlucky coincidence that Kissinger and many clergy have coined the same catchphrases. What if it's not a coincidence? If the groups that these folk represent have the cash and clout they claim, it would be worth a world leader's while to find someone who understood the language of diplomacy and the language of the church sufficiently well to "bring a teaching" couched in charismatic terms, embodying Kissinger's policies.

In these ecumenical days there would be no lack of top Jesuits in Kissinger's notebook to do the task.

Would Kissinger arrange this? A man who worked alongside him admitted: "The religious leader who thinks he is influencing the government may suddenly discover he's the one being manipulated - for the politician's gain. As one whose job it was to woo religious leaders for the Nixon White House, I can testify that they are no more immune than anyone else to the blandishments of power." (Charles Colson,"Loving God", Marshalls, 1983, p168)

If a Kissinger co-worker used to manipulate ministers, is it perhaps possible that the good doctor uses the technique himself?

Now - even if there is no human link whatever between Kissinger's policies and the new church teachings on Restorationism...

The principles and the methods are identical.

Restorationism teaches that the evils in society can be stemmed if good men and women take over the reins of control and insist on a Christian morality being restored. This, they claim, will be a manifestation of the Kingdom of God on earth, ready to greet the Lord when he returns.

It is nice; it is unscriptural; it is humanist.

God brings in the Kingdom of God, not man. All the Christian laws there are (the proponents of the system mean Old Testament laws, but are afraid to say so because they involve bringing back the death penalty) may construct a very moral problem-free society (may, we said) but the result is still a humanistic empire, not the rulership of God.

Calvin did pretty well with his city-state at Geneva. There were hiccups - ask Servetus, the bloke Calvin burned - but on the whole it all functioned.

You could duplicate the results today. Bring in a Christian political party, or at least a significant number of Christian MPs. Just don't confuse the results with the Kingdom of God.

Now - if the aims and methods of some religious pressure groups and the aims and methods of Kissinger are one and the same...

...whether or not there is any "secret deal" between them...

...the inspiration and the source will be the same for both of them. So take care. Because, as Peter Dickson comments in "Kissinger and the Meaning of History" p43: "For Kissinger, God died in Auschwitz".

Don't be misled by the language of idealism. "Freedom", "liberty", "justice", "human rights" are used by all sides. There's another word, too.

"Peace."

If there are no winners in a large-scale nuclear war, what weapon remains for world conquest?

Answer: peace.

Scripture warns us of this.

"Wars and rumours of wars" (Matt. 24.6) is a sign that "the end is not yet". But "when they say 'Peace and safety', then comes sudden destruction" (1 Thess. 5.3). It's a successful means of deception. "He shall destroy many through peace" (Dan. 8.25). Because peace seems so good.

Which is why Jesus (who is, after all, the Prince of Peace) made it clear that he didn't come to bring peace, but a sword. His approach is never smooth, plausible, non- threatening. Whatever benefits his rulership may offer, they specifically involve a dramatic change in us. Personally.

Maybe you've heard the phrase "born again"? It was overworked by US President Jimmy Carter and a handful of film stars some years ago.

Pity. Because it's a pretty good description of a dramatic change that God can make in us, in you, if we take the trouble of getting to know Him.

Forget the aloof, stained-glass image of God that your friendly local church projects. Jesus lived here for the simple purpose of saying: "Hey! God's alive and well and wants to meet you. He's my Dad and wants you in the family, too. No, it doesn't cost anything; I'm the way to Him. And whatever your problem - including bad personal problems, He's got the answers. It's not a matter of giving up this and that. God can change you."

That's what being "born again" is all about. It's radical. Because it's God and you - direct. Not second-hand through some religious organisation.

And it doesn't matter how many mistakes you make. He's got all the time in the world.

And by dealing with you on a one-to-One basis, the results are lasting. And get us ready for the return of the King. Jesus. Which will really rock the world back on

* * *

To turn John 14.27 inside out - the peace that Kissinger is working at isn't the same game as the peace that comes from God.

Kissinger is bringing nations together by a series of well-planned moves that also establish him firmly in control.

Are we claiming that Kissinger is, say, the Beast of Revelation?

A yes or no answer is immaterial: the fact is that if he isn't one of the prime figures in Revelation 13 then he is setting the stage for one who is. Not only has the old Roman Empire been revived, but the extent of its power is felt world-wide.

We can ignore it. But it won't go away.

Look - the Bible labours the bit about refusing the Mark of the Beast. Why?

Some churches try and tell you that the "Mark" is just a vague "spiritual principal". The Jehovah's Witnesses go on about getting involved in "the world system of things".

No. That misses the point.

Sure, it isn't good to get all eaten up by money and greed. But how far is too far in that sort of thing?

No! The Mark is a literal, physical numbering that goes in or on the body. And God says DON'T.

And for many folk, refusing the Mark is going to be the first act of faith they've made for rather a long time.