The dinner, like most dinners at the bizarre chin-wag called the World Economic Forum, had included one president, three prime ministers, two foreign ministers and a small grouping of central bankers and lesser mortals. They all had the funds and staffs to arrange taxis or limousines back to their hotels.
That left just two of us mopes waiting for the bus. It was cold, snowing lightly, and time to make human contact.
“Longworth, of the Tribune,” I said, sticking out my hand.
“Steve Forbes, of Forbes Magazine,” he replied, shaking my hand firmly but distantly, as presidential candidates learn to do.
So it goes in Davos, where the elite meet to eat, talk, do business, swap deep thoughts or just go skiing, and where a billionaire who didn’t make the White House can stand at the end of the line, for buses and everything else.
Davos is a ski resort, a mile up in the Alps and a three-hour bus ride from the nearest international airport, in Zurich. An entrepreneurial Swiss professor named Klaus Schwab had the idea 33 years ago to bring government and business people together in this rarefied atmosphere, far from daily cares, to discuss common problems.
The affair has grown since into the world’s biggest and best-known gathering of elites, enriching Davos, Schwab and the town’s hotels, which charge delegates $300 for rooms that normally go for less than $100.
About 2,300 people came this year–largely corporate CEOs, but also government officials, financiers, media heavyweights, religious leaders and social activists.
A Davos invitation is still craved as a sign that one belongs to The Club. When Enron’s Kenneth Lay didn’t make the cut last year, the imperious Schwab explained that it wasn’t because he had disgraced himself but because he no longer ran a company.
For most participants, Davos is so small and remote that casual contact–not only with the people you came to see but with the people you wouldn’t meet anywhere else–is unavoidable.
Even the relatively obscure are Somebody. A fellow passenger on a shuttle bus turned out to be a Cambridge professor and former prime minister of Armenia. The man waiting in line for credentials was a Yale professor and former head of the UN Development Program.
At dinner in a small restaurant, Russia’s leading TV anchor ate at one table, Metropolitan Opera conductor James Levine at another. Former President Bill Clinton came to a midnight Super Bowl party but left at halftime.
Wags suggested that Schwab should invite President Bush and Saddam Hussein, feed them a good Swiss meal and let them talk out their differences, Davos-style.
Some sessions are devoted to deep economic forecasts, others to such subjects as love or “Sports, Trust and Politics.” The panelists for the latter included Nike Chairman Philip Knight, Crown Prince Albert of Monaco, NBA Commissioner David Stern and the head of the 2004 Olympics in Greece.
Delegates get from one event to another in shuttle buses driven by daring drivers who schuss through the slippery streets with a skill that comes from living with lots of snow.
In truth, this mountaintop klatch may have peaked. Attendance, which used to top 3,000, was cut back this year. If the U.S. sent five Cabinet heavyweights to plead the administration’s case concerning Iraq, very few top officials came from France, Germany, Britain or the European Union. Most of the business and activists representatives were American or European, and attendance from Asia and Africa seemed down compared to earlier years.
So was the glitter. With the world economy stagnant, it seemed bad form to have the champagne-drenched parties that were part of past forums. Also missing were the gifts, such as the $400 personal data assistants that dot-com companies gave away last year.
