December 3, 2007
Chatham House/Las Vegas rules
Last week, I attended an interesting event hosted by Time Warner at its headquarters in New York. It involved John Edwards, the Democrat candidate for the presidency, being interviewed by Dick Parsons, Time Warner’s chairman and chief executive, in front of an small-ish invited audience. It was one of a series of events called "Conversations in the Circle".
I cannot recount what Mr Parsons or Mr Edwards said (although neither said anything controversial) because the meeting was held under what Jeff Bewkes, Time Warner’s president, described as Chatham House rules. Mr Bewkes explained half-jokingly that this meant: "What’s said in the circle stays in the circle".
In fact, aficionados will recognise that those are not Chatham House but Las Vegas rules.
The Chatham House rule, as devised for meetings held at the eponymous London policy centre on international affairs, states that:
When a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the Chatham House rule, participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identify nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed.
Las Vegas rules, meanwhile, reputedly state that "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas". This means, roughly, that if you go to the Nevada city in a group of friends to gamble, drink, watch a Cirque du Soleil performance having taken magic mushrooms, or visit a lap dancing club, none of it must be recounted afterwards.
Thus, under the Chatham House rule, if you were in a group of 15 men, one of whom did an embarrassing thing in Las Vegas, it would be acceptable to say afterwards that one of the party had done it, but not to say who it was. Under Las Vegas rules, you ought to say nothing at all.
I suppose Mr Bewkes was right, in this case, that the Chatham House rule was in effect the same as Las Vegas rules because it would have been impossible to repeat anything that was said during the evening without identifying who had said it. But there is a distinction.
