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Davos rises above the abyss
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January 31, 2000: 5:40 p.m. ET
Despite tense week, snowy Alps town shines as host to world's most powerful
By Staff Writer Tom Johnson
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DAVOS, Switzerland (CNNfn) - Davos, the picturesque town buried high in the Swiss Alps where few sounds rarely rise above the din of gently falling snow, is exhaling for the first time in a week this morning.
Every year around this time, Davos plays host to more than 1,000 of the world's top business, political and academic minds, who stagger through foot-high snow and ice to pontificate about everything from economic policies to the meaning of time.
But this year, the exclusive mountain resort also struggled to absorb the leader of the free world, scores of armed Swiss guards and 1,300 rowdy protestors hell-bent on leaving their mark on the town's pristine image.
In between such extracurricular activities, some real work was done. The World Economic Forum provides an unmatched opportunity for the world's most powerful people to bump into each other in the Congress Center's narrow hallways, and then adjourn quietly to a back room to talk business.
Leave the entourage home
WEF's stringent guidelines over exactly who can obtain access to the conference meant U.S. Secretary of State Madame Albright could walk around without her normal entourage and run into Palestinian President Yassir Arafat, who was largely without his.
It meant arch-rivals Stephen Case, American Online's ambitious chairman and chief executive officer, and Bill Gates, dubbed by some the most powerful man in the world, could sit next to each other on a stage and playfully joust over exactly whose Internet strategy would ultimately win out.
(For those keeping score, Case seems to have at least temporarily supplanted Gates as the technology industry's poster boy for success. He was allowed to speak before Gates on the panel and was introduced by the moderator, Sony Corp. President Nobuyuki Idei, as "chairman and CEO of America Online, soon-to-be-chairman of Time Warner and EMI and chairman of several small countries.") Time-Warner is the parent of CNNfn.
And it meant such celebrities as composer Quincy Jones and New York Times columnist William Safire could stand and query some of the world's top business leaders on such things as the true impact of the U.S. Justice Department's suit against Gates' Microsoft Corp. (MSFT: Research, Estimates).
Protests focus on the "Golden Arches"
Still, despite WEF's high ambitions to make headlines for addressing such issues as globalization and open trade, Saturday's sometimes violent protest over free trade policies, biogenetic research, environmental policies and  whatever else came to mind turned into the week's most memorable event.
Arriving by bus, train and even hand gliders, the protestors spent three hours chanting, singing, juggling fire-breathing sticks and defacing the town's most obvious American symbol - the local McDonald's restaurant.
But through it all, WEF and Davos prevailed. WEF founder and President Klaus Schwab had perhaps his finest hour, welcoming a U.S. president to his conference for the first time to give the keynote speech. Klaus also welcomed several other heads of state, including U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, Spain Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar and Abdullah II Ibn Hussein, the king of Jordon.
President Clinton, visibly weary after an all-night flight with precious little sleep, earned several standing ovations after stoking the waters on free trade, imploring the international community to get behind his effort to open even more developing markets.
But some of the week's most captivating sessions, including a riveting debate on the virtues of anti-trust laws that featured U.S. Assistant Attorney General Joel Klein and Sloan School of Management Professor Richard Schmalensee, Microsoft's star defense witness, were kept largely out of the public eye by WEF's sweeping off-the-record policies.
Although clearly perturbed by the protests that left several cars and buildings vandalized, the Swiss locals clearly enjoyed having the world's top high-rollers in town frequenting their restaurants, pubs and shops.  The fondue and Weizenbier flowed until all hours of the morning, leaving the early-morning sessions progressively more empty as the week dragged on.
And, perhaps most importantly of all, the weather cooperated - a stark contrast to last year's blizzard that slowed transportation to a crawl. After several clear but snowy days, Davos treated its visitors to 24 hours of snow over the weekend, before warming up enough by Monday to allow participants to converse over Cabernet on the hotels' sun-parched outdoor decks.
Yet even while a majority of the conference's participants will leave town today by bus, train and private car, Davos will be left with at least one symbol of the conference for some time. Still scrawled on the outside of one of the town's train station's wall is the painted message "No Peace, No Justice" left by a departing protestor.
But rest assured, come Wednesday, peace at least will return to this snow-covered town for another year. 
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