::*Re: "influential" v. "powerful": I guess that makes sense. 
 ::*The secrecy may very well be due to class, and it probably is a major factor. If such is the case, why not just say it in the article? Saying that the meetings are "kept from the 'common people'" is sneaky and inherently POV. An encyclopedia is to supposed be neutral and present the facts in an objective manner. While those facts may reveal unpleasant truths about their subject, they should not be mixed with value judgements. For example, the sentence "Hitler believed that jews were an inferior race, and he killed 6 million of them." is preferable to "Hitler was a racist bigot, and he brutally murdered 6 million jews."