Former White House press secretary Joe Lockhart has cancelled his plans to visit the Island next week, but another former Oval Office insider will stand in his place.

Mr. Lockhart, who was Bill Clinton?s press secretary and a senior advisor to John Kerry during last year?s US election, was to address the Bermuda International Business Associations 2004 annual general meeting on Monday.

BIBA said that a last minute commitment meant that Mr. Lockhart ?reluctantly had to withdraw? from the trip, but he secured Bruce Reed, former chief domestic policy advisor to President Clinton, as his replacement and hopes to speak at one of BIBA?s business forums later this year.

Mr. Reed, 44, served for eight years in the Clinton White House.

As President Clinton?s chief domestic policy advisor and director of the Domestic Policy Council, he developed and oversaw the administration?s agenda on certain economic and trade issues, welfare reform, crime, education and tobacco.

Previously, he served as deputy campaign manager for policy of the Clinton-Gore campaign, founding editor of the DLC magazine and chief speechwriter for Senator Al Gore.

The Idaho native, and graduate of Princeton and Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar, is also Editor in Chief and a columnist of Blueprint, the DLC?s bimonthly journal.

His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, The Economist and The Washington Monthly.

Mr. Reed currently serves as president of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), the national organisation that launched the New Democratic movement and fuelled the election of President Clinton in 1992 and 1996.

The DLC mandate is to define and galvanise popular support for a new public philosophy built on progressive ideals, mainstream values, and innovative, non bureaucratic, market-based solutions.

Since its inception, the DLC has championed policies from spurring private sector economic growth, fiscal discipline and community policing to work based welfare reform, expanded international trade and national service.

Mr. Reed also runs the DLC?s Progress and Prosperity Project, which works closely with elected officials on the federal, state and local level and is developing the next generation of New Democratic ideas.

Greg Haycock, chairman of BIBA, said: ?We are very excited that a leader as prominent, important and influential as Bruce Reed will speak to BIBA about the political environment in the US, economic and tax policy, and what to expect from both sides of the aisle in the next four years.

?We look forward to the insight that Bruce will bring from his unparalleled experience as chief domestic policy advisor in the White House and deputy campaign manager, and extensive experience as president of the DLC.?