Of course you can look at folks like Cheney, Rove, Wolfowitz, etc. But the elites that are really "behind" (or simply confused) about all this reside in places like boards of Wall Street, senior positions at the CIA, consultants for either organization, CEOs and other people who are very powerful, and often wealthy. That is not say that there is some grand conspiracy or meetings of "America's Elites" per se. I would encourage you to look at the idea of elites as a structural thing. Our capitalistic/government subsidized structure encourages the consolidation of ridiculous amounts of wealth and power. If you are one of those "lucky few" you either give it all away (as some do) or figure out how you're going to hold onto (given the information you have), or land somewhere in between. I guess when you see all the super super wealthy/powerful moving into exclusive neighborhoods, taking their money out of stocks, pacifying the public through coerced consent (in corporate media), and activating the frameworks (that have existed for a while now in some cases) for authoritarian rule you would be advised to be afraid. Much, if not all of that has happened. It may not be blatantly obvious, and frankly yelling that there is an elite conspiracy from every street corner is probably not the best approach, but keeping in mind the following things will probably be a good guide. All those rich people A) do not deserve what they have B) probably don't care about you all that much C) really want to hold onto it, at all costs, and are probably smart enough to do it.

And as for knowing when we're on the peak, "we won't know until after the fact" and neither will they, but as can be seen now, it is pretty clear we're approaching the plateu (or hopefully the mountain pass).

Regarding the whole issue of "Deep Leadership:"  There is a classic book by left-wing sociologist C. Wright Mills which discusses this topic.  It is called THE POWER ELITE, "power elite" being essentially a synonym for "Deep Leadership."  Even though it came out in 1956, I think many of its lines of analysis have enduring value.  In some way, I think, its relevance as a classic for the Peak Oil movement is analogous to that of William Catton's OVERSHOOT.

I don't think Heinberg formulated much of a "conspiracy theory" at all. Basically all he said is that insofar as any long term choices are being made at all, they're not  being made by elected politicians but by the people who own the elected politicians; that those people are more or less aware that our "non-negotiable" American Way of Life is unsustainable; and their choices are moving us in the direction of authoritarian government to deal with that fact.

I'm not sure exactly how true all that is -- obviously it's something whose truth could be a matter of degree -- but it's not obviously wacky, as some commenters here seem to think.