Washington - A SMALL cloth is draped over each digit of a giant hand, each finger puppet inscribed with a symbol. One is a dollar sign: a reference to international capital in all its manifestations. There is also the sign of the Masons, since for centuries that secret society has been caricatured as insidious and manipulative, without recognizing, perhaps, that its own strings were being pulled.

There is the hammer and sickle, symbolizing a Communist world that no longer possesses fearsome power but was once, apparently, under the sway of an even greater master. The cross is there, for the church has supposedly been enslaved by the same forces. And there is a swastika, for even Nazism, according to this particular vision, arose out of the deep maneuverings of a group prepared to sacrifice six million of its own so its larger aims might be realized in the creation of an imperial state.

And controlling them all is the hand, its palm inscribed with a Jewish star.

Such is the cover art for a Spanish-language edition of "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" published last year in Mexico.

Mexico is not alone. Look around the small space allotted to a new exhibition opening today at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum here -- "A Dangerous Lie: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" -- and the intensity and extent of agreement are striking. For more than a century "The Protocols" has made its way into many languages, selling untold numbers of copies, portraying Jews as demonic schemers.