Bilderberg

The Bilderberg meetings are a series of elite, off-the-record, European-American conferences named after the Bilderberg Hotel in the Netherlands, which hosted the first meeting in 1954.

In a report on the 2003 meeting, the BBC's Emma Jane Kirby described Bilderberg as "an extremely influential lobbying group with a good deal of political clout on both sides of the Atlantic", noting that "meetings are cloaked in secrecy and participants rarely reveal their attendance." According to Will Hutton, 'the consensus established is the backdrop against which policy is made worldwide'.

Origins

According to Richard Aldrich, "the same small band of senior officials, many of them from the Western intelligence community, were central in supporting the three most important 'insider groups' emerging in the 1950s: the European Movement, the Bilderberg Group and Jean Monnet's Action Committee for a United States of Europe." Many of these relationships had roots in World War Two special operations and resistance networks.

Among those who had previously been involved in the European Movement was the prime mover in the creation of the Bilderberg Group, Joseph Retinger. By 1952, Retinger's focus had moved from European unity to the Atlantic alliance and the growing mutual distrust between the United States and Europe.

Following conversations with his friend Paul Rykens, Retinger approached Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands with a proposal. A group of eminent Europeans would assemble a report on the causes of European anti-Americanism, to be submitted to a counterpart group of Americans. who would respond at a private meeting. This, it was hoped, would inaugurate a dialogue that would lead to a new level of transatlantic understanding. Paul Van Zeeland was also involved in the initial conversations, according to Retinger:

Acting on the advice of my three friends, I approached about a dozen other people, viz.: Mr. Hugh Gaitskell, Major General Sir Colin Gubbins, Mr. Ole Bjorn Kraft, M. Guy Mollet, Dr. Rudolf Mueller, M. Antoine Pinay, M.P. Pipinelis, M. Max Brauer, Marshal of the R.A.F. Lord Portal of Hungerford, Ambassador Quaroni, and Signor de Gasperi.

On the basis of reports from these figures, Retinger produced a paper summarising European objections to American policy, which was discussed at a meeting at the home of Baron Francois De Nervo. Retinger described the event as follows:

A first meeting was held in Paris on 25 September 1952 and was attended by all the original members of the group: Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, Mr. Hugh Gaitskell, Sir Colin Gubbins, M. Guy Mollet, Dr. Rudolf Mueller, M. Antoine Pinay, M.P. Pipinelis, Dr. J.H. Retinger, Mr. Paul Rykens, and M. Paul van Zeeland. The only two who could not attend were Lord Portal and Signor de Gasperi. At this meeting we discussed what could be done to improve American-European relations and on the initiative or M. van Zeeland we decided to set up a corresponding group in the United States.

Organisation

The group meets annually bringing together "some of the West's chief political movers, business leaders, bankers, industrialists and strategic thinkers to talk about global issues".

The group does not have formal membership; instead a secret steering committee extends invitations to powerful figures in the fields of business and politics. The conferences are shrouded in utmost secrecy and participants rarely reveal that they are attending. Their security is managed by military intelligence and When members of the European Commission go to a Bilderberg, their travel expenses and their daily allowance is provided by the commission. This certainly disqualifies Bilderberg's self-presentation as a "private club".

Connections

According to the Asia Times:

Some of the Western world's leading financiers and foreign policy strategists attend Bilderberg, in their view, to polish and reinforce a virtual consensus, an illusion that globalization, defined under their terms - what's good for banking and big business is good for everybody else - is inevitable and for the greater good of mankind. If they have a hidden agenda, it is the fact that their fabulous concentration of wealth and power is completely dissociated from the explanation to their guests of how globalization benefits 6.2 billion people. Some of the club's earlier guests went on to become crucial players. Bill Clinton in 1991 and Tony Blair in 1993 were invited and duly "approved" by the Bilderberg before they took office.

There are innumerable shady, still unexplained connections between the early Bilderberg club and the Nazis, via Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, the father of Queen Beatrix, who founded the club in Bilderberg in 1954 (the name is taken from a Dutch hotel), aiming to "increase understanding between Europe and North America". Bernhard was a member of Adolf Hitler's SS. One of the founding members of the Bilderberg is Otto Wolff von Amerongen - who actively improved business links between Germany and the Soviet bloc and served on 26 boards of directors, including Deutsche Bank. Few people know him - and perhaps for some good reason: he has been linked to the Nazi's theft of Jewish holdings before and during World War II.

Actions

Proponents argue that it was formed in the 'spirit of post-war trans-Atlantic co-operation' to prevent future wars by 'bringing power-brokers together in an informal setting away from prying eyes' with 'the confidentiality enabl[ing] people to speak honestly without fear of repercussions'. They further argue "It's not an executive body; no decisions are taken there."

No matter what, for innumerable, serious critics in Europe as well as the US, Bilderberg is everything from a Zionist plot to a megalomaniac secret cult. Serbs, not without some reason, blamed Bilderberg for the 1999 Balkan war and the fall of Slobodan Milosevic: after all, the US needed to control vital, Balkan pipeline routes. Bilderberg 2002 - although not without controversy - is thought to have cemented the invasion and conquest of Iraq. In his seminal A Century of War: Anglo-American oil politics and the New World War, F William Engdahl details what happened at Bilderberg 1973 in Sweden. An American outlined a scenario for an imminent 400% hike in the oil prices of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Bilderberg did not prevent the oil shock; instead it planned how to manage with mega-profits - what Kissinger described as "recycling the petrodollar flows". Everyone that mattered was present at this Bilderberg: oil majors and major banks.

Alden Hatch, Prince Bernhard's biographer has credited Bilderberg with the idea of a European Union, and has described its ultimate goal as 'a one-world government'.

Issues that would logically have interested Bilderberg 2005 include:

The role of NATO and the necessary approval in 2005 of the European constitution by all 25 members of the EU - the consequences of a French "no" in the upcoming May 29 referendum to approve the constitution need to be consideredthe father of the European constitution is none other than Bilderberger Valery Giscard d'Estaing, who happens to be very close to Kissinger.

The containment of Russia was likely top of the agenda for Bilderberg. Russia is very much worried about its "near abroad" and sees no reason to remove its army from bases in Georgia or its navy from Sebastopol, in Ukrainian Crimea - no matter how many color-coded revolutions happen at its doorstep.

Another contentious issue that must have occupied the minds of those at Bilderberg 2005 is preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon - this is just a detail: the point is how to prevent Iran from becoming a first-rate Eurasian power. Some in Brussels do not discount the possibility of a scenario of massive propaganda buildup to try to convince American and European public opinion of the necessity of a strike against Iran. How to force Beijing to appreciate the yuan must also have been a topic.

Beyond Accountability

The highly undemocratic nature of these conferences are a cause of great alarm, as they take the decision making process into a wholly arcane dimension. The few breaches in its characteristic secrecy have done little to allay the fears of concerned observers. The anti-Democratic nature of the group was evident in the following remarks by prominent Bilderberger, David Rockefeller in 1991:

It would have been quite impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national autodetermination practiced in past centuries.

While the high-and-mighty attend these conferences in their individual capacities, there still needs to be some accountability given that their decisions have a bearing on policies that affect constituencies that have no representation in their deliberations. The group is composed entirely of Western elites, and no Asian, Middle Eastern, Latin American or African individual has ever been invited.

Shroud of Secrecy

Staff at the hotel are photographed and put through special clearance. From porters to senior managers, the employees are warned (under the threat of never working in the country again) about the consequences of revealing any details of the guests to the press.

Trianon Palace Hotel in Versailles was closed to the public and all non-Bilderberg guests had to check out. Part-time employees were sent home. The ones who remained were told that they would be fired if caught revealing anything about the meeting. They couldn't speak to any Bilderberger unless spoken to. They couldn't look anybody in the eye. Armed guards completely isolated and cordoned off the hotel.

Media Blackout

When it comes to Bilderberg, the otherwise inquisitive mainstream news organizations, always boastful about their no-holds barred investigative exploits, have been strangely reluctant to lift the blackout curtain. The New York Times, CBS, ABC, NBC, the Financial Times have all been represented at Bilderberg conferences; however they are constrained by an oath of secrecy. According to the Asia Times, at the Bilderberg 2003 in Versailles:

Some members of the American corporate press were there - but the public will never know about it: Bilderberg news is not fit to print - or broadcast. No journalists from any media controlled by Bilderberg multinational tycoons such as Rupert Murdoch were or will be allowed to report it, even if they somehow managed to crash the party. There's no business like (private) elite business.

Analyses of Bilderberg

Richard Aldrich says of the group:

Although Bilderberg and ACUE-European Movement shared broadly the same founders, members and objectives, arguably Bilderberg constituted the more effective mechanism of transatlantic dialogue, developing into what some have regarded as the most significant of the discreet fora for Western elites.

Kees van der Pjil writes of networks like Bilderberg:

They function not as single-minded conspiracies, but as flexible, open structures in which the conflicting lines of development can be identified and synthesised. Ruling class strategists rely on these networks to elaborate a hegemonic strategy aimed at winning over intermediate strata; they can thus establish a bloc of forces committed to a comprehensive, broadly accepted concept of control. This presumes a keen appreciation of the real balance of forces, both in the geopolitical arena and in class terms. Disagreement and discussion are therefore ultimately as vital as a measure of compromise and consensus.

Hugh Wilford agrees with Van der Pjil that Bilderberg emerged as a fundamentally transnational phenomenon:

One does not have to accept all the Marxist assumptions inherent in the Dutch scholar's analysis to agree that there were striking correspondences between the Group and earlier attempts to construct a bourgeois transnational network or 'imagined community' through such élitist, secretive, male-only organisations as the Freemasons or the Rhodes/Milner 'Round Table'. That said, there is considerable explanatory force in his argument that the early Cold War witnessed the emergence of a new 'Atlantic ruling class' whose power was based on the liberal corporate order of New Deal America but which also incorporated fractions of European élites who shared its modernising internationalist outlook.

List of Bilderberg conferences

• 29-31 May 1954 Oosterbeek, Netherlands
• 18-20 March 1955 Barbizon, France
• 23-25 September 1955 Garmisch-Partenkirchen, F.R.G.
• 11-13 May 1956 Fredensborg, Denmark
• 15-17 February 1957 St. Simons Island, Georgia, U.S.A.
• 4-6 October 1957 Fiuggi, Italy
• 13-15 September 1958 Buxton, England
• 18-20 September 1959 Yesilkoy, Turkey
• 28-29 May 1960 Bürgenstock, Switzerland
• 21-23 April 1961 St. Castin, Canada
• 18-20 May 1962 Saltsjöbaden, Sweden
• 29-31 May 1963 Cannes, France
• 20-22 March 1964 Williamsburg, Virginia, U.S.A.
• 2-4 April 1965 Villa D'Este, Italy
• 25-27 March 1966 Wiesbaden, F.R.G.
• 31 March-2 April 1967 Cambridge, England
• 26-28 April 1968 Mont Tremblant, Canada
• 9-11 May 1969 Marienlyst, Denmark
• 17-19 April 1970 Bad Ragaz, Switzerland
• 23-25 April 1971 Woodstock, Vermont, U.S.A.
• 21-23 April 1972 Knokke, Belgium
• 11-13 May 1973 Saltsjöbaden, Sweden
• 19-21 April 1974 Megève, France
• 25-27 April 1975 Çesme, Turkey
• In 1976 no conference was held
• 22-24 April 1977 Torquay, England
• 21-23 April 1978 Princeton, New Jersey, U.S.A.
• 27-29 April 1979 Baden, Austria
• 18-20 April 1980 Aachen, F.R.G.
• 15-17 May 1981 Bürgenstock, Switzerland
• 14-16 May 1982 Sandefjord, Norway
• 13-15 May 1983 Montebello, Canada
• 11-13 May 1984 Saltsjöbaden, Sweden
• 10-12 May 1985 Rye Brook, New York, U.S.A.
• 25-27 April 1986 Gleneagles, Scotland
• 24-26 April 1987 Villa D'Este, Italy
• 3-5 June 1988 Telfs-Buchen, Austria
• 12-14 May 1989 La Toja, Spain
• 11-13 May 1990 Glen Cove, New York, U.S.A.
• 6-9 June 1991 Baden-Baden, Germany
• 21-24 May 1992 Evian-Les-Bains, France
• 22-25 April 1993 Vouliagmeni, Greece
• 2-5 June 1994 Helsinki, Finland
• 8-11 June 1995 Bürgenstock, Switzerland
• 30 May - 2 June 1996 Toronto, Canada
• 12-15 June 1997 Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A.
• 14-17 May 1998 Turnberry, Scotland
• 3-6 June 1999 Sintra, Portugal
• 1-3 June 2000 Brussels, Belgium
• 24-27 May 2001 Stenungsund, Sweden
• 30 May-2 June 2002 Chantilly, Virginia, U.S.A.
• 15-18 May 2003 Versailles, France
• 3-6 June 2004 Stresa, Italy
• 5-8 May 2005 Rottach-Egern, Germany
• 8-11 June 2006 Ottawa, Canada
• 31 May-3 June 2007 Istanbul, Turkey
• 5-8 June 2008 Chantilly, Virginia, U.S.A.
• 14-17 May 2009 Vouliagmeni, Greece
• 3-6 June 2010 Sitges, Spain

People

2010 Steering Committee

• Chairman Etienne Davignon, Former Vice Chairman of EU Commission, Minister of State
• Josef Ackermann, Chairman of the Management Board and the Group Executive, Deutsche Bank AG
• Roger C. Altman, Chairman, Evercore Partners Inc.
• Francisco Pinto Balsemão, Chairman, IMPRESA, S.G.P.S.; former Prime Minister
• Franco Bernabè, CEO, Telecom Italia S.p.A.
• Henri de Castries, Chairman of the Management Board and CEO, AXA
• Juan Luis Cebrián CEO, PRISA
• Edmund Clark, President and CEO, TD Bank Financial Group
• Kenneth Clarke, Member of Parliament
• George A. David Chairman, Coca-Cola H.B.C. S.A.
• Anders Eldrup, President, DONG Energy A/S
• Thomas Enders, CEO, Airbus SAS
• Victor Halberstadt, Professor of Public Economics, Leiden University
• James A. Johnson, Vice Chairman, Perseus, LLC
• Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., Senior Managing Director, Lazard Frères & Co. LLC
• John Kerr, Deputy Chairman, Royal Dutch Shell plc; Member of the House of Lords
• Henry A. Kissinger, Chairman, Kissinger Associates, Inc.
• Mustafa V. Koç, Chairman, Koç Holding A.S.
• Marie-Josée Kravis, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute
• Jessica Mathews, President, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
• Thierry de Montbrial, President, French Institute for International Relations (IFRI)
• Mario Monti, President, Universita Commerciale Luigi Bocconi
• Egil Myklebust, Former Chairman of the Board of Directors, SAS
• Matthias Nass, Deputy Editor, Die Zeit
• Jorma Ollila, Chairman, Royal Dutch Shell plc
• Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, President, Notre Europe
• Richard N. Perle, Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
• Heather Reisman, Chair and CEO, Indigo Books & Music Inc.
• Rudolf Scholten, Member of the Board of Executive Directors, Oesterreichische Kontrollbank AG
• Peter D. Sutherland Chairman, BP plc and Chairman, Goldman Sachs International
• Martin J. Taylor, Chairman, Syngenta International AG
• Peter A. Thiel, President, Clarium Capital Management, LLC
• Daniel L. Vasella, Chairman, Novartis AG
• Jacob Wallenberg, Chairman, Investor AB
• James D. Wolfensohn, Chairman, Wolfensohn & Company, LLC

Member Advisory Group

• David Rockefeller

Contact

• Website http://www.bilderbergmeetings.org

External links

• Guardian, Bilderberg
• Jon Ronson 'The Secret Rulers of the World' Extract from Them, Adventures with Extremists, London: Picador, 2002.
• Pepe Escobar, The masters of the universe, Asia Times, 22 May 2003.
• Pepe Escobar, Bilderberg strikes again, Asia Times, 10 May 2005.