Bilderberg

The Group

The Bilderberg Group is a secretive and extremely influential lobby group of power-brokers with a “good deal of political clout on both sides of the Atlantic� ^[1]. 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�.^[2] Founded by Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, Denis Healey, Joseph Retinger and David Rockefeller, the group was named after the hotel in the Netherlands where it first met in 1954. Bilderberg has an address in Leiden, Holland and a phone number that is always answered by a female voice on an answering-machine.The group is reputed to be “the most powerful organisation in the world,� and regarded by some as “an anti-democratic conspiracy steering international policy from behind closed doors�. The group does not have formal membership; instead a secret steering committee extends invitations to powerful figures in the fields of business and politics.^[3] The conferences are shrouded in utmost secrecy and participants rarely reveal that they are attending. Their security is managed by military intelligence^[4]and according to Will Hutton, “the consensus established is the backdrop against which policy is made worldwide�.^[5] 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".

Shady Connections

According to the Asia Times:

Bilderberg's membership is heavily crossed with the Council on Foreign Relations, the Pilgrims Society, the Trilateral Commission and the famous "Round Table" - a British, Oxford-Cambridge elite group crystallized in the homonymous journal of empire founded in 1910. The Round Table - which also denied its existence as a formal group - called for a more efficient form of global empire so that Anglo-American hegemony could be extended throughout the 20th century.^[6]

In an earlier article Asia Times reported:

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.^[7]

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."^[8]

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.^[9]

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�.^[10]

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 considered…the 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.^[11]

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.^[12]

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. ^[13]

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.^[14]

Members

Following is a list of prominent Bilderbergers and their affiliations:

Henry Kissinger US Secretary of State

John Edwards US Senator and Vice-Presidential Candidate

Conrad Black Media Tycoon

David Rockefeller JP Morgan's International Council

Nelson Rockefeller

Prince Philip British Royal

Robert McNamara former US Secretary of Defense

Donald Rumsfeld US Secretary of Defense

Margaret Thatcher

Valery Giscard D'Estaing French President

Zbigniew Brzezinski US National Security Advisor

Alan Greenspan US Chairman of Federal Reserve

Paul Wolfowitz Deputy Secrety of Defense, President World Bank

The Steering Committee includes:

Josef Ackermann Deutsche Bank

Jorma Ollila Nokia

Jeurgen Schrempp DaimlerChrysler

Peter Sutherland Former NATO General, Goldman Sachs

James Wolfensohn President of World Bank

Richard Perle Chairman US Defence Policy Board

Notes

1, ‘Elite power brokers meet in secret’, BBC News, 15 May, 2003

2. “Bilderberg: The ultimate conspiracy theory�, BBC News Online Magazine, 3 June, 2004

3. See note 1.

4. ‘The Masters of the Universe’, Asia Times, May 22, 2003

5.‘Kinder Capitalists in Armani Spec’, The Observer, 1 February, 1998

6. ‘Bilderberg Strikes Again’, Asia Times, May 10, 2005

7. See note 4.

8. See note 1.

9. See note 4.

10. Ibid.

11. Ibid.

12. Ibid.

13. See note 4.

14. Ibid.