Bilderberg Group

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Hotel de Bilderberg, Oosterbeek, the Netherlands - scene of the first Bilderberg Conference in 1954.

The Bilderberg Group, Bilderberg conference, or Bilderberg Club is an unofficial, annual, invitation-only conference of around 130 guests, most of whom are persons of influence in the fields of politics, business, and banking.

The group meets annually at luxury hotels or resorts throughout the world — normally in Europe, and once every four years in the United States or Canada. The 2009 Bilderberg meeting took place from 14-16 May in Athens, Greece.^[1]

[edit] Origin

The original Bilderberg conference was held at the Hotel de Bilderberg, near Arnhem in The Netherlands, from 29 May to 31 May 1954. It was initiated by several people, including Denis Healey and Józef Retinger, concerned about the growth of anti-Americanism in Western Europe, who proposed an international conference at which leaders from European countries and the United States would be brought together with the aim of promoting understanding between the cultures of United States of America and Western Europe.^[2] Retinger approached Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, who agreed to promote the idea, together with Belgian Prime Minister Paul Van Zeeland, and the head of Unilever at that time, the Dutchman Paul Rijkens. Bernhard in turn contacted Walter Bedell Smith, then head of the CIA, who asked Eisenhower adviser C. D. Jackson to deal with the suggestion.^[3] The guest list was to be drawn up by inviting two attendees from each nation, one of each to represent conservative and liberal points of view.^[2] Fifty delegates from eleven countries in Western Europe attended the first conference along with eleven American invitees.^[4]

The success of the meeting led the organizers to arrange an annual conference. A permanent Steering Committee was established, with Retinger appointed as permanent secretary. As well as organizing the conference, the steering committee also maintained a register of attendee names and contact details, with the aim of creating an informal network of individuals who could call upon one another in a private capacity. Conferences were held in France, Germany, and Denmark over the following three years. In 1957, the first US conference was held in St. Simons, Georgia, with $30,000 from the Ford Foundation. The foundation supplied further funding for the 1959 and 1963 conferences.^[3]

[edit] Organizational structure

Meetings are organized by a steering committee with two members from each of around eighteen nations.^[5] Official posts, in addition to a chairman, include an Honorary Secretary General.^[6] There is no such category in the group's rules as a "member of the group". The only category that exists is "member of the Steering Committee".^[7] In addition to the Committee, there also exists a separate Advisory Group, though membership overlaps.^[8]

Dutch economist Ernst van der Beugel took over as permanent secretary in 1960, upon the death of Retinger. Prince Bernhard continued to serve as the meeting's chairman until 1976, the year of his involvement in the Lockheed affair. The position of Honorary American Secretary General has been held successively by Joseph E. Johnson of the Carnegie Endowment, William Bundy of Princeton, Theodore L. Eliot, Jr., former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, and Casimir A. Yost of Georgetown's Institute for the Study of Diplomacy.^[9]

A 2008 press release from the American Friends of Bilderberg stated that "Bilderberg's only activity is its annual Conference. At the meetings, no resolutions are proposed, no votes taken, and no policy statements issued" and noted that the names of attendees were available to the press. ^[10] The Bilderberg group unofficial headquarters is the University of Leiden in the Netherlands.^[11]

[edit] Chairmen

• Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands (1954 - 1975)^{[citation needed]}
• Alec Douglas-Home (1977 - 1980)^{[citation needed]}
• Walter Scheel^[4]
• Eric Roll (1986 - 1989)^[12]
• Lord Carrington (1990 - 1998)^[4]
• Étienne Davignon^[5]

[edit] Participants

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke leaving the 2008 Bilderberg Conference

The steering committee does not publish a list of attendees, though some participants have publicly discussed their attendance. Historically, attendee lists have been weighted towards politicians, bankers, and directors of large businesses.^[13]

Heads of state have attended meetings, including Juan Carlos I of Spain^[14] and Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands.^[6] Prominent politicians from North America and Europe are past attendees. In recent years, board members from many large publicly-traded corporations have attended, including IBM, Xerox, Royal Dutch Shell, Nokia and Daimler.^[6]

The 2009 meeting participants in Greece included: Greek prime minister, Kostas Karamanlis ^[15], Carl Bildt, who made an important speech^[15],Matti Vanhanen, Prime Minister of Finland^[16], U.S. State Department number two James Steinberg, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, World Bank President Robert Zoellick, European Commission head José Manuel Barroso, Queen Sofia of Spain and Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands^[17]

[edit] Conspiracy theories

Because of its secrecy and refusal to issue news releases, the group is frequently accused of secretive and nefarious world plots by elements of the populist movement and fringe politics.^[18] Critics include the John Birch Society,^[19] the Canadian writer Daniel Estulin, British writer David Icke, American writer Jim Tucker and radio host Alex Jones.

Bilderberg founding member and, for 30 years, a steering committee member, Denis Healey has said:^[20]

According to the American Friends of Bilderberg, the 2008 agenda dealt "mainly with a nuclear free world, cyber terrorism, Africa, Russia, finance, protectionism, US-EU relations, Afghanistan and Pakistan, Islam and Iran".^[10]

[edit] Origins of conspiracy theories

Jonathan Duffy, writing in BBC News Online Magazine states:

"No reporters are invited in and while confidential minutes of meetings are taken, names are not noted... In the void created by such aloofness, an extraordinary conspiracy theory has grown up around the group that alleges the fate of the world is largely decided by Bilderberg."^[21]

This secrecy, and lack of reporters in attendance was also noted by Guardian writer Charlie Skelton in his reports on the 2009 conference held in Athens, Greece. Skelton himself was detained by police on three occasions for taking photographs in the vicinity of the conference resort. ^[22]

According to the investigative journalist Chip Berlet, the origins of Bilderberger conspiracy theories can be traced to activist Phyllis Schlafly. In his 1994 report Right Woos Left, published by Political Research Associates, he writes:

"The views on intractable godless communism expressed by Schwarz were central themes in three other bestselling books which were used to mobilize support for the 1964 Goldwater campaign. The best known was Phyllis Schlafly's A Choice, Not an Echo which suggested a conspiracy theory in which the Republican Party was secretly controlled by elitist intellectuals dominated by members of the Bilderberger group, whose policies would pave the way for global communist conquest."^[23]

[edit] Meetings

Recent meetings:

• 2005 ( 5 – 8 May) at the Dorint Sofitel Seehotel Überfahrt in Rottach-Egern, Germany^[24]
• 2006 ( 8 – 11 June) at the Brookstreet Hotel in Kanata, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada^[25]
• 2007 (31 May – 3 June) at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel,^[26] in Şişli, Istanbul, Turkey.
• 2008 ( 5 – 8 June) at the Westfields Marriott in Chantilly, Virginia, United States^[10][27]
• 2009 ( 14 – 16 May) at the Astir Palace resort in Athens, Greece^[1][22]

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

• Jon Ronson (2001). Them: Adventures with Extremists. London: Picador. ISBN 0-330-37546-6. 
• Eringer, Robert (1980). The Global Manipulators. Bristol, England: Pentacle Books. ISBN 0906850046. 

[edit] External links

• "Inside the secretive Bilderberg Group". BBC News. 29 September 2005. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4290944.stm. Retrieved on 5 August 2008. 
• "Elite power brokers meet in secret". BBC News. 15 May 2003. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3031717.stm. Retrieved on 5 August 2008.  BBC News 15 May 2003
• Guardian article on the group - an excerpt from Jon Ronson's book Them
• CTV.ca - Shadowy group meets amid secrecy in Ottawa
• Bilderberg reports at Wikileaks
• "Our Man at Bilderberg: in pursuit of the world's most powerful cabal". Guardian. 13 May 2009. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/13/in-search-of-bilderberg. Retrieved on 24 May 2009.