The Bilderberger Group

The original Bilderberg conference was held at the Hotel de Bilderberg, near Arnhem in The Netherlands, from May 29 to May 31, 1954. The meeting was initiated by several people, including Joseph 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.

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. The guest list was to be drawn up by inviting two attendees from each nation, one each to represent conservative and liberal (both terms used in the American sense) points of view

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. The declared purpose of the Bilderberg Group was to make a common political line tie between the United States of America and Europe in their opposition to the USSR and the global communist threat to their common monetary interests. Conferences were held in France, Germany, and Denmark over the following three years. In 1957, the first U.S. conference was held in St. Simons, Georgia, with $30,000 from the Ford Foundation. The foundation supplied additional funding of $48,000 in 1959, and $60,000 in 1963.

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. There was no conference that year, but meetings resumed in 1977 under Alec Douglas-Home, the former British Prime Minister. He was followed in turn by Walter Scheel, ex-President of West Germany, Eric Roll, former head of SG Warburg and Lord Carrington, former Secretary-General of NATO.

The group's secrecy and its connections to power elites make it vulnerable to accusations by such groups or individuals who believe that the group is part of a conspiracy to create a New World Order. It is frequently accused of secretive and nefarious world plots by groups such as the John Birch Society.This thinking has progressively found an audience with elements of the populist movement and fringe politics.  According to investigative journalist Chip Berlet, the prominent origins of Bilderberger conspiracy theories can be traced to activist Phyllis Schlafly.

Daniel Estulin, writing in Nexus magazine, claims the long-term purpose of Bilderberg is to "Build a One-World Empire." He states the group "is not the end but the means to a future One World Government". Radio host Alex Jones claims the group intends to dissolve the sovereignty of the United States and other countries into a supra-national structure similar to the European Union.

From "The Hunt for Red Menace:" "The views on intractable godless communism expressed by [Fred] 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. Schlafly's husband Fred had been a lecturer at Schwartz's local Christian Anti-communism Crusade conferences."

Jonathan Duffy, writing in BBC News Online Magazine states "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."

Denis Healey, a Bilderberg founder and former British Chancellor of the Exchequer, decries such theories. He was quoted by BBC News as saying "There's absolutely nothing in it. We never sought to reach a consensus on the big issues at Bilderberg. It's simply a place for discussion."

References

Note: the Bilderberg Group does not have a website.

• BBC Interview with Étienne Davignon, September 2005
• Elite power brokers meet in secret BBC News 15 May 2003
• Robert Eringer writing about Bilderberg, Carroll Quigley
• Extract from the official Bilderberg report on the Fiuggi Conference 4-6 October 1957
• Paper by Sociology Professor (LMU) Mike Peters: "The Bilderberg Group and the Project for European Unification" from Lobster: The Journal of Parapolitics
• Free Press International: Bilderberg video and info
• Guardian article on the group - an excerpt from Jon Ronson's book Them
• CTV.ca - Shadowy group meets amid secrecy in Ottawa
• Minutes from the 1999 Bilderberg meeting from SchNEWS website
• List of recent mainstream news articles and Bilderberg conspiracy gossip
• Historical information on the Bilderberg Group-mentions original location of 1976 meeting
• The world's most powerful secret society - 1998 article from Punch magazine
• findingDulcinea's take on the 2008 conference, includes background about the group