Bilderberg Group

The Bilderberg Group is a well-known informal and international association of influential people, meeting annually. Its name is that of the hotel in the Netherlands where the group first met in 1954.

The original intention of the Bilderberger group was to further understanding between Western Europe and North America through informal meetings between influential individuals. The location, agenda and participants of the conferences are openly available to the public, but the actual meetings are kept strictly private. The idea is to enable people to speak freely without need to carefully consider how each word might be interpreted by mass media. On the other hand, this secrecy has also made conspiracy theorists claim that the meetings have a sinister purpose.

Depending on the ideological prism applied, the Bilderberg club may be considered:

• a harmless "discussion group" of politicians, academics[?] and business tycoons;
• an ultra-VIP international lobby[?] of the power elite of Europe and North America, capable of influencing international policy[?];
• a capitalist secret society operating entirely through self-interest.

Each year, a "steering committee" devises a selected invitation list with a maximum of 100 names. The location of their annual meeting is not secret: they even have a headquarters in Leiden, in the Netherlands. But the meetings are shrouded in secrecy. Their security is managed by military intelligence. But what is the secretive group really up to? Well, they talk. They lobby. They try to magnify their political clout, on both sides of the Atlantic. And everybody pledges absolute secrecy on what has been discussed.

The Bilderberg mingles central bankers, defense experts, press barons, government ministers[?], prime ministers, royalty, international financiers and political leaders from Europe and America. Guests in 2003, along with Rumsfeld and Perle ( US Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz is also a member) included banker David Rockefeller[?], as well as various members of the Rockefeller family, Henry Kissinger, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, Queen Sofia and King Juan Carlos of Spain, and high officials of assorted governments. The Bilderberg Group involves Western Europe and North America -- put otherwise, Asians, Middle Easterners, Latin Americans or Africans do not participate (they have other organizations).

Some of the Western world's leading financiers and foreign policy strategists attend Bilderberg. Rumsfeld is an active Bilderberger. So is General Peter Sutherland[?] from Ireland, a former European Union commissioner[?] and chairman of Goldman Sachs[?] and of BP. Rumsfeld and Sutherland served together in 2000 on the board of the Swedish/Swiss energy company ABB. And ABB happened to have sold two light-water nuclear reactors to North Korea. (At the time, of course, North Korea was not a recognized active member of the "axis of evil".)

The 2003 Bilderberg meeting

The folllowing is written from a highly critical perspective.

The [2003]] Bilderberg meeting in Versailles conveniently merged into the G8 meeting of finance ministers[?] in Paris, a 20-minute car ride from Versailles, on May 19. The procedure is traditional: what happens in the Bilderberg is usually a preview of what is later discussed at the full G8 gathering, scheduled in 2003 for June 1 to 3 at Evian-les-Bains[?] in the French Alps.

On Bilderberg's first full 2003 working day on May 15, 2003, French President Jacques Chirac delivered a welcoming speech, trying to bury the bitter divisions among the guests over the war on Iraq by emphasizing that the US and Western Europe are longtime allies. But Chirac's gracious hosting may not have been enough to soothe the hawks in the US administration still miffed at "pacifist" France.

An influential Jewish European banker reveals that the ruling elite in Europe is now telling their minions that the West is on the brink of total financial meltdown; so the only way to save their precious investments is to bet on the new global crisis centered around the Middle East, which replaced the crisis evolving around the Cold War.

According to a banking source in the City of London connected to Versailles, what has transpired from the 2003 meeting is that American and European Bilderbergers have not exactly managed to control their split over the American invasion and occupation of Iraq, as well as over Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's hardline policy against the Palestinians.

Europe's elite were opposed to an American invasion of Iraq since the 2002 Bilderberg meeting in Chantilly, Virginia. Rumsfeld himself had promised them it wouldn't happen. Last week, everybody struck back at Rumsfeld, asking about the infamous "weapons of mass destruction". Most of Europe's elite do not believe American promises that Iraq's oil will "benefit the Iraqi people". They know that revenues from Iraqi oil will be used to rebuild what America has bombed. And the debate is still raging on what kind of contracts which rewarded Bechtel and Halliburton Energy Services will "benefit" Western Europe.

Europe's elite, according to those close to Bilderberg, are suspicious that the US does not need or even want a stable, legitimate central government in Iraq. When that happens, there will be no reason for the US to remain in the country. Europe's elite see the US establishing "facts on the ground": establishing a long-term military presence and getting the oil flowing again under American control[?]. This could go on for years, as long as the Americans can guarantee enough essential services to prevent the Iraqi people from engaging in a war of national liberation.

It was also extremely hard at the Versailles meeting to forge a consensus on the necessity of a European Union army totally independent of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The US establishment, of course, is against the EU army. But so are some Europeans, starting with anti-army cheerleader Lord Robertson, NATO's secretary general. Europe's elite can't stand US domination of NATO any more. Some Europeans suggest a separate force, but controlled by NATO. Americans argue that a separate EU force would dissolve NATO's role as the UN's world army. And Americans insist that NATO is no longer confined to the defense of Europe: its troops now could go anywhere in the world, directed or not by the UN Security Council. The impasse remains.

All these crucial developments were discussed behind closed doors. The Trianon Palace Hotel in Versailles was closed to the public. Part-time employees were sent home. The ones who remained were told that they would be fired if caught revealing anything about the meeting. Armed guards completely isolated and cordoned off the hotel. Some members of the American corporate press attended - 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.

External links:

• Bilderberg.org (http://www.bilderberg.org) (critical website)
• Bilderberg article (http://www.parascope.com/mx/articles/bilderberg.htm)