Everywhere you look - government, big business and any other institution seeking to exercise power - the key is secrecy. Meetings such as those of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the G-8, World Trade Organisation, World Economic Forum, Central Banks, the European Union Council of Ministers and the EU Commission, EU summits, government cabinet meetings, numerous think tanks etc. are always conducted behind closed doors. The only possible reason for this is that they don't want you and I to know what they are really up to. That well worn excuse for keeping things under wraps -"it is not in the public interest" really means that it is not in the interest of the powers that be that the public should know. However there is, in addition, a network of private forums and meetings that take place where the secrecy principle extends to the forums and meetings themselves - by and large, we don't even know that they are taking place, let alone what is being planned and discussed….

The Bilderberg Group
Did you know, for example, that some of the biggest names in world politics, media, banking and business met at Turnberry South Ayrshire from 14th. to 17th. May 1998 under the chairmanship of Lord Peter Carrington? If you didn't, this is your introduction to the Bilderberg Group - a private forum where powerful and influential figures from Europe and North America meet in great secrecy amid very tight security to plan and discuss global strategy and reach consensus on a wide range of issues. What then seems to happen is that ensuing consensus on various issues are then promoted by powerful commercial and business interests in the media at the same time becoming the policy of governments of supposedly different political persuasions.

Bilderberg was formed in 1954, named after the hotel in Oosterbeek, Holland where the first meeting took place. It has a main meeting annually in a heavily guarded location in Europe or North America. It brings together top people from a variety of spheres of influence and power on both sides of the Atlantic. Participants include Heads of State, prime ministers, other leading political figures, top corporate executives, industrialists, bankers, financiers, and an assortment of intellectuals, diplomats, influential representatives of the media and even the occasional trade unionist with demonstrated sympathy for establishment views. One insider apparently has observed that "..today, there are very few figures among governments on both sides of the Atlantic who have not attended at least one of these meetings."

What sets this private forum, (and others mentioned later) apart from other gatherings of the politically and economically powerful such as the G-8 meetings, European Union summits etc. is that they are little or almost unknown to the public and they escape media attention. Much of the centralisation of power that is taking place in the world today - a process that has been going on for many years, but is now accelerating into top gear - can very likely be attributed to the agreements and consensus reached at these meetings. Human nature being what it is, there are people in power who would seek to bring about some form of centralised all powerful global government. Much of what we see happening around us today is bringing that prospect ever closer. There is the increasing power of multi-national corporations, the surrender of national sovereignty in the EU, governments handing over complete control of money supply and monetary policy to unaccountable central banks, the rules and regulations of the World Trade Organisation, the ability of the International Monetary Fund to dictate to national governments etc. Power is being concentrated in the hands of ever fewer people operating through more remote unaccountable institutions. This is O.K. if you happen to trust the top people in power.. However remember the saying "all power tends to corrupt…and absolute power corrupts absolutely".

Few journalists, reporters and news people in the mainstream media, until very recently, had even heard of Bilderberg, yet these are the people who claim to give us informed in-depth reporting of what is going on in the world. Even many M.Ps. in the House of Commons appear not to have heard of it, and those that have do not speak publicly about it. However some of the more prominent and "promising" ones will have actually attended its meetings.

It is claimed by the organisers to be an "informal" gathering. Attendance is by invitation from the steering committee - an inner circle of permanent members, who meet regularly, setting the aims and agenda of the group, and reviewing progress. Everyone is invited to "speak freely" - which suggests they can say what they really think and believe rather than what they tell the public they think and believe! And it is all off the record.

If you question anyone who has attended, about the group, the answers you get are either that it is just an informal airing of views in relaxed surroundings with no votes or formal resolutions. (However, one can build up consensus quite adequately without formal resolutions.) Alternatively it is claimed to be a gathering of political "has beens" who no longer wield any real power. An examination of the annual attendance lists reveals nothing could be further from the truth. Many a rising star has attended and the so called "has beens" who do attend are in fact still active and influential behind the scenes. Former Observer Editor Will Hutton attended the 1997 meeting. He did not disclose the content of any discussions, but he expressed the view, privately, that it is Bilderberg that sets the agenda for the forums and summits that follow, such as the G-8, Council of Europe and World Trade Organisation meetings.

Lord Carrington was chairman of the steering group until 2000, Lord Home was a former chairman. Kenneth Clarke and Henry Kissinger are current steering group members. Early steering group members included Denis Healey and Reginald Maudling, followed more recently by EU Commission President Romano Prodi, EU Commissioner Mario Monti and former Labour leader John Smith. In the past Wilson, Heath, Callaghan, Thatcher, Roy Jenkins, Jeremy Thorpe, David Steele, the Duke of Edinburgh, Cyrus Vance, George Shultz, Helmut Kohl, Francois Mitterand have all attended. More recently it has been Bill and Hilary Clinton, Blair, Brown, Mandelson, Paddy Ashdown, Norman Lamont, William Waldegrave, Malcolm Rifkind, Alan Greenspan (Head of the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank), numerous EU Commissioners, Lord Roll of Ipsden (Labour Peer and former President of merchant bank Warburg, Dillon Read), Conrad - now Lord -Black (Chairman Hollinger Group which owns the Daily Telegraph and the Spectator), Andrew Knight (chief executive of Rupert Murdoch's News International media empire), Umberto Agnelli (President of Fiat SpA). Senior editors at the Financial Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal attend regularly. In 1996, T.U.C. General Secretary John Monks attended. Monks has establishment approval because, since then he's been in favour of Britain scrapping the Pound and adopting the Euro. Since ceasing to be TUC general Secretary, Monks has become Secretary of the European Trades Union Council. In 1998 at Turnberry, George (now Lord) Robertson attended - he was subsequently appointed Secretary General to NATO. In 1999 former Friends of the Earth Director and current Forum of the Future Director Jonathan Porrit attended. Ed Balls, senior economic advisor to Gordon Brown, attended in 2001, 2002 and 2003. Also in 2003, Philip Gould, described as Public Relations Advisor to Tony Blair, attended. Ever since its inception, members of the Rothschild and Rockefeller families have always attended.

What exactly has been going on here? There's certainly a wide range of prominent people attending these meetings, and, when hearing about Bilderberg for the first time, some people say isn't it great that so many different people come together to discuss global issues. Another perhaps more realistic interpretation is that it is the rich and powerful planning our future behind our backs without our knowledge and permission. Previous meetings in Britain have taken place in Buxton, Cambridge, Torquay, and Gleneagles, right under our noses only we didn't know about them. Only in very recent years has the veil of secrecy surrounding the event begun to break, with limited mention in the local press of the host country. Several Scottish newspapers made quite a splash that the 1998 meeting took place at Turnberry, but since then silence has returned. Nothing about the meetings in 1999 at Sintra, Portugal, in 2000 at Chateau du Lac near Brussels, in 2001 at a secluded island resort near Gothenberg, Sweden, in 2002 at Chantilly, Virginia, USA. Finally nothing on 2003's meeting at Versailles outside Paris.[1]

Bilderberg is reckoned to be the most influential of the private forums, but there are other little known organisations such as the Trilateral Commission, the Pinay Circle, the Royal Institute of International Affairs- (RIIA is said to be responsible for British foreign policy) and its United States counterpart, the Council on Foreign Relations. Except occasionally the RIIA, these organisations are almost never mentioned in the mainstream media, all meet behind the usual closed doors, yet they are almost certainly closely linked. Some of them are strongly Anglo-American in membership. Indeed it appears that the RIIA and the CFR may be essentially one and the same organisation, born at the same time in the early '20's, out of an earlier grouping known as the Round Table, set up by those advocates of global domination, Cecil Rhodes and Lord Alfred Milner. Perhaps this gives true meaning to the "special relationship" between Britain and the U.S.A.

by Richard Greaves