Canada and the World
Current Events with a Canadian Perspective
Last update
19 November 2010
The Secretive Bilderberg Council
If someone wanted to create and organization
to feed the imagination of conspiracy
theorists they would create The Bilderberg Council
This little known group was formed in 1954, and its first meeting was at the Hotel De Bilderberg in Oosterbeek, the Netherlands (below).
Members Are Top People
from Business, Government, and Academe
In his diaries, former leader of Britain’s Liberal Democrat Party, Paddy Ashdown wrote that the Bilderberg Council was “described to me as ‘fifty people who run the world and twenty hangers on.’ ”
Ashdown attended the group’s 2000 gathering in Spain and found himself in the company of “Henry Kissinger, Lord Carrington (former Secretary General of NATO), The King and Queen of Spain, The Queen of Holland, Phillipe Gonzalez the prime minister of Spain, Wilfried Martens the Prime Minister of Belgium, Dr. Franz Vranitzky the Chancellor of Austria…”
Others known to have attended Bilderberg conferences include, Bill Clinton, Tony
Blair, university professors, directors of economics think tanks, and the chief executives
of just about every major corporation including Shell, Nokia, H.J. Heinz, Barclay’s
Bank, IBM, and many, many others. It’s the world’s A-
Bilderberg Annual Meetings
The group holds an annual conference over a long weekend in the northern spring, most recently in Spain (2010). Before that, the meetings were held in Greece (2009), the United States (2008), Turkey (2007), Canada (2006), and Germany (2005).
There’s nothing sinister about the Bilderberg Council according to its members. It’s
a chance for members to discuss world affairs off-
Questions about Group’s Purpose
Many outsiders are not so sure the Bilderberg Council is as innocent as its members claim. Jim Tucker has been following the group for more than 30 years and he’s doubtful.
Mr. Tucker was a reporter for the right-
In 2005, Tucker wrote Jim Tucker’s Bilderberg Diary, a book chronicling his long investigation of the group.
Interviewed in the British magazine Punch in 1998, Tucker said: “They want you to believe they are simply improving international relations. But, they are controlling the world and making decisions that influence all of us with absolutely no democratic control on what they do.”
Bilderberg Gatherings Surrounded by Secrecy
Bilderberg meetings are generally held in remote locations making it easier to throw a security cordon around its members. What goes on in the meetings is completely secret.
The media make attempts at covering the meetings but almost always without success.
Jonathan Duffy of the BBC News Online reported on these carefully guarded functions on June 2004. He wrote that phone callers are never able to get past a recorded message to “leave a message after the tone.”
Duffy reported that “What sets Bilderberg apart from other high-
“Not a word of what is said at Bilderberg meetings can be breathed outside. No reporters are invited in and while confidential minutes of meetings are taken, names are not noted.”
Secrecy Gives Rise to Conspiracy Theories
There are lots of people who figure that such secrecy must mean the Bilderbergers are up to something they don’t want the world at large to know about.
Websites on the Bilderberg Council range from those of thoughtful critics to outrageous conspiracy theorists. Some critics accuse the group of manipulating global finances and establishing rigid and binding monetary rates around the world. Others say it selects political figures the Bilderberg decrees should become rulers, and targets those it wants removed from power. Some even believe the Bilderbergers decide which countries will wage war on others.
Jonathan Duffy at the BBC wrote that, “In Yugoslavia, leading Serbs have blamed Bilderberg for triggering the war which led to the downfall of Slobodan Milosevic.
“The Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, the London nail-
One of the people who helped form the group was Dennis Healy, who went on to become Britain’s finance minister. When faced with the claim that the Bilderberg Council is a shadowy manipulator of world events Lord Healy’s response was “Crap…It’s simply a place for discussion.”
Sources
“Jim Tucker’s Bilderberg Diary.” Jim Tucker, American Free Press, 2005.
“Bilderberg: The Ultimate Conspiracy Theory. Jonathan Duffy, BBC News, June 3, 2004.
“The Bilderberg Group: Fact and Fantasy.” Iain Hollingshead, Daily Telegraph, June 4, 2010.
© Canada and the World, September 2010
All rights reserved
“Bilderberg does not try to reach conclusions. It’s not that business contests the right of democratically elected leaders to lead.”
“When people say this is a secret government of the world I say that if we were a secret government of the world, we should be bloody ashamed of ourselves.”
Bilderberg Chairman Viscount Davignon. Quoted by the Daily Telegraph, June 2010.