Bilderberg Group

The **Bilderberg meeting** is an annual conference established in 1954 by Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands[1] "to foster dialogue between Europe and North America".[2] Participants are European and North American political leaders, experts from industry, finance, academia and the media.[2] The meetings are held under the Chatham House Rule.[2] The Bilderberg meetings are also unofficially called the "Bilderberg Group", "Bilderberg conference" or "Bilderberg Club".

## Origin:

The first conference was held at the Hotel de Bilderberg in Oosterbeek, Netherlands, from 29 to 31 May 1954.[3] It was initiated by several people, including Polish politician-in-exile Józef Retinger who, concerned about the growth of anti-Americanism in Western Europe, proposed an international conference at which leaders from European countries and the United States would be brought together with the aim of promoting Atlanticism—better understanding between the cultures of the United States and Western Europe to foster cooperation on political, economic, and defense issues.[4]

Retinger approached Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands who agreed to promote the idea, together with former Belgian prime ministerPaul van Zeeland, and the then head of Unilever, Dutchman Paul Rijkens. Bernhard in turn contacted Walter Bedell Smith, then head of the CIA, who asked Eisenhower adviser Charles Douglas Jackson to deal with the suggestion.[5] 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.[4] Fifty delegates from 11 countries in Western Europe attended the first conference, along with 11 Americans.[6]

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.[7] Conferences were held in France, Germany, and Denmark over the following three years. In 1957, the first U.S. conference was held on St. Simons Island, Georgia, with $30,000 from the Ford Foundation. The foundation also supplied funding for the 1959 and 1963 conferences.[5]

## Participants:

The participants are between 120 to 150 people composed of political leaders, experts from industry, finance, academia and the media.[2] About two thirds of the participants come from Europe and the rest from North America; one third from politics and governmentand the rest from other fields.[2][3] Historically, attendee lists have been weighted toward bankers, politicians, directors of large businesses[8] and board members from large publicly traded corporations, including IBM, Xerox, Royal Dutch Shell, Nokia and Daimler.[9] Heads of state, including former King Juan Carlos I of Spain and former Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, have attended meetings.[9][10] A source connected to the group told *The Daily Telegraph* in 2013 that other individuals, whose names are not publicly issued, sometimes turn up "just for the day" at the group's meetings.[11]

## Activities And Goals:

The group's original goal of promoting Atlanticism, of strengthening U.S.–European relations and preventing another world war has grown; the Bilderberg Group's theme is to "bolster a consensus around free market Western capitalism and its interests around the globe" according to Andrew Kakabadse.[3] In 2001, Denis Healey, a Bilderberg group founder and a steering committee member for 30 years, said, "To say we were striving for a one-world government is exaggerated, but not wholly unfair. Those of us in Bilderberg felt we couldn't go on forever fighting one another for nothing and killing people and rendering millions homeless. So we felt that a single community throughout the world would be a good thing."[12]

According to the web page of the group, the meetings are conducted under the Chatham House Rule, allowing the participants to use any information they gained during the meeting, but not to disclose the names of the speakers or any other participants. According to former chairman Étienne Davignon in 2011, a major attraction of Bilderberg group meetings is that they provide an opportunity for participants to speak and debate candidly and to find out what major figures really think, without the risk of off-the-cuff comments becoming fodder for controversy in the media.[13] A 2008 press release from the "American Friends of Bilderberg" stated that "Bilderberg's only activity is its annual Conference and that at the meetings, no resolutions were proposed, no votes taken, and no policy statements issued."[14] However, in November 2009, the group hosted a dinner meeting at the Château of Val-Duchesse in Brussels outside its annual conference to promote the candidacy of Herman Van Rompuy for President of the European Council.[15]

## Organizational Structure:

Meetings are organized by a steering committee with two members from each of approximately 18 nations.  Official posts include a chairman and an Honorary Secretary General.  The group's rules do not contain a membership category but former participants receive the annual conference reports.  The only category that exists is "member of the steering committee."  Besides the committee, there is a separate advisory group with overlapping membership.

Dutch economist Ernst van der Beugel became permanent secretary in 1960, upon Retinger's death. 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 University's Institute for the Study of Diplomacy.

According to James A. Bill, the "steering committee usually met twice a year to plan programs and to discuss the participant list."

In 2002, author Jon Ronson wrote that the group has a small central office in Holland [sic] which each year decides what country will host the forthcoming meeting. The host country then has to book an entire hotel for four days, plus arrange catering, transport and security. To fund this, the host solicits donations from sympathetic corporations such as Barclays, Fiat Automobiles, GlaxoSmithKline, Heinz, Nokia and Xerox.