Bilderberg: The ultimate conspiracy theory
By Jonathan Duffy
BBC News Online Magazine
The Bilderberg group, an elite coterie of Western thinkers and
power-brokers, has been accused of fixing the fate of the world
behind closed doors. As the organisation marks its 50th
anniversary, rumours are more rife than ever.
Given its reputation as perhaps the most powerful organisation in
the world, the Bilderberg group doesn't go a bundle on its
switchboard operations.
Telephone inquiries are met with an impersonal female voice - the
Dutch equivalent of the BT Callminder woman - reciting back the
number and inviting callers to "leave a message after the
tone".
Anyone who accidentally dialled the number would probably think
they had stumbled on just another residential answer machine.
But behind this ultra-modest façade lies one of the most
controversial and hotly-debated alliances of our times.
On Thursday the Bilderberg group marks its 50th anniversary with
the start of its yearly meeting.
For four days some of the West's chief political movers, business
leaders, bankers, industrialists and strategic thinkers will hunker
down in a five-star hotel in northern Italy to talk about global
issues.
What sets Bilderberg apart from other high-powered get-togethers,
such as the annual World Economic Forum (WEF), is its
mystique.
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.
The shadowy aura extends further - the anonymous answerphone
message, for example; the fact that conference venues are kept
secret. The group, which includes luminaries such as Henry
Kissinger and former UK chancellor Kenneth Clarke, does not even
have a website.
DISCREET AND ELITE
This year Bilderberg has announced a list of attendees
They include BP chief John Browne, US Senator John Edwards, World
Bank president James Wolfensohn and Mrs Bill Gates
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.
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-bomber David
Copeland and Osama Bin Laden are all said to have bought into the
theory that Bilderberg pulls the strings with which national
governments dance.
And while hardline right-wingers and libertarians accuse Bilderberg
of being a liberal Zionist plot, leftists such as activist Tony
Gosling are equally critical.
A former journalist, Mr Gosling runs a campaign against the group
from his home in Bristol, UK.
"My main problem is the secrecy. When so many people with so much
power get together in one place I think we are owed an explanation
of what is going on.
Mr Gosling seizes on a quote from Will Hutton, the British
economist and a former Bilderberg delegate, who likened it to the
annual WEF gathering where "the consensus established is the
backdrop against which policy is made worldwide".
"One of the first places I heard about the determination of US
forces to attack Iraq was from leaks that came out of the 2002
Bilderberg meeting," says Mr Gosling.
But "privacy, rather than secrecy", is key to such a meeting says
Financial Times journalist Martin Wolf, who has been invited
several times in a non-reporting role.
"The idea that such meetings cannot be held in private is
fundamentally totalitarian," he says. "It's not an executive body;
no decisions are taken there."
As an up-and-coming statesmen in the 1950s, Denis Healey, who went
on to become a Labour chancellor, was one of the four founding
members of Bilderberg (which was named after the hotel in Holland
where the first meeting was held in 1954).
His response to claims that Bilderberg exerts a shadowy hand on the
global tiller is met with characteristic bluntness. "Crap!"
"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," says Lord Healey.
Formed in the spirit of post-war trans-Atlantic co-operation, the
idea behind Bilderberg was that future wars could be prevented by
bringing power-brokers together in an informal setting away from
prying eyes.
"Bilderberg is the most useful international group I ever attended.
The confidentiality enabled people to speak honestly without fear
of repercussions.
"In my experience the most useful meetings are those when one is
free to speak openly and honestly. It's not unusual at all. Cabinet
meetings in all countries are held behind closed doors and the
minutes are not published."
That activists have seized on Bilderberg is no surprise to Alasdair
Spark, an expert in conspiracy theories.
"The idea that a shadowy clique is running the world is nothing
new. For hundreds of years people have believed the world is
governed by a cabal of Jews.
"Shouldn't we expect that the rich and powerful organise things in
their own interests. It's called capitalism."
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/magazine/3773019.stm
Published: 2004/06/03 11:34:47 GMT
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